Boquete Part I

                        From the Pacific to the Mountains

     A five hour drive from the coast to Boquete brought us into much cooler, drier weather.  We drove up the of slopes of  Volcan Baru then down into a bowl-shaped valley where the town has developed along a river.  The water supply for the town comes from the many streams that flow down the mountain sides and into the river.  It's purified and very fine to drink.

     During the first two weeks of January the town hosted a huge Flower Festival. It is extremely popular drawing thousands to this small city. In a few weeks Boquete is hosting a Jazz festival and the hotels are booked as again they are expecting thousands.  As a result of the festival the park where the main events were held is still in bloom.  It's an event much like our Garden Shows held in the spring.

Geologic formation due to volcanic activity eons ago

     Around Boquete there are several hikes ranging from easy to difficult. There are hikes to the various waterfalls and hikes to the top of the volcano.  All of them are superb birding trails and everywhere there are people with binoculars, all looking up. The prize to find is the male splendid quetzale, It's a rather large parrot-looking bird but he has a three foot long plume of a tail. This is mating season so the birds have been spotted frequently, but they blend in so well they're hard to spot.

     The first day we were here Joe and I took the Waterfall Trail, a relatively easy and not too long trail.  We could hear all kinds of birds chipping along the path but they were very hard to spot. We did see two female quetzals feeding on some very colorful flowers high in the trees.  I spotted yet another snake, a black racer this time.  Howler monkeys were making quite a racket for a while, but we never saw them.  They are scary sounding, sort of like roaring lions.

Breakfast for the birds at the Boquete Garden Inn

Boquete Garden Inn

     We met a rather gregarious man who winters here with his wife.  The rest of the year he runs his garden flower business in Calgary.  He had lots of suggestions of things to do around here.  He had climbed the volcano the day before, but that one's not on our list.  He did suggest the Gringo Market held Tuesday mornings.  The ex-pats bring their organic garden goods and crafty things to sell.  There were a few natives selling baskets and jewelry.  There was an interesting mix of people and it was interesting to see such a large "snowbird" population. 
     Some guests at the Boquete Garden Inn where we were staying had raved about  an archeological dig and tour given by the landowner about an hour and half drive from Boquete so we decided to give that a look.  The drive around the volcano was spectacular and we were not disappointed by the tour.  It seems that the woman's grandfather had come from Texas in 1929 and farmed the land.  In the course of her living there she dug up several pottery pieces and contacted people who knew about these things.  There have been several professional teams from Germany and the US exploring her grounds and have found thousands of artifacts, some dating back as long as 3000 years ago.  She keeps a bunch in her little rustic museum, and many are in museums elsewhere.  It's believed the ancient dwellers were forced to leave due to volcanic activity.

The artifacts can't be removed from the soil because they would crumble so they've been left as they were found.



     Panama is the first Central American or South American country we've toured that has really good coffee.  We signed up for a four hour coffee tour of the Ruiz Coffee plantation and found out why that is.  Panama's coffee plantations are privately owned and they sell their coffee inside the country as well as to foreign countries.  Coffee producers in the other countries are required to sell to their governments who export the good stuff and keep only the not-so-good stuff inside the country.

Walking through Ruiz Coffee Plantation

During our tour we walked the plantation watching the red ripe beans being picked.  Unlike orchards at home the coffee trees aren't necessarily planted in rows,

Juan Valdez doesn't really pick the coffee beans

The red beans are the ripe ones.  There are several pickings on one plant.  As the beans ripen the pickers will return, usually three times.  The last picking takes all, ripe of not.  This final picking goes into making instant coffee.

Volcan Baru.  Spectacular scenery everywhere.

Scattered among the coffee trees are different kinds of trees; orange trees, palm trees, and deciduous  trees.  They provide shade, insect attraction, and homes for birds who prey on the insects. This plantation sells oranges as well as coffee bean.  We saw the beans drying in the sun, saw them being washed, peeled, redried, and bagged. They have to be aged for four months then they're sorted by size and density and rebagged for shipment. Some of this plantation's coffee sells in la-de-da stores around the world for more than $800 a pound.  We ended the tour with an explanation of roasting of the beans then a tasting session.  The dark roast has the least amount of caffeine and the light roast has the most.  Espresso also has the least amount of caffeine.   Instant coffee is made from the beans that don't pass muster for ground coffee, and it often has tiny twigs and bits of stone ground in it.  I've never like instant coffee anyway.

Evening scene from our window.