This post features two different places so keep reading after the first set of photos.
The highest quality and most expensive coffee in the world is grown and processed in Boquete PANAMA. It is called GEISHA and costs $500USD per kilogram. More on this later…
Our journey from the busted seaside town of Bocus del Toro on Caribbean Island of Colon to the picturesque highland town of Boquete at 1100m in the Highlands took the better part of the day. A 1hr boat to the mainland followed by a 3hr private minivan to the highlands. The landscape on the way was fabulous and always lush and green. It did not take long to start ascending through valleys and catch glimpses of distant volcanoes. This is quite the drive. Boquete (Pop 42,112) is like being in Austria or Switzerland. The houses are colourful and well kept with pitched rooves and manicured gardens. Boquete is nestled in a valley surrounded by dormant volcanoes shrouded in mist and cloud. It is very windy and cool. When the local church bell rings for vespers you can close your eyes and swear you are in Europe. We went for a sunset walk through town and quickly realised that this place is heavily influenced by Italian, French and German immigrants. While we walked the town, Antonia struck culinary gold !!! She found a local buffet restaurant that featured many local meat and veggie dishes with soup and salad that you can take away. Magic. This would be our dinner for the next two nights. We finished our walk at a craft brewery and enjoyed “Coconut Pilsener” so strange and so delicious. The rest of the group ordered burgers but our eyes were on the local buffet so off we went. Picked up a delicious beef stew with rice and coleslaw and even fries for Antonia. Then we whipped passed the supermarket to freshen up our kitchen (pink cloth shopping bag). We ended the day feasting on our stew and watching a Netflix movie. Antonia was happy to give up rum and gossip for these movie nights especially to save some money.
The next day was devoted to coffee and panoramic views of the highlands. We took a combo tour with four others and set off at 830am. We headed high above Boquete for 30min arriving at a hilltop coffee plantation at 1500m. Our guide Felix took us into the planation and gave us a complete history of the place and spoke extensively about coffee.
Here are the highlights of that very interesting conversation:
1. Coffee is a SEED and not a bean that has been washed dried and roasted.
2. Biologically a BEAN is a legume and not a berry.
3. There are two or three seeds in a BERRY.
4. The berries grows on a TREE and not a plant or bush.
5. Each tree can self germinate and does not need insects or birds to reproduce.
6. A tree will produce berries after one year and must be pruned to keep producing each year for up to 40yrs if pruned often and correctly (like olive trees).
7. There are 10,000 trees on this plantation and nine types of trees (coffee berry varieties).
8. Berries are left to ripen on the tree then picked.
9. The berries are then squeezed to release the seeds inside.
10. The outer berry skin is sweet and can be eaten raw or dried for sale as TEA.
11. The outer berry skin is a super food with extremely high levels of antioxidant.
12. When the seeds come out of the berry they are slimy and must be washed and then dried – they look like white peanuts at this stage.
13. The dried seeds are then roasted to 3 degrees: light, medium and dark.
14. An Ethiopian invented coffee as a beverage in Ethiopia around 1100AD.
15. A German brought a special berry seed to Panama, which he cross-pollenated to create the GEISHA berry or variety, which only grows in Panama.
16. The GEISHA quickly became the most sought after premium coffee variety wining several awards and fetching up to $500USD per kilogram.
17. Typically it takes 35 berries to make one small espresso cup of GEISHA.
18. GEISHA is made with 10 parts of water to one part of ground coffee (1g coffee in 10g of water).
19. There is no such thing as Italian Coffee because Italy has no coffee berry trees. It buys all its berries and does roast them.
20. The word ESPRESSO is a style of coffee beverage making or brewing and invented by Italy. It is not then name of a berry or variety.
21. Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato etc are all brewing methods and not types of coffee.
We saw berries and seeds in all stages of production and viewed all the hand-made machinery that take a berry to ground coffee. We then sampled a blend at medium roast followed by Geisha only at light roast and then a berry skin tea. Amazing difference. The two coffees are nothing like ours. You can taste the berry fruit and there is no bitterness. The Geisha was very subtle with a mix of coffee and berry flavours. The tea smelt and tasted like rosehip tea and very refreshing.
We then travelled on a very broken dirt road to a vantage point where you could see the other side of the highlands leading to the Pacific – with the ocean visible !!! Vast. Our last two stops took in views of the Baru Volcano next to Boquete as well as the town itself from above. We got back early at 1230 and by 1300 I was running up down the main road towards another town called San Francisco, up on a very windy plateau. The run was hard. Elevation 1150m, 300m of ascent and descent and gale force winds in my face running back. I was bushed but made my time. After showering, Antonia and I headed to a local coffee shop to blog from 1500 to 1700. We returned to the hotel to post and headed to our favourite local food buffet to stoke up on hot dishes like our grandmothers would make. Another movie night for us before our journey to the Pacific tomorrow.
