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Panamanian Paradise (Cathy)
May 14, 2003
Our many apologies for the delay in posting logs. We have been alive and well, but far from civilization and the internet and enjoying every minute of it. We have spent the last month in several provinces in Panama, and have found that Panama has exceeded our wildest dreams. We didn't know what to expect, but we certainly never expected to find small, uninhabited, palm-lined islands, friendly natives, turquoise water, and views that rival the South Pacific.
Chiriqui Province, Panama
Chiriqui province is the "wildest" province of Panama, with the highest mountains and the longest, wildest rivers. We were excited for our first land trip into Panama, so we left our boats in the anchorage of Boca Chica and took a van along a rutted and treacherous road to the city of David.
David
David, population 78,000, is a thriving, vibrant, clean, and cosmopolitan city and is the second largest town in Panama. It's better than any cities we saw in Costa Rica. You can find anything here with accompanying low prices, including a Price-Club style warehouse for boat provisioning. No prescriptions required and pharmacy medications are half the price they were in Costa Rica. David also has 22 Internet cafes.
As far as we can tell, Panama has an incredibly high standard of living. People are working and thriving here and you can tell. Every car in Panama we've seen has been brand new and well-kept, and the public transportation system is new, clean, and incredible.
Panama has proven to be very exciting, beautiful, and cheap. We're constantly amazed at the sophistication, cleanliness, and liveliness of the cities and towns. Panama uses the U.S. dollar as currency, but calls them Balboa. Same bills and coins, and the only recognizable difference are the incredibly low prices of items.
| Three hour bus ride into the mountains |
$1.25 per person |
| Capuchino |
50 cents |
| Internet café |
$1 per hour |
| Beer in a bar |
50 cents |
| HUGE meal of rice, beans, meat, and salad |
$1.75 |
| Pair of surf trunks |
$2.99 |
| Clean, new, downtown hotel with air conditioning and private bath |
$25 per night> |
| Fish ceviche |
$1 |
| First-run American movies in English |
$1.75 per person admission |
| Gigantic tub of popcorn and two drinks |
$3.00 total |
We used David as our home base for explorations into the highlands and mountain towns of Chiriqui province.
Cerro Punta, Guadalupe, and Volcan Baru
We took an early morning bus out of David into the mountainous highlands surrounding the extinct Volcan Baru (3,478 meters elevation), which has not blown for 500 years. This is a beautiful, agricultural, and scenic area called "Nuevo Suiza", or "new Switzerland." It really does resemble Switzerland, only with lush jungle vegetation, cheaper prices, and a native indigenous population wearing distinctive costumes. And much more exotic wildlife like sloths, jaguars, and scarlet macaws. This area contains La Amistad National Park, a 407,000 hectare national park. This park contains land in both Panama and Costa Rica, hence the name "Amistad" or "friendship." The park contains rainforest that is home to more than 90 mammal species and over 300 bird species. This park is the southernmost habitat and common sighting mecca for the rare Resplendent Quetzal, a highland bird that is the symbol for Central America. Incidentally, it's the national bird of Guatemala and symbolizes freedom, as this bird does not survive in captivity.
We took the bus to the quaint mountain town of Guadalupe (2130 meters elevation) and met our hiking guide at the Los Quetzales Lodge (http://www.losquetzales.com) and piled into a rugged 4-wheel drive van for a drive into the jungle surrounding the park. The rugged 4WD immediately became handy on the torturous and rocky road through the jungle up the mountain. The road (loosely defined in this case as the few cups of dirt that held together the hundreds of huge jagged rocks and ankle-deep potholes) went straight up the mountain, with 10 cruisers packed in and jiggling around like popcorn in a Jiffy Pop. About 30 bone-shattering minutes later, we got out of the van in the middle of the tropical, lush forest. The humidity was nonexistent, the air was thin, the temperature was cool, and an icy river trickled through the forest. We had arrived too late (8 am) to see any birds, but we wandered through the tropical rain forest for three hours across rustic bridges and through the clouds, and admired the tropical plants anyways. The Hotel also rents cabins in the middle of the jungle that sleep 8 people for reasonable rates. I seriously considered spending the rest of my life here in this cool and beautiful forest looking out over the mountains with a patchwork quilt of farms and crops winding up the steep hills.
