To be a Modern-Day Tarzan, and Become More of a Coffee Snob

I’ve been spending the last 6 days now in Boquete, Pamana. Boquete is a small town, with gringo influence, in the mountains of Panama. There is the main street, with some restaurants, a few small souvenir-type shops, small supermarkets, and other assorted stores. There’s also the small hotels or hostels around town. Finally, for those people ready to buy their second home (or relocate to a whole new life) - which will often be older gringos - there are plenty of real estate agencies ready to get you into a new house. Finally, being in the mountains, there are great views and cooler temperatures than that of even David, a short 40 kilometers away. In fact, it is amazing the temperature difference. Here in Boquete, the temperature has not seemed to have gotten much above 80F yet in David it’s easily 10 degrees warmer all the time.

There have been a few highlights on this trip, above and beyond just lots of walking/hiking into the mountains for scenery. Okay, maybe three with one being staying in a reasonably nice room here for just $7/night. I share a bathroom, but get my own room with reasonably comfy and clean bed. I also have been able to use the washing machine for clothes (better deal than paying someone to do it...) and could use their kitchen and living room if so inclined. Otherwise, my personal highlights focused on two excursions: the Boquete Tree Trek and the Kotowa Coffee Tour. The first was the tree trek. This is basically hooking yourself up to a pulley that is on a large metal cable and they fly down the cable over an expanse 100 to 200 feet in the air between trees holding the cables. From the website and brochures, it looked to be a blast and add some adventure to my days in Boquete.

I paid my $60 plus signed my life away with the release waiver. Not that I’m surprised there would be a waiver, but here’s your chance to back out if you’re going to and not look too wimpy. It’s also worth noting that if you pay the $60, go up the mountain, and decide you cannot fly between trees, you’ve just made a nice contribution to someone’s retirement; there are no refunds if you back out according to the prominently placed sign at the counter. This all said, you would learn that safety is a big concern of the company and employees. There is through more frequent than perhaps necessary equipment replacement to make sure everything is as safe as it can possibly be, plus instruction on what to do or not do to keep yourself safe while flying around on cables. That said, when you think about that cost, the cost of labor, and the fact that all the tour guides speak excellent English for us gringos, $60 really isn’t an outrageous price at all.

Anyway, along with the paperwork and money, everyone is weighed. Now, they do say the cable can support 10,000 pounds of weight and the pulley you’re attached to 2000 pounds, but you have to be no more than 250 pounds to go. I wonder how I could theoretically be 1000 pounds and the equipment is supposed to hold me, but they say no more than 250? It doesn’t matter, I guess, as not only was I under the weight I apparently have lost about 10 pounds since leaving. I guess it’s all that walking and eating somewhat less, right? It would probably be more if I didn’t drink as much beer down here! Anyway, soon we head to the old U.S. Army truck from Vietnam (so we’re told) refurbished for tourist comfort and off we go up the mountain. Once we leave the main road, it becomes a rocky dirt road and is obvious why you need a big huge Army truck to get the number of people back and forth. Even with the truck very similar to what you would have seen transporting troops on M*A*S*H* or a war movie, it was probably hard on the truck with lots of normal maintenance.

We arrived at the lodge, which is actually at the end of the trek; got our harnesses, pulleys, gloves, and hard hats put on; and headed to a short “basic training” session. We were given instructions, such as always lean back and keep your right arm extended all the way behind you with your heavily gloved hand on the cable behind you. This serves multiple functions: by leaning back you don’t start spinning while going down a cable, it keeps your face away from the cable a - at best - a nasty burn if you got too close, and your hand leaning back and gripping the cable while pulling down is also your brake. There’s other instructions and soon enough we’re heading a little further up in the truck and a short hike when we get to a point where the truck has no more road to go further. All along, I have to admit, I was a little nervous, but knew I wanted to do it. I told myself a few times, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...” Now, if that quote is a little off, it’s because I’m Lutheran and not Catholic - despite people saying Lutheran is just “Catholic-Lite”. In any case, we got to the first of 12 platforms with cables and the first guy gets hooked up. At each platform, which is basically a wood floor around a tree, you have to get “up” to the cable. This involves either pulling the cable down some, adding a mini push-up, or a small jump while the tour guide positions the pulley and hook correctly. Everyone does this in their turn, with me following the first guy and his wife who is afraid of heights. As each person goes, sent off attached to the pulley that is flying them down the cable that is 100 or so feet over the ground, river, and trees, you hear the whirring sound of the pulley rolling quickly on the metal cable. Once I get past the first one, any concerns I may have had are gone...it’s a blast! We all continue working our way down the 12 expanses of cables.

