Hot Springs and Coffee Trees

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We arrived in Boquete, in the Chiriqui region of Panama, on a Sunday evening, after an all day bus ride from Panama City.  Our bus broke down twice, one time causing a different bus to come pick us up, and our last hour was on a school bus from the town of David to the mountain town of Boquete.  We arrived in one piece, and luckily, across the street from the bus stop, we spotted the Hostel Paraiso, so decided to check it out.  True to what Lonely Planet says, it´s run by the extremely animated Pancho, and his wife, and he has a passion for helping travellers find the best spots in Boquete.  Upon our arrival, he drew us the most insane, personalized map, which, by the end of the half hour introduction to the area, was reduced to a mass of squiggly lines, circles, dots, and numbers all over the piece of paper.  He is the epitome of a welcoming host.

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Our second day there, a group of people staying at the hostel decided to venture out to the Pozos de Caldera hot springs, about 15 miles outside of town.  Pancho hired us a taxi, which, due to the nature of the road to the springs, needed to be 4WD.  Early in the afternoon, an old Toyota pickup, painted yellow, pulls up, and since we have rounded up a crew of 7 of people, and only 5 fit in the cab,  Jon and I happily take the back of the truck.  It´s only minutes into our journey that the daily afternoon downpour begins and has completely soaked through our rain gear.

We had a brilliant view of the Boquete valley from our spot on the farm, gazing across the delicate young geisha plants into the rainforest, and down to the town below.

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We arrive at the hot springs, and start the decent hike over rocky, muddy, terrain, to get there.  The rain is pouring down, and although Jon and I are in our fairly versitile chacos, the rest of our crew is slightly underprepared in flip flops.  We all make it down the hill safe and sound, and after paying the dollar admission, we venture over to the small hole cut in the ground that is the hot springs.  The water is a lovely respite to the cold pouring rain, but after about 15 minutes of soaking, the lightning begins.  These are the times when I curse the amount of information I know about the outdoors.  I begin to calculate lightning distance, what kind of resources I have with me, how close we are to services, how fast the storm is moving.  I eventually freak myself out, and decide to get out of the water.  The rest of the crew stays in for a bit longer, but evetually, as the storm moves closer, everyone else retreats with me to a little shack a few yards from the pool.  We try to wait it out, as our taxi isn´t coming back for two hours, but the rain doesn´t cease, and we spend the rest of our time in the hut.  On the bright side we got to know one another a bit better!

Jon and I spent the evening lounging about, as we had plans for the next day to meet up with Daniel, a coffee grower who Jon knows through Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland.  He agreed to give up a personal tour of some of his farm, which we were extremely lucky to get.  Guided coffee farm tours for the masses are expensive here, and much less personal, so we were thankful for the connection.

We meet up with him at a great little off-the-beaten-path breakfast spot "Olga´s," which turns out to be Daniel´s mother-in-law´s place.  It´s brightly colored walls and delicious banana bread gave us the perfect beginning for our early morning start.  As Olga waited on us and prepared our food, we remained the only patrons.

Daniel picked us up and gave us a history of coffee in the area as we wound our way up the steep roads into the hills.  His parents are American, and moved to Boquete before he was born to try their hand in the coffee business.  Buying their farm from what Daniel referred to as a "Gentleman farmer" - someone who stopped by the farm on the weekends, and didn´t really know what he was doing - Daniel´s family got a good deal on the property.  Now he runs a successful farm, sending coffee all over the world to be roasted.  We took a tour of acres and acres of geisha coffee plants, a low-yeilding, delicate type.  We learned about the specific conditions of successful coffee farms - the amount of shade, sunlight, water, and elevation needed to produce successful trees, as well as the effect that each of these variables has on coffee flavor.  Of course all of this was new information to me, so it was a lot to take in, especially in my limited comprehension abilities in Spanish.  Daniel would often speak in English, and Jon would translate too, but I know I missed some of the information.  I was just excited to be this close to the coffee.  People talk about knowing where your food is coming from, and, well, you can´t get much closter than this.

We had a brilliant view of the Boquete valley from our spot on the farm, gazing across the delicate young geisha plants into the rainforest, and down to the town below.  After two and a half hours of a personal tour, Daniel dropped us back off at the hostel.  After all that coffee talk, we spent the afternoon sipping the java that the Boquete region is known for.