Bountiful Bouqete

Bouqete, the mountain town. Over 2000 meters high. Known for its world class coffee, cool climate and beautiful surroundings.

I came here to drink coffee, be cool, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings, surprisingly. 

I've been here since... Saturday? Maybe, something like that. 

The town is nestled in a valley, surrounded by impossibly steep hills covered in coffee beans, citrus fruit, maize and other crops. 

The hills are green and lush, and at this time of year it rains almost every afternoon. 

My first day here I rented a bicycle and went for a hairy ride around some of the hills, with breaks that were worn to the metal. I wondered why they were so worn down, but not for long. I got showed up by some local kids with no breaks at all. I asked them something along the lines of "que calle es bein?" or "which street is good?". To them, typical of young boys on bikes, good means steep and rocky, so we raced down a scary steep hill, them hot on my heels. Then we walked the bikes back up, they grabbed a couple of oranges from a tree, and I continued on my ride. Steep hills everywhere. Good for going down, bad for going up. Hence the worn breaks. 

Bouqete from above


A river runs through town and one day I followed one of its tributaries far up a jungle choked valley. I followed a small trail through magical rainforest, staring in wonder at the moses, lichens, bromeliads, and massive bearded trees, hanging with growth and some rotting away as they grow due to the humidity.

After walking for an hour and a half I came to a tall waterfall, with water feathering off the top and dusting  onto a pile of jagged rocks below. I remained there for some time, listening to its grumble and feeling its mist before heading back down the mountain.

 I walked slowly along a mountain road, following a river back to town. On the way I stopped to climb on one of Panama's most famous climbing routes, dark black basalt columns stacked horizontally, great fun. I also stopped at a well known private garden on a massive property which is open for the public to explore, and had two delicious coffees at a world famous coffee production company, Cafe Ruiz.

My final Bouqete adventure will need an entire post for itself, given its magnitude and scale.
To follow shortly.

Santa Catalina

This place is so green, and lush. The soil is a dark red. The clouds, a rich, heavy grey that makes the greens explode.

The coastline, is lined with green hills, spotted with trees, and covered in soft grass. The grass meadows end sharply with rich brown, almost copper, cliffs. The soil has been exposed to, and devoured by, the sea. Trees hang precariously, clinging to the muddy meadow, but being called towards the ocean by the pulling waves. This coastline continues for miles, as far as you can see, coves, inlets and capes wind their way in either direction.

The sucking sea draws back over the volcanic bedrock and black sands, leaving a white trail as it flows and reforms into another rolling wave. Turtles breath just behind the surf line, almost inquisitively, surfacing and looking around before diving. Its their mating season, and females are laying eggs nearby.

The surf is fun, small rights curve off a point with an abandoned house in a once prime position on the cliff watching on.

I surf until my arms are exhausted, and my back is screaming, I haven’t surfed for this long in years. And I want more. In two days the good swell arrives, and this place is going to be incredible. Today I surfed alone, and yesterday, a Sunday, with only two other people, both friends in the water.

Three days later, after many waves, lots of pasta and rice, and some fine times, I paddled out early in the morning to cooking glassy conditions. I tried to get waves and ended up getting frustrated instead. After the surf, I decide to leave. I am not here to get frustrated. Time to move on. Next stop, the mountains of Bouqete. So long Santa Catalina, lord protect you through the times of surging popularity ahead. Stay cool.

Me and my buddy the praying mantis

Fish Dinner

Odd shaped house

Ubiquitous vulture

Fishing vessel

Me and my temporary baby

Friendly friends

 Self timer shot on a balcony eroded by the sea, soon to collapse. Bev and Kate, two aussies hanging with me

Casco Viejo

Take me down to Panama City

I left Eleuthera. After 9 months on the little island, with many beautiful moments, learning curves, and plenty good times. Everything cool, as they say.

I travelled intergalactically, through time and space, bending geographical space to my will, and arrived in a new universe.

Panama city, the biggest metropolis in central america, home of a massive cut through earth and rock, home of sky scrapers, and to vultures circling above the city.

 Travelling into the city early in the early morning after landing, I saw massive glass and metal structures clawing, twisting and fighting there way ever upward. Many are being built, and many look as though they are falling down. The architecture in the city centre is the type that quickly becomes dated, modern monstrosities, spiraling towards the heavens.

In contrast, massive contrast, the neighbourhood I headed towards couldn't be more different.

Casco Viejo is the oldest standing neighbourhood in  Panama city, built in the early 1600s after Henry Morgan, a pirate and a rogue raised the previous city to the ground.

The architecture is Spanish, and beautiful. Buildings are falling down, collapsing in on themselves, their regal arches remaining after the roofs cave. Some are beautifully restored, with many terraces, and curved balustrades and wrought iron fences. 

Massive, heavy dark wood doors bar the entrance ways. 

The rich and the poor live door to door, and an air of transition, and more contrast fills the streets. 

