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Nicaragua/Panama

January 2024
A trip about discovering Latin America for the first time, coffee and friends. Read more
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  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 1

    ZRH-PTY

    January 5 in Switzerland ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    My almost 2 week trip started in Zurich with a flight to Madrid and onwards to Panama.
    Since my baggage was filled to the brim with children’s clothes and toys I’m bringing I resisted buying more books at the airport shops 🙄

    Travel went uneventful - I enjoyed the heck out of my window seats and waved to Saint Martin in the Caribbean as we passed over (I had just came back 10 days ago, but that’s a different FindPenguins story…)

    By 9PM getting to Panama I was drop dead tired and did not care to get semi ripped off by the taxi driver going to my hotel.
    2 Empenadas and a bottle of water later I was sound asleep - at least until 2/3/4 in the morning when my inner clock felt it was about time to get up 😅🤣🙄    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 2

    Leaving Panama

    January 6 in Panama ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    I stared the jet lagged day off early with some sun exposure, a workout in the hotel gym and another walk through the hotel parking lot - not daring to cross the busy street at walk near it without a sidewalk…

    Breakfast was amazing and I took full advantage. Extra points for the Panama style coffee (tasted like good filter).

    I crossed the street to the airport, checked in at the self service counters and ended up with time to spare and shop around.

    Since our pack list for the coffee farm listed a brimmed hat, it did not take me long to find a Panama hat that can now call myself the proud owner.

    The specialty coffe shop at the airport still is in construction, so I randomly tried a bar- and was not disappointed - even got Latte Art to go with the Cappuccino.

    I met fellow traveler Chris who is looking to expatriate to Panama from the US and got some tips on what to see on my way back. In return I told home how he can train and bring his doggie girlfriend 🐶 in cabin when he travels next time.    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 2

    Managua

    January 6 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    After a short 2 hour flight from Panama I arrived at the airport hotel where we would meet up to go to the coffee farm.
    Some fellow travelers were already there and and Dirk & I decided to hop on over to see Managua city center and get aquaintented with the local culture.

    We gave in to a taxi opting out of the full immersion bus experience - but not after negotiating a ride price. 😉
    The streets are not super busy with cars and the cars are used to max capacity most times. It is not uncommon for people to sit and stand in the truck’s pickup beds. Or even in the back of a big trailer… 🤯

    Also if you can’t fit 4 people on a motorcycle can you even ride…?

    We got out at the Cathedral Antigua - a neo Barock Cathedral that was damaged in the 1972 (seventy two!) earthquake and since never rebuilt or reopened 😳

    It had an eerie look straight out of a set from a Zombie movie and as the sun set we were waiting for Will Smith and his dog to come out and head home after a day of rummaging. 🤨🐶

    The plaza de revolucion was full of Xmas decorations and just to be efficient they do the Easter ones already as well. I like how they think. 😉

    We worked are way towards the waterfront (a lake, I can tell all the Lake Zurich/Lake Konstanz size discussionistas you haven’t seen big until you see this) where we found oversized boardwalks with fancy kids playgrounds and random other seemingly touristy things like a “Swiss Minature” of Managua with waist high models of all the houses… but it was closed.

    We grabbed a corn on the cob for $1.50 and visited the free Boeing that stood around as well.

    On the way back we found a big recreational site with all the sports you can imagine, all outdoor:
    Soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball, skate ramps…
    Everywhere little street vendors with bells sell snacks, food, water or small gifts and memorabilia.    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 3

    Bus Ride to the Finca

    January 7 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Our trip guide and coffee professor Tim picked us up at 9:30 at the hotel. We Tetris-ed our luggage into the bus and started the 5 hour drive along the al american highway - called NIC-1 here.

    We got the full experience with our driver getting pulled by the cops and negotiating the bribe so we could continue and stopped for Tacos at lunch.

    Slowly slowly the country side started to get volcano-hilly, but the lush green and many trees had taken over hundreds of years ago. We passed rice fields, tobacco farms (which stood out like a Rolex in a plastic jewelry set) and sang along to the 80 Rock Ballads on our radio😜

    When we got to Ocotal we had to switch over to two pickup trucks as the bus would’ve not made the ride to the Finca…and we found out why 😜

    The overgrowth threatened to sweep Dirk and Nati out of the truck, the street was a muddy, wet, bumpy ordeal - we loved it 😍🤙🏽

    At the finca first order of the day naturally was coffee 😜 …later we would settle in to have our first dinner, but more on that later.    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 3

    First Night at Finca el Arbol

    January 7 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    At the Finca the volunteers already awaited us to give us a briefing and quick tour.

    Meanwhile Claudia cooked us a light dinner of Beans, Plantains and Guacamole. Which we all sat down to enjoy at the big long table.

