PANAMA
Rush hour in Kuna Yala’s San Blas
Soberanía National Park we could have been a thousand miles from the city, as we walked, in hushed silence through the forest looking out for the silhouettes of toucans fl itting above.
Totally tropical Heading to the Caribbean side of the country, our next stop
was the San Blas archipelago. These idyllic desert isles are part of the autonomous Kuna Yala province, which is owned by one of Panama’s indigenous groups, the Kuna. I had arrived in the true Caribbean of my childhood imagination, to a place where tiny white-sand islands glinted on every horizon, some festooned with just a single palm ruffl ed by the salty breeze. The living is simple in San Blas, with fresh lobster delivered
by dug-out canoe and served with coconut rice. We picked islands at random, snorkelling to shore through turquoise water and picking our way across bleached driftwood, coconut husks and pink conch shells to ramshackle huts to meet the smiling Kuna owners, who were happy to share their paradise if we took a look at their colourful embroidery called ‘molas’. Most fascinating was visiting an island where the majority
of the people live cheek by jowel. We happened upon a group of nattily-dressed Mormons, a dead pet iguana and a chaotic puberty ceremony where teens sat in the steamy but segregated atmosphere of a dark palm hut drinking fermented sugar cane as a storm brewed outside.
Caffeine highlands After a one-hour fl ight from Panama City we arrived in another
world, the Chiriquí highlands. Boquete is the base for exploring Panama’s coffee region and the air was cool and damp as we drove through misty valleys and past the rushing torrent of the Rio Caldera. The river runs from Volcán Barú, a dormant volcano and Panama’s highest point. Down in Boquete fertile volcanic soil yields the coffee, but also favours vegetable patches of strawberries, onions and cabbage which adorn every garden, and fl owers that run riot at the side of the road. The area’s most famous fl ower is the angel’s trumpet. Peach- and-cream coloured they hung like magical ornaments from every wall at hotel Finca Lerida, where I spotted the blur of a hummingbird. I could have stayed there all day, listening to the rain and looking out for a fl ash of green and red which signals the elaborately feathered quetzal bird, but it was time to wake up and smell the coffee
at plantation Casa Ruiz. Here we fi nished our trip with a bean-to-cup tour from another of Panama’s characters, Carlos. It wasn’t his encyclopedic knowledge of coffee, or even his passion for the organic environment in which the beans grow here, amongst mango, guava and advocado trees, but his insight into Boquete living that provided the entertainment. He asked us what Boquete’s most populous bird is. Turns out it’s not the quetzal, but the snowbird – that not-so-rare breed of retired North American who fl y south for winter to nest in this beautiful place. I don’t blame them.
Casco Viejo
Carlos’ coffee beans
www.sellinglonghaul.com
November 2013 33
One of Panama’s 973 species of bird
Capuchin
Momkey, Gatun Lake
Coffee break in Boquete
Lobster dinner in San Blas
Meeting Kuna kids
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78