Road Tripping.....Boquete, Panama

Boquete is not unlike Salento in Colombia except the elevation is probably slightly lower and everything is more expensive. It is a very congenial town, perhaps why so many Americans have adopted it as their home. Coffee, cacao, fruits and vegetables all grow in abundance here and the enveloping clouds inevitably cast a blanket of fine mist over the town each afternoon despite there being blue sky immediately overhead. That always threw me off.

Given I didn't actually do a coffee tour in Salento, I decided to do one with Sinah and Mauri. Our guide had grown up on the family finca and was now working for another one. He had been at this finca for 8 years, working 6 days a week giving tours twice a day. At first the tour was exceptionally prescriptive and was struggling to maintain focus as he bombarded us with an overwhelming array of facts and figures, some useless and uninformative, and the odd english-second-language joke that really didn't work or just wasn't funny. But to his credit, once he had finished his obligatory spiel, it became more interactive, and for me, more interesting. They grew 5-6 varieties of coffee there with the significant majority exported. One interesting point was that your typical commercial grade of coffee is often a mix of different coffee beans from the same plantation and is normally B-grade in quality. This particular finca also grew the second most expensive type of coffee in the world which all went to Japan and retailed for some ordinary price and unusually has more of a weak, citrus tea flavour, well this is what I was told. A coffee shop on town sold this coffee for a lazy $9 a cup - I wasn't prepared to try it if it was more like a tea. Each to their own.

The only other major activity that we attempted was a hike to some waterfalls. After getting a taxi to a finca and trying to sell the two girls who were in the tray of the ute to the taxi driver (he was interested, they weren't his type, upon which he proceeded to show us numerous photos on his phone of very curvy women from all over Latin America - they weren't my type, large, very, VERY curvy and lots of inappropriate surgery). 

From the finca it was a one hour walk to the waterfall. This walk was really cool. Along the road through some small villages, up and over hills lined with fields of onions, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. We played soccer with some local kids who were thrilled to interact with some foreigners and one bright young kid kept wanting to take photos with Elisa and my SLR cameras. After an hour we had only reached the trail head...it was another hour or more to the waterfall. I was hot, bothered, thirsty and more importantly desperately in need of food. Elisa and I opted to head back and eat whilst the others soldiered on, ransacking a local tienda on the path that hadn't grasped the concept of paying for goods.

We got a lift back with some locals who were doing some fruit shopping around the various farms - they sold it to the supermarkets in Panama City. They were very friendly and surprisingly spoke English, even the old lady.

The evenings were spent eating Papi's 3 ingredient challenge pasta and watching Sinah get beaten up by the guys. Never accept the offer of a fight from someone who volunteers. Bad news.

Sinah, Mauri and Patrick

The potato people

Elisa and the budding photographer giving her tips on how to use her camera

Medium roasted coffee

The finca owner

Boquete

The lovely Elisa

Wandering hands Eugene

Road Tripping...Loathing Las Lahas, Panama

We arrived in Las Lahas late in the afternoon after stopping at an indigenous community along the way and headed to the beach where some accommodation was. Few places looked opened and we ended up staying in a frightfully ordinary cabana owned by a crazy-eyed German woman who was pleasant enough and a slob of a German man who was too high to know what was going on. The above ground pool had leaked water into the central area forming a small lake which you had to walk through to get to the cabana. Rubbish was scattered everywhere and gave the place a distinctly unkept and I-don't-give-a-shit feel to it. The bar/restaurant area had obviously been damaged by a storm....some time ago mind you....but the roof hadn't been repaired. I wont begin to describe the cabana itself. I would probably rate it, and I'm being generous here, 0 out of 5, despite getting a surprisingly good night's sleep. We left as early as we could manage. 6:30am I believe. It was a shame as the beach was quite nice, the water was really warm and the sunset was fantastic.

Pedasi

Road Tripping...Playa Venao, Panama

Presented with the dilemma of the prospect of a road trip for a week with three Germans from the hostel in the opposite direction you had planned to go at the expense of missing out on going to the San Blas Islands....what do you do??? Road trip of course!!!

So the general details are as follows: Sinah has a rented car for a week paid for by her company as she is writing a travel article for a German magazine but has a few destinations that she must visit but otherwise has near complete flexibility; Elisa, a German living in Austria who has travelled with Sinah numerous times and is visiting Panama primarily to surf; and Mauri, an Italian, Salvadorian German guy who doesn't really have a fixed agenda....similar to me I guess.

The itinerary we concluded on was beach, beach, hills to see the indigenous peeps, the coffee producing region, finishing up in Bocas del Toro Islands after which we can all go our separate ways if we choose.

Before we departed I had another matter to contend with which in theory could have made the road trip exceptionally expensive. Flying into countries such as Panama is problematic in that you invariably need to show evidence of your departure out of the country. I'd not thought that this was going to be an issue. It was....again. So I had to buy a refundable ticket and go to the office in Panama City and organise my refund. Given my much shortened stay in Panama due to the road trip I headed to the office first thing in the morning. Yes you can get a refund but you still need evidence of your exit. What? This wasn't a requirement last time. I had also purchase a ticket online at the airport in Colombia from Mexico to the USA but after purchasing in right in front of the check-in staff they told me it wasn't adequate as I didn't have the ticket number (which you don't get until a few days before your flight and I hadn't planned to take the flight for 2.5 months). S.O.B. Long story short, I was running (literally) around Panama City in the heat of the morning between airlines trying to get tickets printed, filling out forms, wishing I spoke Spanish, enjoying the delights of waiting in queues as morons in front of you ask a million needless questions, all with the prospect of losing my money if I didn't get it sorted there and then. Bloody stressful. Got my USD350 back thanks to the lovely lady at the United Airlines office (yes, I did just write that).

International road trips present themselves with numerous challenges that other forms of travelling don't, let alone when you go on one with complete strangers. The frequent bathroom stops (you know who I am referring to!), songs never being played to the end (really dislike that Mauri), the waiting and waiting for everybody to be ready at the same time, the frustrations caused by a GPS that doesn't know north from south nor where the road is at times, extremely poor sign-posting and shitty roads are all more than outweighed by the numerous positives. I learnt many colourful German words, that what appears to be a heated discussion between two Germans about to end in a foxy boxing fight is merely a normal conversation, that it is possible for a petite woman to drink 17L of water everyday and still be thirsty, that being bright red from sun exposure apparently isn't sunburn, that some people actually adhere to the rental car policies, that bread and jam (no butter) constitutes dinner when there is nothing else available, that the general perception of German's being efficient and industrious and proud of their achievements always has its exceptions (thank-you to the cabana owners in Las Lahas for your eye-opening experience, well.... one-eye open).....but most importantly some good friends were made.

The drive out of Panama City was slow.....very slow. Crossed over the Panama Canal but couldn't see much through the wire fencing (the gates are further up the canal) and hit the PanAmerican Highway. Not the highway I expected at all. Two lanes lasted for a little while but then slipped down to one slightly rugged road that was a little too much for our heavily laden Hyundai Elantra.

Our destination was Pedasi, a small (almost) coastal town on the Pacific side where we were to stay the night then continue a further 30km to Playa Venao. We reached Pedasi after dark and decided to just head straight to the Eco-hostal in Playa Venao. A good decision in the end. A great place set 3 minutes walk from the beach. 

This is a beach you come to surf. There is little to do in the immediate vicinity other than that. Get here soon before the large resort projects commence construction and ruin the sense of remoteness and tranquillity. The waves weren't the best when we were there....rather small but you can see the potential for decent waves with some more swell.

Elisa and Maui

Elisa, Sinah and Mauri