    Due to the travels (and probably jet lag) most called it an early night. Smart.
    Because we would soon realize the rooster seems to have a faulty morning-detection ability. 🤨😅    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 4

    First Tour of the Finca el Arbol

    January 8 in Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    At 7-ish we set out on our first tour of the Finca. There isn’t a distinct trail we followed and at times we were certain if we’d loose Tim we wouldn’t find back to the house…
    …so he made sure to feed us enough coffee and Cocoa beans to keep us sharp and following him. 😅
    We passed by the accommodations and cooking site of the workers and met some familiar names that finally got faces (like Orlin).
    They grow different tipicas of Arabica so we got to try Geisha, Bourbon, Punk Bourbon, Panamara and many more, learning to tell the difference.
    El Arbol is named after five gigantic trees that grow in this region (at an unusual altitude for them) - even Dejan looked small between the roots…    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 4

    Coffee Education part 1

    January 8 in Nicaragua ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    The afternoon was dedicated to learning about the coffee region and plant specifics. In the morning we were tasked to collect plant material that looked different and Tim used it to demonstrate and teach us.
    Kinda like Grammar School - keeps the kids busy and excited to be participating …😜

    We also learned about the current challenges to the coffee production - not just climate change, but the work force of Nicaragua is migrating and it’s hard to find enough to pick the harvest. One of the reasons to explor partially machine assisted picking - even though in this steep terrain and at the quality they would like to produce the options are limited…    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 5

    Mil Variedades/Finca Esperanza

    January 9 in Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    After an amazing porridge breakfast I realized I got super lucky: I had left my hiking shoes in the one spot of the finca where the roof leaks. AND we had a little bit of rain last night. What are the chances of that?!?!? Pretty similar to winning the lottery, so remind me to play next chance I get.
    No worries: My trusted Timberlands did not hesitate when called📞 for duty. 🫡 And because I was feeling really fortunate, I made sure to switch the moist socks out as well.

    The first stop today was the small Mil Variedad Finca. It’s at 1500müm (sea level) and you could immediately tell it was cooler up there than the Fincas we were used to.
    After picking the best mandarines 🍊 and eating them straight off the tree we dodged a nest of killer wasps to continue to identify different coffee species.

    Honestly I was just blown away by the view. I think Tim is a bit frustrated with me - at this point I feel like I really can’t tell them apart… 🌳🌲😅😆

    Ok, the bigger ones are “Mara” (save the ending so it could be either Marogogype or Maracaturra) and I feel like the most common one is Paraeinema. 😂🤣

    …and I totally needed to get my notes to finish this post 🙄🤨    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 5

    Finca Santa Rita -planting a coffee tree

    January 9 in Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Once done at Mil Variedades we toured the slightly larger Finca Santa Rita. If I remember correctly it is about a quarter the size of El Arbol…

    It was exciting to see familiar names of Kaffeemacher coffee flavors: Los Chenes, Doña Marguerita… All of them are areas where coffee trees are planted and the names go back to prior people present on the farm - usually grandparents.

    We made it through more coffee species guesstimating before arriving at the spot where we would each plant a new coffee plant.

    Tim and Adan made sure to measure out the distances with the “A tool” and let us know where to dig. Spade at hand we cleared the soil coverage and dug the holes as deep as they needed to be.

    Of course there was also time for coffee and cuddling with the 4 week old puppy. 🥰🐶

    All in all, a day can’t get any better than that! 🫶🏽

    We headed back for lunch and theory similar to yesterday. Learning about Diseases and fertilization.

    Just as jet lag was hitting the hardest the dog 🐶 Tony Mercelo created a diversion by bringing me a banana 🍌 I needed to peel for him to eat 😂🤣😍

    Tomorrow we start at 6am together with the pickers!!!
    And what we pick we get to process as well 😍😇

    EXCITING!!!    Read more

  • TravelerNicaragua/Panama
    Day 6

    Picking coffee

    January 10 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    The morning started at 6am so we could leave together with the other pickers - ok, we didn’t really leave together as the newbies needed an instruction first.

    In teams of two we got a basket to pick the ripe cherries in and a bag to put the discarded. The goal is to pick overripe or damaged berries as well and not drop them to the floor where they could attract the coffee insect Broca and lead to infecting a whole harvest.

    The green and pinker cherries stay on the branches for another picking in 1-2 weeks. The cherries get picked individually, not striped, as to not damage the stem - because the next seasons cherry will grow from that stem.

    By the end of the pre-breakfast shift we had gotten pretty decent at not picking the wrong stuff - although our speed is still a joke compared to the workers…

    After breakfast we failed to find where we had picked on the first go and walked right past 🙄😂 finally there our skills had definetely improved. 😜 By the end of our shift at 11:00 the ten of us had collected 52 kg or 4.25 measurement buckets. That is about half as a worker 6-15:00 will pick 😂🤣    Read more

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