Coffee and Bad Music in Boquete

After Bocas del Toro, it was time for one last trip into the mountains.  For this, we went to Boquete.

There’s not really a lot to Boquete.  I learned that it was 100 years old because there was a centennial celebration planned the weekend after we were there.  There were a couple of pool halls, numerous restaurants and some hotels.  We stayed in a hostel in the center of town.  Surrounding the town are numerous coffee plantations that make the best coffee in Panama.

After our arrival, we went to a bar next door to the hostel and I had some so-so wings.  More importantly, I found a place to watch the Champions League match between Manchester United and Chelsea the next day.  In the evening, we went to a pool hall and shot some pool and drank 75-cent beers.  Yes, you heard me right, 75-cent beers.  It was the cheapest beer that I’ve had since Cambodia.  The highlight of the evening, though, was when my new Australian friend and I put about four dollars into the juke box and played the worst songs we could find for about an hour-and-a-half.  We had some ABBA and Elvis Presley and stuff from the 70s that we figured would piss people off.  Ultimately, all it did was chase away all of the locals.  There were also some tourists who came in midway and thought that the music we were playing was what was popular these days in Panama.  Sorry, Panama.

American, French & Italian

The next day, we took a tour of a coffee plantation.  This probably won’t mean anything to you, but the plantation we visited grows seven types of Arabica coffee beans and Geisha coffee beans, which evidently produce coffee that cost hundreds of dollars per pound.  I ain’t ever had coffee that good, but that’s what they sell it for.  We did get to go through the entire process of turning the coffee beans into coffee and did get to sample some of the Arabica coffee blend.  All-in-all, it was pretty interesting and the coffee was good, so it was a nice way to spend an overcast/rainy morning.  (For the record, all of the photos that I took in Boquete, and in this entry, are from the coffee plantation tour.)

When we got back, we took our coffee tour guide’s recommendation and went to a place for lunch where I had fried chicken and rice and beans.  Very popular in Central America, it would appear.  After that, I went back to Baru (the bar next door to the hostel) for some beer and some fútbol.  It was all good until the match ended and the bar started playing Journey Live on the television.  Hell, maybe the crap we were playing on the jukebox the night before actually is popular in Panama these days.

The scroon in action.

 That night, we went to a Peruvian restaurant called Machu Picchu (because all of the Peruvian restaurants in Central America are called Machu Picchu) and I had some seafood.  It was pretty good, but nothing to write home about – although, it’s apparently enough to blog about.

The next morning, we were leaving at 8:00 am, so we had a little time for breakfast.  I walked down the road to the Shalom Bakery and had a bagel with cream cheese (something I hadn’t had for quite a while) and some coffee and then we were off to the surf beaches of Santa Catalina.  I don’t really have a ton to say about Santa Catalina, either, but I’ll do that in the next post.