We walked about 3 kilometers through the horse farms, farms, and small towns up in the mountains, then took the 2 hour scenic bus ride back to David. Another highland and cool climate beckoned the next day.
See pictures of the area surrounding Guadalupe.
Boquete
Good thing we didn't miss Boquete, another quaint, cool, mountain town. Boquete means "gap" in and it is a gorgeous town (pop. 3,900; 1060 meters elevation) with a charming alpine feel and a fresh non-humid climate that is nestled in the mountains. It's one hour outside of David, and the seat for growing flowers and high-elevation coffee. A sparkling cold river runs right through the center of town down from the high hills, and this town offers kayaking, whitewater rafting, trout fishing, and rock climbing opportunities. Famous crops are the flowers that supply the florists in Panama City, the Boquete oranges (imported from Riverside, CA), and world-famous high-elevation Arabica coffee.
Anyone who knows us would understand that our first stop was the Kotowa Coffee Plantation. We took a superb three hour tour of the coffee plantation, which included lessons on the types of coffee, information on what makes a coffee good, and a tour of the 1920s-era roasting plant with the original machinery. Even if you're not a coffee aficionado, don't miss this tour with interesting historical and cultural snippets about life in rural Panama.
The tour was given by a Dutch coffee farm owner, and it was outstanding.
Coffee Adventures
Hans van der Vooren
habbusdekwie@cwpanama.net
507-720-4050
The Kotowa (http://www.myroaster.com) coffee plantation and roaster was founded in 1918 by a Canadian member of Parliament who read about the small town of Boquete. He came down, fell in love, and planted the coffee beans that still grow today. They yield premium, high-altitude Arabica coffee. Interestingly enough, the Panamanian coffee culture is different from the world-famous Costa Rican coffee heritage. In some people's opinions, Manuel Noriega unintentionally boosted and preserved the ultra-high quality of Panamanian coffee, as compared to the more famous Costa Rican blends. In the 1980s, many Central American countries pulled up their old coffee plants to plant a new variety that was more disease-resistant, hardier, and yielded more coffee beans. These plants were adopted and promoted by the Costa Rican government, so most of the farms used this new variety. Unfortunately, they forgot to test the taste of this coffee bean and found it less flavorful. However, Panama, in the grips of Noriega's rule, was unable to produce the funds or find foreign investors to fund the expensive task of replanting these new coffee varieties on their thousands of acres of coffee crops. They never replaced their beans, and some say that Noriega actually saved today's coffee industry in by making Panama such an unattractive investment that the older and higher-quality beans were spared. We are no experts, but the coffee at the end of the tour was delicate and delicious and drinking it daily on Tramonto has spoiled us.
One of the most interesting aspects of the tour was a tour of the old sorting and roasting facilities that are still in use today. Many of the machines were developed by the Canadian owner and demonstrate ingenuity and inventiveness necessitated by living in a rural community with no available machine parts.
Upon our return to David, we went through a shopping frenzy. After small, expensive, dusty, and badly-stocked grocery stores in Costa Rica, the grocery stores in Panama will almost make you cry. They're modern, huge, cheap, and feature any ingredient you could possibly want. We were so excited to find sushi makings and American products for half the price that we went hog-wild. And we're eating well!
Marc purchased green/raw coffee beans in Boquete and when we returned to the boat, proceeded to roast his own coffee on the boat. Despite the smoke, the coffee turned out to be great.
See photos of Boquete and our coffee tour.
Next adventures include Las Perlas, a 200-island archipelago in the Gulf of Panama. We promise to keep you posted.
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