Some of the cables are longer, up to about 800 meters on the second to last one, and some shorter, around 100 meters long. Sometimes you have to pull down on the cable and brake mid-way through or you’ll be going too fast to safely stop and not crash into the tree or people on the other side. Sometimes, you’re told to not brake other than maybe a little at the end. On one of the cables, I heard to not brake at all. Okay, I can do that...if you do brake on some of them you stop in the middle and get stuck. You then have two options: 1) spin yourself around and start pulling yourself across with your arms pulling on the cable backwards, or 2) yell for help. We were told one guy once got stuck and couldn’t manage to pull himself the rest of the way. The guide had to go out and get him, pulling not only the guide’s own weight but obviously the guy who got stuck. Now, I didn’t ever get stuck though sometimes stopped just a little short even without braking. That involved me taking the former step to resolve...spin around and start pulling myself backwards. However, back to the time when told not to brake and I didn’t...I finally decided in spite of the instruction I had to do something but even then had my knee firmly meet the tree. Yes, I sustained injury while on the trek with a scrapped up knee and an ache I felt most of the rest of the day.

Soon enough, we were coming back to the lodge, where you could purchase beverages and pictures. One of the guides was taking pictures and it’s an obvious trap to get another $10 out of you. However, if you’ve already done all this, $10 isn’t so bad...and it was 155 pictures of our tour. After this, though we headed to the Army truck and back to town, with one more experience now lived and for me to convince others they need to do the same...

