Up the hill: Boquete coffee plantation and hot springs

On Saturday we said goodbye to our Bocas house and took the wáter taxi to the bus to Boquete, Panama, in the mountains.  It`s a completely different climate up here, the ``land of eternal spring``; cool in the mornings and cloudy or rainy in the afternoons.  Everything is green and the air smells fresh. 

Yesterday we went to a small coffee plantation, Finca La Milagrosa, run by Señor Tito, named because of all the miracles he feels helped him on his way.  He grew up picking coffee on a larger plantation with his parents, and had a dream of starting his own.  The bank wouldn´t give him money, so he worked and saved and built all his own equipment, most of which he still uses.  His roaster is made from car and washing machine parts, and our favorite was the ``scroon``, a long spoon made from a screwdriver and spoon welded together, to reach into the test roaster with.  He came up from humble beginnings and now his specialty coffee (Geisha variety) sells for over $300/lb on the world market and he made over 150k from that variety alone last year.  He also makes a blended variety which is less expensive but still amazing.  He uses only organic methods to grow his coffee.  We saw every step in the process from the plants to the fermenting to the roasting (Josef got to help roast some beans and use the scroon to check them) and tasted the final product as well.  Apparently he is not well known in Panama, but at an international coffee tasters event in Europe, when his name came up, he was given a standing ovation.  His coffee has flavors of orange and passionfruit from the local soil.  He and his dogs were puttering around the farm and he is the picture of humble beginnings in an old t shirt and camo pants.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coffee-Tour-Farm-La-Milagrosa-Boquete/111275142306105   and    http://www.hablayapanama.com/ecotourism/boquete/coffee/

Today we went on a drive to the town of Caldera and hiked to see some amazing things.  We saw petroglyphs that are thousands of years old, made by ancient people and of unknown meanings.  On the top of the rock where the petroglyphs are, there is a kind of map made with other symbols of the local peaks and of the towns and trails that were in between.  We had some good views of Volcán Baru, a dormant peak that is nearby.   http://www.hablayapanama.com/ecotourism/boquete/hotsprings/

Then we hiked to a natural hot springs near a cold river.  The woman whose property the springs are on lets people use them.  They are low sulfur so don´t smell like some springs we´ve been in, but have healing minerals according to the locals.  It was great to go from the hot wáter to the cold river nearby! 

This is the first internet Access we´ve had since Saturday; it´s amazing how odd that feels in this day and age.  More notes and pics later.