Boquette is a town situated in the interior of Panama, within the Cordillera mountain range. Also Boquette is surrounded by the highest mountain in Panama, named Volcan Baru, an extinct volcano, this makes for pretty impressive scenery in this town. The Panamanian's say that Bougette has four seasons in one day. Spring in the morning, summer in the afternoon, fall in the evening and winter at night ( lows of 12 C). For the first time some of us dug out long pants. For two reasons, cool evenings, but mostly because of bugs. It seems the bugs like the taste of Jim and I, but not Donnie and Vanda (we are jealous).

We had quite a lengthly drive from Casa Miraposa in Santa Fe to Bouquette. We arrived at Bouquette Garden Inn just in time to drop our luggage and attend the wine reception, which was nice. We were quite dog tired though and opted to try to grab 'cup a' noodles' at the local super market to bring back to our rooms for our supper. Us and every other local were at the super market, but we did find noodles in a cup, snickers bars, M&Ms and some kind of ointment for my bug bites, at least that is what I think it is. I'm using it anyway.

The next day, we happened upon a jazz concert in the town square. Apparently all the ex-pat hippies from he 70's are hiding in Boquette. Also had an awesome fish lunch at a restaurant called "Big Daddy's", accompanied by the best margarita so far. The glass is rimmed with salt and chili spice.

In the afternoon we went on a tour of a coffee plantation called cafe Ruiz. Our guides names was Carlos, and he has been working at the plantation since he was 10, when he first started picking beans. The Ruiz family has been growing coffee in Boquette since the early 1800's. They run 10 coffee plantations in the area. It is presently bean harvesting season in Boquette. The Ngobe tribe families travel from their villages to pick the coffee beans during the harvest. They will live in the area or at the plantations until all the beans have been picked, maybe 4 months. The family can pick beans together and the family is paid by the amount of beans picked (20 cents per kilo). It is common for a family to be able to pick 100 kilos per day. Each bag holds 60 kilos, and all is done by hand, including carrying the full bags back up or down the mountain at a distance of maybe 3 kms away. The Ngobe are very small people. Also the Ngobe women and female children wear their traditional colourful dress all the time, so it is a cool site to see so many around the town during the harvest.