Boquete

18 - 23 June 2011

We arrived at the bus station around 6:30am and bought our tickets before getting on the 7hr bus ride to David. We had a quick lunch stop on the way before arriving and walking straight onto an old North American school bus for the hour trip up to Boquete.

Sunday morning we enjoyed pancakes before heading off on a tour of a coffee farm, Finca la Milagrosa. Only a small producer, they grow seven varieties of Arabica including Geisha (Gesha). This is a very low yield, low bitterness coffee which sells for a massive amount of money (over $170/lb at one point), where specialty coffee is usually around $2! This is primarily exported to Japan where it sells for around $35 a cup and you don't make espresso with it!

Looking down to Boquete.

Fresh bean.

We next saw the drying process, which is done outdoors, lowering the moisture content down to around 15%. Interestingly, the fruity part of the bean is left on the actual bean for in water and allowed to ferment for some time, imparting flavour to the bean.

Beans drying.

The processing section was next, with a number of homemade machines, mostly linked by motorcycle chains and driven by electric dryer motors! The owner, Tito, had made them over a number of years and was constantly improving his roasting systems, with multiple sizes for each product type. Parts of an old jeep are even used!

The stripped down jeep.

 Processing coffee is somewhere between a wine making process and an industrial sizer separator & flotation plant! The coffee is brought in, where the red outer berry is removed by a three step, size dependent grinder. The beans are sized by a small scale rotary drum sizer, home made, which distributed three size fractions automatically into each size grinder! Next the beans were allowed to ferment with the fruit before a flotation system separates the beans into three qualities. They're dried outside then inside for a bit longer before export or roasting.

Machines used to separate the outer from bean.

Scroon.

The roasters, in three different sizes, are all home made, from clothes dryers and old jeep headlights and driven using the rack and pinion steering! We got to see the three roasting styles, which differ by only one minute between them.

Filling the small roaster.

The three roasting styles.

Three bean types (triple, flat & peaberry)

That afternoon we hired a scooter and rode around the town, which was great fun except from the dogs chasing us trying to bite Kitty!

Kity near a river.

Rockclimbing wall.

The river just outside of town.

One of the waterfalls along the ride.

Beer is OK!

The road through the hills.

At 11:30pm we piled into a minibus and headed up to the trailhead to being the walk to Volcan Baru. The walk was 13.5km each way, climbing 2000m vertically. We eventually made it to the top in five hours however it was absolutely freezing at the top! We took shelter in a nook in a building, just before the policeman opened the door and invited us inside to warm up!

Kitty trying to get warm.

Trying to get warm.

We left the building at 6am and went right to the top to see the sunrise.

Clouds to the West.

Volcano shadow in the clouds

Up the top

Opportunity for a machete action shot

Action!

The walk down was painful, as we were very tired only having a few hours sleep. We made it down around 11am and got a lift in the back of a ute. Our water bottles were fridge cold when we got back to town.

Inside the caldera.

Berries.

The back of the ute.

Tuesday we slept in before heading on a tour to mini-canyon and the hot springs. It was great fun as we spent some time jumping into the canyon and swimming. The water was around 4-5m deep and a great swimming temperature.

Walking down to Mini Canyon

The canyon.

First backflip of the day.

After the canyon we drove to the hot springs and walked, in torrential rain to the springs themselves. This was very nice and relaxing and we enjoyed a few beers. The resident monkey came through and stole Lawries beer bottle, promptly smashing it. We watched the monkey for a while before heading home and going out to dinner to eat a great middle eastern meal. Thanks to Paul & Jo for the waterproof photos.

Monkey.

Mango, pretty good...

...but I'd rather the beer.

(It was water)