After leaving the Lost and Found hostel on the side of a mountain in Panama, we really didn’t go very far to our next destination, Boquete. As the crow flies, it’s less than 50km away although it’s almost three times that distance by road. We had a packed few days here although when we first arrived, all we knew was that Hannah wanted to climb the volcano and that I did not! Boquete is known for the Barú volcano, the highest point in Panama. It’s an all day hike that many do overnight in order to watch the sunrise from the top. You can actually see Volcán Baru, the background to Boquete, from the terrace of Lost and Found!
I actually really enjoyed our few days in Boquete, not just because the weather was a bit cooler and fresher. Despite this, and arriving on an air-conditioned chicken bus (quite the novelty!), things quickly went downhill when we were trying to find our hostel. We stayed in Blasina Beer Hostel which was associated with the town’s brewing company. Originally we were booked in somewhere else but when we were staying in Lost and Found we found out that we could get a discount at Blasina so we cancelled and rebooked. It was about half the price of the other place which was great but it wasn’t my favourite hostel. It was pretty simple, not much of an atmosphere and there were ants in the room (not uncommon but annoying). It was also impossible to find! The original location that we headed to (according to Google Maps) was next to the brewing company but it was a construction site and clearly being renovated. We had no idea where to go and I could not for the life of me find a number to call. We managed to get on the still functional wifi and found a different location on Hostelworld. We headed to the second spot but it just looked like a normal house, not a hostel. We asked in the sandwich shop across the road and the owner wasn’t sure but phoned someone to ask where Blasina was. It turns out that it was somewhere else entirely but Nuria, the lovely sandwich shop owner, drove us there (only a few minutes away) and helped us find the right place.
Hannah decided to get her climb of the volcano out of the way on our first day, leaving at 3am in order to try and get to the top for sunrise. Unfortunately, the weather was terrible so she couldn’t see anything! She still enjoyed the climb, though she said it was pretty hard. I had most of the day to myself but there wasn’t anything in particular that I wanted to do. In fact, I didn’t want to do much at all! I went for a walk in the morning that had me almost literally bump into a German couple, Jennifer and Victor, who we had met at our previous hostel! They had decided at the last minute to come to Boquete for a night and were also staying in Blasina so I offered to walk them there otherwise they would never find it! For the afternoon I found a nice coffee and chocolate shop called The Perfect Pair and settled there to work on a blog.
I met Hannah back at the hostel when she finished and she was on a high, not tired at all! We went for a walk to see some more of the town together. Right across the road from Blasina there was this incredible bookshop called Librería Bloise. It’s like a treasure trove of second hand books in both English and Spanish, of all genres and a great place to peruse the packed shelves. Later in the evening, we met Vincent and Jennifer at the Boquete Brewing Company because it was linked with our hostel and we got a discount. It was a fun place to hang out and try some of their specialty beers. There is also a food truck in the court yard called Aqui Va la Niña that sells incredible burgers! They are the perfect accompaniment to some beers.
There are some aguas termales outside Boquete that we considered going to the following day but they were a bit difficult to get to by public transport. Another popular thing to do in Boquete is a coffee tour but Hannah and I were already planning on doing that in Colombia so we were looking for something else. We settled on something that was a little different for us, visiting the Jungla de Panamá, a wildlife sanctuary a $5 taxi ride outside of Boquete (it’s best to arrange with the driver to come back and pick you up). We basically got a private tour to see all the animals, including giving Daisy the spider monkey some fruit! We also got to meet the monkeys, coati, goats, horse, rabbits and birds. A lot of the animals, including Lupita the coati, were pets and were given up and brought to the sanctuary. Hannah loved the birds the most, I… did not. I prefer birds from a distance but I did have a nice chat with Paco the parrot! It was a $25 entrance fee which I personally think was very steep, especially considering it only took an hour to see everything. Everything I had seen online said that it was free or donations as well. I think $10-15 would be a much more appropriate price point. We still stayed when we discovered the price because we had already arranged for our taxi to come back in an hour and a half and at least the money is going to a good cause. A side note, it was all in Spanish and I’m not sure if it would be possible, at least in as much detail, in English.
In the afternoon, we were also doing something a little unexpected. That might be the word to describe Boquete in general, maybe because I didn’t have that many expectations to begin with, but it was all good! Remember the coffee shop, The Perfect Pair, where I went while Hannah was climbing the volcano? Well, we went back there to do a chocolate making class! It was $39 for a two hour class with a free drink included and three chocolate bars to take home at the end. We were initially a bit sceptical about the price but it was absolutely worth it in the end. We had Christina guiding us through the chocolate making process. She was fantastic, engaging, fun and really knew her stuff! Some chocolate facts that I learnt in the workshop – beans are fermented for 7-9 days, they spend 2-3 days drying in the sun and then are roasted for 40 mins at 142ºC. If chocolate tastes too bitter, then it has been roasted for too long or at too high a temperature. Roasting is what gives chocolate the nutty flavour. The Perfect Pair wasn’t using their own cocoa beans yet, they are two years into growing their own supply but it takes 4-5 years for them to be ready. The Perfect Pair uses their own cocoa butter instead of oil to mix with the blended cacao nibs as it is solid and keeps the chocolate from melting as easily. Oil is extracted from a second batch of cacao and the remnants are used to make cocoa powder! The province of Bocas del Toro produces the most cacao in Panama because of the higher temperatures. We got to use coloured milk powder to make patterns for our chocolate bars and then we tempered the melted chocolate which means cooling it down from around 37º to around 25º so it has a nice shine and snap. There’s a machine that does it for big batches but we did it by hand which involves spreading it across the countertop and moving it around. We added toppings like various nuts, coconut or Oreos after we poured the chocolate into the mould and voila! We had our own, handcrafted chocolate bars!
Our last night in Boquete was a relaxed affair. At this point in the trip, budget strings were bring pulled a little tighter so we started cooking for ourselves a little more. In Honduras, it’s generally just as cheap to go out as buy groceries, especially if you eat at the comedores. Panama was a bit more expensive and we still had a while to go on the trip so we wanted to make our money go further. It was also nice to choose exactly what we wanted to make as well. We spent the evening cooking some mac and cheese with a nice salad. Hannah went on a walk after we ate but came back to get me because she’d stumbled on an artisan’s market that she wanted to show me! It was a great wee find, good for some souvenirs and to add to my ever growing earring collection. Then it was off to bed early before a big travel day to Panama City!
Sara Somewhere 