Of Coffee and Horses.

Hola a todos,
Today has been a day full of adventures.



This morning, I toured a coffee farm just outside of Boquete, in an area called Jaramillo Alto. The farm is about 5 hectares (a hectare is a metric measurement of area. 5 hectares is about 12 acres). It's owned by a man named Don Tito. Don Tito grows eight varieties of coffee, including a variety called "Geisha Coffee." It's the second-most expensive variety of coffee in the world. His farm can produce up to 7,000 kilos of coffee in a good year.

Don Tito was a pretty interesting guy. He used to be a vegetable farmer, but he decided that he wanted to start growing coffee. The problem with growing coffee is that it takes five years for coffee plants to start producing consistently, and it's a very labor-intensive crop. In addition, in order to grow arabica coffee, the idea elevation is 1500 meters above sea level. Don Tito had land, but he had no idea what elevation it was. It turned out that his farm was precisely at 1500 meters above sea level. Don Tito named his farm "La Milagrosa," or "the miraculous one," because everything seemed miraculous when he started to pursue his dream of growing coffee.




Coffee doesn't look like a bean when it's growing. The coffee fruit is actually called a cherry, and it can be either red or yellow. It's a real fruit, and it's very sweet. The cherries should be picked when they are very ripe. If they are picked when they are green, they ruin the flavor of the coffee blend. Then the fruit is separated from the beans and discarded (in the case of Don Tito, he recycles the pulp as fertilizer for the farm). There are usually two beans in each cherry. If there's only one, this is called a peaberry, and it's highly prized for its stronger flavor. If there are three beans, they're called fenomenales, and they generally have less flavor than the others. The beans are dried in the sun for several weeks, then dried indoors for three months more.




There's an extra paper-like layer that has to be removed from the bean. The beans then are finally roasted, after which they look like the coffee you've seen in the store.






There are lots and lots of factors that go into making a good coffee. Don Tito blends several varieties of beans to make his coffee. If the beans float in water, they are poor quality, and they're discarded. When the coffee is roasted, it's roasted at 250ºC for 12 minutes. The beans make a popping noise as they roast. After 12 minutes, the beans are considered to be lightly roasted. After another 40 seconds, they are a medium roast, and another 40 seconds after that, it's a dark roast. After that, the coffee is burnt, so it's a delicate process.




It was a tasty experience.




This afternoon, I decided I wanted to go horseback riding. The countryside is beautiful outside of Boquete, and the Volcán Barú looks awesome from any angle. It's been a while since I rode a horse, so I'm quite proud to say that I did the challenging trail without a problem. There was a stretch of trail that went straight up a muddy hillside, so that was thrilling.

Plan what you can, go with the flow, and don't be a doofus.

Hola a todos,
I have many stories to share with you today. Many, many stories.

I decided yesterday that I wanted to spend a few days in Chiriquí. I was supposed to travel with my friend's mom, but she got sick so I decided just to go by myself. I left the house in Panama around 10 am, made it to the bus terminal by 11, and got in the longest line I have ever been in to buy a bus ticket. There were so many people that there were news reporters taking pictures and writing stories about the congestion in the station. Seriously, I might be in a Panamanian newspaper right now. It took 2.5 hours just to get in sight of the ticket window.

This is where the story of Eddie the Gringo begins.

Just as I was getting near the window, a guy came up to me and said, "Do you speak English?" It had been three days since I'd spoken English and he caught me off-guard, so I said that I did. He spoke no Spanish at all and he was completely clueless about how to buy a bus ticket. Trying to be nice, I helped him get a ticket. There were hundreds of people buying bus tickets to the city of David, so as soon as you bought your ticket, you had to go straight to the waiting room, and buses were constantly boarding. So that meant that because I helped Eddie the Gringo buy his ticket at the same time that I bought mine, he had the seat next to me.

Time out. When I travel in Spanish-speaking countries, I only speak Spanish. I don't speak English unless I have to. It's safer that way, and it's just plain polite to speak the same language as the people around you when you can. Also, I don't speak to strangers, no matter what language they speak. At the very least, I'm very selective about the strangers to whom I speak.

I thought that once I helped Eddie the Gringo buy his bus ticket that my job would be done. No. Eddie the Gringo insisted on talking to me. Here's a tip, guys: it's okay to ask general questions about people's travel plans, and it's best to ask where people have already been if you want to make small talk. But when you ask people details about their plans for the next day, you're being really, really, really creepy. Eddie the Gringo was creeping me out big time, asking about where I was going and where I was staying. This is an example of when lying a little bit is okay. I told him I was meeting friends in Potrerillos, a small town near the town where I was actually staying. Never tell complete strangers your detailed travel plans, even if they seem really awesome. Eddie the Gringo was not awesome in any way.

In general, Eddie the Gringo was just plain creepy and overwhelmingly clueless. He didn't know how to do anything in Spanish, and he didn't even know how to ask people for help in Spanish. What's worse, he never even tried. Please don't be like Eddie the Gringo.

In the waiting room of the bus station, there were people wall-to-wall waiting for buses. I had to wait for the attendant to shout the number of the bus that was printed on my ticket. This is why knowing your numbers in Spanish is important, kids. I also had to check a bag on the bus, and when I got to David at 1:30 in the morning yesterday, I had to wait for my number to be called. Seriously. Study your numbers.

It also helps to know the alphabet in Spanish. I had to call a hostel in Boquete to make reservations, and since my name is not a common name in Spanish, I had to spell it over the phone. I also had to spell my first and last name when I bought my bus ticket. Seems like something really simple, and it is, but it could save you a lot of trouble just knowing the alphabet.

The bus ride to David was only supposed to take 8 hours, but with the incredible amount of traffic and some wicked rain, it took 10 hours. I'll make the next moral of the story brief and to the point: always carry your own toilet paper. Bus bathrooms will not have TP. Bus station bathrooms will not have TP (unless they're the kind of bathroom you have to pay to use, in which case they will have TP). But in general, always always always BYOTP. My friend's mom gave me a roll of TP before I left her house. Best present ever. The end.

After the bus got to David, I still had to find my way to the town of Boquete, about 45 minutes away. I had planned on arriving to David around 7 p.m., but with the traffic, I didn't get there until 1:30 a.m. That meant that there was no public transportation to be had, so I had to get a taxi. A friend who is from Boquete told me that taxis should cost about $18 from David to Boquete. I asked a taxi driver how much he charged for the trip, and he told me $30. "No, gracias," I said. "$25," he replied. I asked around, and the cheapest I could find was $23, probably because of the late hour. It's pretty normal for taxi drivers (or anyone, for that matter) to raise their prices if they think they can get the money out of you. If you can, check around and see how much things should cost before you try to go somewhere.

Finally, I made it to my hostel at 2:30 this morning. I know I've talked about hostels before; they're dorm-style rooms, and you rent a bed for the night. I was shown to a room where three other people were already asleep. The moral of this leg of the trip is to always pack your most important stuff at the top of your bag so that you don't wake everyone else up by digging around for a toothbrush. I knew that. Just making sure that you do.

So there are some general themes here.
1.) Plan ahead as much as you can. Ask how much things should cost, think about what you'll need when you get to your destination, take an extra bottle of water in case an 8 hour trip turns into a 16 hour trip.
2.) If your plans don't work out, go with the flow and don't stress about it. You'll get where you're going eventually.
3.) Don't be afraid to ask questions and try doing things on your own. If you don't, you'll have trouble getting anywhere and you'll constantly have to rely on other people. Don't be like Eddie the Creepy Gringo.