Enjoy the sights of European Boquete in the highlands of Panama !!!
Sleeping in Boquete is magic. Not only is it cool and dry but the sound of the wind gushing through the trees outside is like soothing raindrops on a tin roof and sends you to sleep almost immediately. Our journey to the Pacific began at 9am on the last day of leap year February (Thu 29FEB) in a very comfortable private minivan. After an hour of descending the highlands we drove parallel to a deep canyon and soon turned off and down to it. This canyon called Cangilones de Gualaca contains a very cool freshwater river only 3m below and we jumped in to swim. We spent 90min here and then it was just another 30min to stop for lunch at a roadside restaurant and supermarket. By 1pm we were on the road again snaking through flat grassy countryside with lots of trees. Parts looked like Africa while others looked like Australia. Then we hot the great Pan-American Highway No 1 that connects Alaska to Argentina along the west coast of both continents of North and South America. Amazing. The Pan-American Highway is a network of roads measuring about 30,000 kilometres in total length. Except for a break of approximately 100 km across the border between Colombia and Panama, the roads link most of the Pacific coastal countries of North America and South America in a connected highway system. According to Guinness World Records, the Pan-American Highway is the world's longest "motorable road". A total of 4 more hours to seaside Santa Catalina going through so many varied landscapes – all green – all very grassy and bushy. It was nice arriving as the sun was setting over the Pacific – our second visit to this mighty ocean. It was 5pm when we arrived. Santa Catalina is completely isolated. One corner store, two restaurants and lots of ocean. Our hotel is run by an eccentric artist and there are no room numbers – just colours !!! Each room has a full kitchen. We were in light blue. Antonia raced off to see sunset while I opted for a late wine, cheese and olives to get this post going. Tonight was pizza night given the few eating places here. We ordered at 7pm and pizzas arrived at 930pm. Island time. By that stage we had drunk so much that it came down to pizza and bed. Big day of snorkelling tomorrow.
Snorkelling day came fast and it was the first of March – amazing how you loose track of time when constantly travelling. We got picked up at 8am in a shitty old van with a busted window and headed to a dive shop on the main beach of Santa Catalina. We received fins, goggles and snorkel and a briefing on where we would go today. Our main destination is the Coiba Island, which is a National Park and the best place in all of Panama to dive and snorkel with excellent coral and marine life. A MUST DO in Panama. The day was brilliant. Sun, blue sky, light wind. Our snorkelling spot was one hour away at a predicted 60-80km/h. Bloody far. We arrived at Isla de Canal de Afuera around 0930 and snorkelled in 3 different spots with a short boat ride in between. This island was in fact two islands, one large and one small. The coral was vast and the water absolutely crystal clear – better than Bocus. But the coral itself did not beat Bocus for colour and variety. The fish here were better than Bocus (more variety and quantity) but what won the day and secured this spot as the best snorkelling on our trip thus far was the five turtles (Hawksbill and Leatherback) and three Reef Sharks. The photos tell it all.
From here it was another 20min to get to
Playa Ara Macao on Isla de Coiba – this is a beach with a history. In 1919, a penal colony was built on the island and during the years that Panama was under the dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega, The prison on Coiba was a feared place with a reputation for brutal conditions, extreme torture, executions and political murders. Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed in the prison during that period, but sources claim that the number could be close to 300.
After the prison was closed down in 2004, the island's pristine condition made it ideal as a reserve. It is now said that the prison is haunted by the ghosts of prisoners. The prison is now a refurbished visitors centre explaining the climate, topography, flora and fauna of Coibita Island which is so rich in wildlife that it is referred to as the “Panamanian Galapagos” and was UNESCO protected in 1992. Coibita is big at 50km long and 10km wide. There are wildlife “super higways” that lead from Antarctica and even Australia to this island via Galapagos when birds, whales and turtles migrate to reproduce. We walked to a viewpoint just above the prison with great views of smaller islands nearby. We then jumped on the boat for a 10min ride to Playa Rancheria on Isla Rancheria. Rancheria Beach is a 600m long pristine white sand beach with super clear water. I went to work immediately swimming 2.2km here above coral at the ends making it my favourite swim of the trip. The rest of the group had lunch here and after 2hrs of sun, sand and swimming we set off for a direct trip home which took 90min. Got back at 4pm after a long hot day – that cold shower never felt better. We all celebrated with a BBQ that night cooking up sausages, veggies and even dips. After dinner a few of us crowded around my laptop and boom box to watch WACCO. Everyone enjoyed it. It was early to bed that night for our 6am 9hr drive to Panama City – our last stop on this Intrepid Trip.
Enjoy the magic of the Coiba Islands & Marine Life…
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