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The other highlight was the next day, the Kotowa Coffee Tour. Now, this obviously wasn’t quite the adrenaline rush but still something I really wanted to do. I wanted to get a sense of making coffee from the source plus see if I could find a contact for purchasing coffee in bulk for back home to resell. That said, I tried hard to get a hold of them. I emailed on Wednesday afternoon, but didn’t hear back. I thought maybe it was because of the holiday on May 1 or Thursday. However, I didn’t hear all day on Friday either. I ended up calling as it appeared someone would speak English. I got voicemail and ended up leaving two messages. I started to lose hope of getting this tour as I decided I wasn’t ready to stay in Boquete to Tuesday - which would seem the next real option for this tour for me - as it was getting late in the day. However, in what seems like a lot more than just coincidences I ended up stopping back at the hostel in the evening after visiting the Zanzibar Jazz Cafe. They are basically a bar but had live music this night that wasn’t all so bad. I also found two locals I recognized, one of the tour guides and Joanie who owns/runs the “Read & Relax Bookstore” in Boquete. Obviously, this seemed to be a good place for the small nightlife I’ve found in Boquete. Anyway, I decided I wanted more money on me so I made the trek, buzzing on six beers, to the hostel and ran into one of the family members from the hostel. She only spoke Spanish and asked if I understood Spanish, which surprisingly I understood enough of to find out the tour did call and would pick me up in the morning. The tour was meant to be! Next morning I was promptly picked up by Hans, who runs Coffee Adventures Tours and off we went to pick up the other tourists, Denise and Jim. We arrived at the farm, saw the house that Ricardo, or “the Juan Valdez” of Kotowa Coffee owned and lived in (if you’re picturing the commercial with some little guy in a sombrero and satchel over his back on his way with his donkey to his little hut, think again...Ricardo and his family have done quite well making really good coffee), and starting looking at the coffee trees. Hans, our tour guide, talked about the different types of coffee beans and trees, what they did here for the initial picking, how they paid the Ngobe Indians who did the picking over twice what the going rate is for solid business reasons (such as a loyal workforce and one who picks only the best beans making for not only a quality product that will sell for more money but protects the trees better for future crops), talked about how Ricardo’s grandfather bought a lot more land than they use for crops to be a pioneering environmentalist, and showed us the equipment used to process the beans to get them from just beans to the coffee we would later enjoy. The machinery was novel and reasonably modern, though it was all mechanics and not really computer-run. The machines did things like sort beans that were not yet ripe and accidentally picked from those ready for processing, among other novels processes I don’t remember at the moment. I did mentally note that almost all the beans or parts of the beans are fully used in some way. Parts of the bean that aren’t used in any coffee, such as skins, make it back as compost and fertilizer. Some of the lower quality beans are later used for cheap, gas-station coffee. The process even went to a point where dried beans are inspected by a table of about 20 women who spend all day picking out beans not just right. They are generally allowed a tiny, tiny, tiny room for error in picking out the not highest quality beans but are also very well paid. Indeed, we noted that Lucille Ball wouldn’t have done so well in the conveyor belt here at Kotowa, noting her performance so long ago on the candy belt in “I Love Lucy”. Jim, Denise, and I asked lots of questions and learned a lot. I learned that I was again the minority in the crowd politically but that was okay, everyone was pleasant and it was a beautiful sunny day for a tour. At the end, we sampled the coffee, which is good but really a little different than maybe we expect in coffee. The “light roast” was actually rather fruity tasting at first on the front of the tongue, going to a chocolatey taste as you move the coffee towards the back of the tongue and swallow the coffee. We then moved to the “medium roast” which, because it’s roasted 30 seconds longer, loses some of the fruity taste and reaches something more what us Americans think of as “coffee”. There was then the “espresso” roast, or dark roast. Despite what you’d think, it’s actually the smoothest coffee of them all, exactly because it’s the most roasted and much of the flavors are roasted out, though you’ll have the most “body” of the three different types. In the end, you could see that while Starbucks isn’t totally crap coffee, it’s a far cry from this speciality coffee, which consistently wins awards from Panamanian and world judging competitions. The nicer thing, from a consumer standpoint, is that while it’s not super-cheap coffee, it is a steal compared to coffee from Hawaii and other better known places, especially when you remember how Panama did not go with a type of tree that was loved everywhere else because it did things like triple production but also had some changes in taste that ultimately didn’t do as well for countries such as Costa Rica and others.

After our sample session and chance to buy some jewelry from the local Ngobe Indian girl who knows when to arrive, we headed back to town, Jim and Denise having coffee in hand that, surprise - surprise, was available for purchase. I look forward to buying this coffee when I get back home but didn’t buy any this day as I know I would have to carry it for two months. It’s available and I have the contact information. Plus, then I get the chance to consider reselling it...

Jim and Denise also were kind enough to invite us all to dinner at the Panamonte Inn. This is a nice, historic, B&B type hotel with very nice restaurant. We all met later than night and had a spectacular dinner. Admittedly, Jim and Denise invited us and offered to pay, but I hope somehow I get the opportunity to return their kindness. It certainly wasn’t necessary but made for a wonderful night to a great and educational day.
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It’s now May 4, 2008. I woke up this morning, made a bus trip to David - the largest city this side of Panama and point of bus transfer to continue my journey up Central America. I managed to find the Tracopa Bus Office and bought a ticket for the bus tomorrow, which I was advised to do to make sure I had a seat and wasn’t riding a pie, or on foot. I briefly looked at David, decided what I saw of it made it still little more than a “pass-through” town (though there is a TGI Fridays and Do It Hardware American chain store, and a Rey grocery store), and returned to Boquete. I had lunch in my little local cafeteria and ran into Jim and Denise also eating there. They actually were wondering if this cafeteria was the one I was talking about. We talked a little, though they were pretty much finished with lunch by the time I got through line for my food. They also had a flight home later so they headed off. However, I have their email address as I sent them pictures of the tour, so I look forward to hearing from them again. I’ll know head to “Read & Relax” to use the wi-fi and send off this blog and then get ready to pack once the clothes I washed a little while ago seem dry from the line. Then, it’s good-bye Panama...Tomorrow at 8:30AM, I should be on a bus for the 8 hour trip to San Jose, Costa Rica.

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