Casco Viejo is home to massive churches, with massive arches, stained glass and  incredible alters. One alter is carved entirely of mahogany and plated in gold. It is at least thirty foot tall and intricately detailed.

The power of belief has built much of this city.

The Panama canal is a fine example of belief carving the landscape in mammoth ways. I visited the Miraflores locks, a key stage in the transit of ships through the canal and was blown away by the scale of the place. I cannot fathom the motivation and commitment to build something of that size. 

The French tried in 1880, but after tens of thousands of workers died of diesease they gave up the ghost. Then, between 1904 and 1914 engineers operating under the United States managed to dig through millions of tons of rock to accomplish the gigantic engineering feat.

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Yes, its a mind twist being here, and I am really living. 

Soon I will be leaving for the coast for to reunite with the ocean and its energies. For today I will have a brunch and a dinner somewhere nice before changing my diet to rice and beans. 

I need to lighten my bag, though I don't have very many things its still too heavy.

The hostel I am at is called Luna's castle, and its a transient place. Youth and older people travelling to and from Colombia, or north, like me. 

An old colonial house with three levels, massive doors, many rooms, a large dining room, free pancakes, bearded people, people with dogs, people from Israel, France, Germany, Australia wherever. 

Stimulus overload. mind crash. must go. drink coffee. eat crouissants. drink cheap beer. pack. sleep. leave. 

Eleuthera: Part 2

I arrived on Eleuthera at the end of the semester, a time of decompression, transition and departure for island school staff. It was near Christmas and the campus was a relative ghost town with only 5 or so people hanging around. 

Everyone was going home to see there families, and I had just said goodbye to mine for who knows how long. 

A long road lay (and still lies) ahead. 

I was excited to be there, and would go adventuring and exploring every chance I got. 

The Bahamas are made of limestone, a rock created from the skeletons of countless organisms and chemical reactions deep below the sea. The chain of islands arose from the sea, and the sea dominates the landscape. The earth on South Eleuthera is rocky and hard, resilient and often times uncomfortable. Along the coastline, where weathering eats the rock slowly and steadily, its razor sharp and harsh. The locals call it death rock, which is no misnomer. 

One side of the cape I lived on had a shallow sound that stretched for tens of miles across a bay without ever getting deeper than 10 feet. The shore was a mixture of sandy beaches and deathrock, and the institute sat on the shoreline, spanning a restored mangrove swamp with a curving bridge connecting the Island School and the Cape Eleuthera Foundation. 

The other side of the cape was a more adventurous landscape, with deathrock cliffs and submerged reefs with a bounty of fish.

I remember taking many missions out to that part of the cape. Sometimes we would bike, sometimes we would hike and a couple times we took a boat. We would bring spears and a lighter and some seasonings, catching lionfish and lobster and cooking them up right there, as fresh as is possible without the fish still being alive. 

We had such good times out there on the deathrock with the sun beating down and the water so clear and warm and good friends just relaxing, fishing, hunting, eating, being a little bit primal.

So long and thanks for all the fish

My time here on Eleuthera is rapidly drawing to a close, and I have just finished working with my last group this morning. During two of our days out in the field doing research, we had the honour of being deemed suitable playmates for a pair of dolphins. I shot this video while swimming with them, it was one of the greater experiences of my last 9 months.

My friend Peter says dolphins exhibit four main behaviours: eating, travelling, mating, and milling.

That's true wisdom.

Eleuthera: Part 1

Arriving in the Bahamas 9 months ago with very little idea why I was there, or who I would meet, or really anything at all was one of those experiences that can neither be described, imagined nor recreated. Since my arrival I have come to know myself, others, and the earth a whole lot better.

I flew in, low, in a small plane over typical gorgeous turquoise seas dotted with the shadows of clouds and small fishing boats. Brushy, low vegetation and an old grey airstrip greeted me. A one building airport. The baggage collection passed through a chain link fence. Bahamians lingering, chatting. Almost impossible to interpret their dialogue at this point.

I met the person who was giving me a ride, Gabe, and we loaded up a Toyota surf , before driving the forty minutes to the Cape, location of the Island School, and my new home. From Cape town to Cape Eleuthera it took me something like fifty three hours of travel, and I felt like I had arrived in another universe.

Its interesting how my first persective of a place always changes once I spend some time there. Even the geographical orientation seems to spin around in my awareness and my memory as I become wired to the new directions and landmarks around me. I have trouble find North, South or anywhere at first. Then, over time, my compass stops spinning and I find direction.

Meeting people for the first time in the dining hall, after finding Lissa- short, curly haired, vaguely eccentric- my new boss, was an interesting experience. They were crowded around pots in the kitchen, eating standing up. Now that I think about it was certainly because that’s how Chris Maxey, the founder and director of the islandschool was eating, and people tend to follow his lead. He is a man that influences others through his actions.

I sunk into bed that first night, in my new dormitory with a vaulted ceiling, exhausted and excited for the unknown, that which always gets me feeling nervous and alive.