Time to smell the coffee

I seem to have found myself at yet another turning point after making yet another stupid mistake.

I'm definitely finding this trip harder than last year's Thailand attempt. Whether this is down to the weather not being as great, or everything costing more or if there is actually less to do here I don't really know, but everything here feels like it takes more effort.

Now I find myself in Panama, a perfectly nice country similar in many ways so far to Costa Rica, with another four weeks remaining here and thinking that half that would have been enough. I had to book a flight out before I entered the country and I booked 5 weeks, mostly because that was the cheapest option, but I sat here for hours last night trying to work out where to go next, with little success. Where interested me? Where could I get to easy enough? Where was affordable? I couldn't find anywhere and have ended up booking an extra 3 nights at this hostel, which is fine, it's nice here and there's still some stuff I would like to do, but it's really just about my not knowing where to go next.

Apparently a very poisonous caterpillar. I always wonder where all the caterpillars went from when we were kids? There were loads then!

At this point my options are to head up to the Caribbean islands in the North, down to the Pacific beaches or West to the Panama City area. As I fly out of Panama City, it seems natural to do that last so I'm guessing I'll head either North or South. I'll just book a few days so if I don't like the place I can leave, if it's great I can always stay longer.

Boquete (pronounced Bo-ket-ay) is a nice little town with lots of ex-pats around, Panama's only volcano a few miles away and lots of jungle around. My hostel is great, pretty cheap and there's still some hikes around I'd like to do, so staying another three nights worked out fine.

Coffee beans, not yet ripe, those are red

Today I went on a tour of a local coffee plantation. After a fairly hefty walk up there It was great! very interesting, the hosts really friendly and funnily enough, loads of free coffee to drink and take back with me. I even got to try the Geisha coffee, which everyone goes crazy for around here. A kilo once sold for $1000+ on auction, but they were selling it for $30 a pound, so I don't know who was paying that. It's nice, tastes like someone mixed tea and coffee together with some fruit juice.

They sort the beans out by hand, four tonnes a year of them!

I was shown the whole growing and picking process, although it was out of season, so there was nothing to be grown or picked, but I then got to roast my own beans to my taste which I then ground to take with me! Along the way being told lots of facts about coffee such as how it's mostly cut with other products and the smell from any coffee sold without a valve in the bag (so most coffee) has likely been added chemically and is mostly the cause of acid reflux.

Beetles eat coffee beans, ducks eat beetles! This I did not know.

Then another worker came along, and showed me different ways of making coffee. Happily, I've mostly been doing it right. It was very interesting and far less poncey than you'd imagine lol. Overall it was a great day and the owner even gave me a lift back to my hostel, which was pretty nice of her.

All the coffee types and ways of pouring. The Geisha coffee is in the front in the odd looking jug

Tomorrow I'm going to some ex-pat thing with the owners of the hostel and then hopefully I'll hike most of the weekend, maybe today I'll figure out where to go next!

My coffee, which I roasted, ground and even glued the packet! Sealed in a packet with a valve to let the carbon dioxide out, but no oxygen in. Very important it turns out.