Mountains and Coffee...A Few of my Favorite Things

A View from Vulcan Baru

Coffee Beans at Casa Ruiz Coffee Plantation

The morning after crossing into Panama, I caught an early morning bus from David to Boquete, Panama.  I was a little bit early, so I had to wait on the bus with a few other unlucky passengers.  We all were drip sweating by the time the bus pulled out about 10 minutes later.   

The ride to Boquete was only an hour.  There were so many people on the bus that I didn't notice how much the temperature dropped between the two cities.  Boquete is at about 3,000 ft, so the temperature is always about 20 degrees lower there than in sea-level David.

I meant to spend no more than a day in Boquete, but it was so nice, that I stayed for three.  My first activity was to tour the Casa Ruiz coffee plantation.  Being an avid coffee drinker, I was surprised at how little I knew about coffee.  Did you know that darker coffees have less caffeine than light?  Our tour guide told us that if you make your morning espresso from a light blend rather than your usual French Roast, 'it would be like a ...' four letter word that starts with a b and rhymes with Tom. 

Some interesting factoids I picked up on my coffee tour (all according to my patriotic Panamian tour guide):
1. Starbucks sells coffee to people who don't like coffee (just add milk and sugar and it's palatable).
2. Italy doesn't grow coffee, they just roast the beans, and then they add a lot of milk and sugar to make it palatable.
3. There is no such thing as flavored coffee, just coffee with an aroma added to trick your senses and make you think that you are drinking a flavor.
4. Panama has the best coffee in the world.  It has won international awards three times in the past nine years.
5. Panama's annual coffee output is decreasing every year because it is more lucrative for a farmer to sell his land to an American who will build his retirement home on it than to continue producing coffee. 
6. If you drink Sanka, Folgers, Maxwell House, etc, you're drinking a lot more than just a coffee bean. 
7. Coffee growers plant hundreds of fruit trees among their coffee plants to shade them from the sun and keep the bugs off of them.
8.  The indigenous tribe around Boquete makes up the bulk of the coffee picking workforce.  Some of the men drink away their earnings and forget to buy food for their wives and children.  So Mr. Ruiz has decided to set aside part of the paycheck to give to the wives and to provide grocery stores where he sells food for cheaper than the markets in town. 

My next adventure in Boquete was to hike up Vulcan Baru, Panama's only volcano and it's highest point.  Sadly, I didn't make it to the top.  It's a strenuous day hike of about 26 km with an elevation gain of around 8000 feet.  Most people split the trip by camping at the top.  I didn't have the equipment to do this, so I had to attempt the whole thing in a day.  I made it to about 10,000 ft, and then had to turn around to make it back to Boquete before dark.  It was well worth the effort.  I saw lots of birds and butterflies.  Unfortunately, this far south, there is no such thing as a subalpine climate even at 11000 feet (so no treeline here and subsequently no spectacular view to reward the effort of the climb).  Still worth it though.  My hiking companions were two French Canadians (not hippies this time) vacationing in Panama for a few weeks.  One of them owns a crepery in Quebec and told me how to make a good crepe.  Like all good food, sounded like the secret is lots of time and care.  Will have to try my hand at them when I get home.