I had to do it, I had to follow the bread crumb trail to Cuenca Ecuador to see why International Living and others haver called it a best place in the world to retire, last week and maybe this week also. I decided to do the trip by bus from Guayaquil Ecuador, I was told the trip was about four hours. About two hours to get out of Guayaquil and through an agricultural valley until turning to ascend the endless slow, mountainous road up 2,500 meters to Cuenca. The road is under construction, has shear drops, landslides, traffic and few places to stop. Not a drive or even a ride would enlist to repeat. The bus fare was $8, there was no air conditioning. Going up the hill the bus was filled, coming back the next day it was empty. Maybe no one leaves Cuenca?
Upon arrival I saw a large city, over 400,000 metro, sitting in a high mountain valley. Cuenca is not to be compared to Boquete Panama, it is an entirely different experience. An old urban core, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, like Caso Viejo Panama surrounded by unsightly urban sprawl.
Cuenca is under contruction, hoping and desiring an influx of new immigrants. The economy appears to need them. Ecuador depends on oil sales and remittences, income from Ecuadorians who leave the country to work and send money home. The world economy has cut that revenue, it has cut oil revenue, it has cut tourism revenue and the pain is spreading.
With a lot of help from my friend Patricia, she selected Cuenca over Boquete, I found a wonderful Hostel for the night. There was no comparing this hostel to Hospedaje Caso Veijo, this was Hostel Casa del Rio was spacious, it was clean, it had hot water and it was empty. I was the only guest.
Obviously in one day in Cuenca I cannot provide anything but first impressions and once I was ensconced in the old quarter I had only one first impression; Antigua Guatemala. This city had the character and flavor and yet according to anecdotal reports is a safe place day or night. It is still not suffering from Gringo inflation or bingo. Prices are very low compared to Panama on most everything. I was never once gouged for being a non local.
If you like big cities, like Spanish colonial charm and like weather a bit colder than Boquete then Cuenca is on first blush an interesting place to explore. I was hard pressed to find a traditional restaurant for dinner, lunch is the main meal in Ecuador so nothing exciting until the next day on food.
It was interesting to wake a seven in the morning and find I had to roust the innkeeper to open the door and let me out. Cuneca starts late. At 7 am I could not find an open place for breakfast or even a cup of coffee, just newspaper sales booths.
With a lot of help from Patricia I discovered the culinary treasure of Cuenca, the municipal market. The nicest I have seen, perhaps ever. A new building laden with everything, Ecuador. We stayed about an hour but I could have moved in for a week.
Fruits and vegetables fresh and abundant including many I could not identify.
Smiling faces at the meat counter and above it all traditional food, lots of it. Including these two Guinea Pigs trying for my attention.
Sadly I had neither the time or appetite for them on this trip. Perhaps next time because I do think Cuenca is worth another visit.
Tomorrow I will be back in Panama City at a conference on offshore retirement, a competitor to International Living. I will be happy to report my observations here after some processing.
There was one interesting observation I saw in Cuenca. The few English Speakers I did meet there seemed to have one common thread that you will not find in Boquete. They were lost in a cultural sea, a sea of being a virtually unnoticed minority in an ocean of local culture. The Anglophone community there is scattered and does not havea cultural theme of it’s own. To me after three years in Boquete that might seem exciting but to enjoy that you either need to enjoy solitude in an urban environment or be fluent in Spanish and slide into the culture.
Here is one thought to consider based upon my experiences and observations for three years without ever having had the benefit of a sales pitch on off shore retirement. If you decide to make a major move to another culture for retirement remember this; you are making the move. That translates to this, regardless of where you are, you need to discover happiness and satisfaction in you, not your environment. This type of transition is difficult for anyone. The difficult is compounded when you are also transitioning your life from work to retirement. My observation is many if not most people fail and return to their point of origin within one year.
October 9 is Independence Day in the city of Guayaquil and the city celebrates. There was a parade, I skipped it. there was a regetta of ships on the river.
As the day progressed I felt an anticipation of the evening. I was told the party begins at eleven at night and keeps going. In my anticipation I asked around to discover typical street food and I was directed to this booth someplace near the downtown area. The lineup of people was a good hint something was special about the food here.
A pig on a bun, roast pork and pork skin, chili sauce and flavor overload, $1.50. If you visit know the sanduche, sandwich is called a Chancho, and this place is Mr Chancho.
This place is so popular they appear to be adding a real restaurant across the street., home of the once smiling pig. I was smiling after the sandwich, thank you Babe.
Not much more than a year ago an icon of the Expat community in Boquete Panama announced she was moving to Cunenca Ecuador. Like many people I wondered why, I told her I had money on her returning within six months. I was wrong she lasted a bit of a year. I really have no idea what motivated her move or her return but I decided I wanted to see a little bit of Ecuador.
Fortunately I had a corresponding friend in Guayaquil, a well known local author and Physiologist and she offered to show me her home city. This is the first of a few posts about my observations in my short time here. Dra. Quila found me a nice inexpensive hotel about three miles and a $5 taxi ride from the airport. The Hotel Marcelius is neither the Raddison Decapolis nor the Hospedaje Casco Viejo but in a place square between the two with a cost of about $60 a day. Ecuador like Panama is a US dollar economy so currency conversion is not an issue here, no Bolivars or Pesos but lots of US Sacagawea dollar coins; I wondered where they all went.
I am writing this after scarcely 36 hours here so it is very much a first blush. I spent yesterday walking through downtown Guayaquil. The city is large and coastal with wide streets in the downtown and a beautiful river park. The Police and military are visible everyplace.
The feel of the city is cosmopolitan more like Buenos Aires Argentina than Panama City. We visited two museums
Mueso Presley Norton is laden with archeological treasures and Mueso Nahim Isaias, art, in particular a collection of religious art.
The food in Guayaquil is exactly what you would expect if you did not keep hearing stories about Ecuadorians eating Guinea pigs. The city is on the coast and the primary foods are from the sea. We joined Dra. Quila’s daughter and her boy friend for lunch. A simple local fonda.
The food was unexceptional but different. The Seafood plate was fresh boiled seafood served over a gruel of green plalntain.
The shrimp Ceviche looked enticing also.
Today is independence day in Ecuador and I hope to observe some more of the local public life.
At least once a week, usually more, I drive past Rancho Paisa in Alto Boquete. It is on the highway to David and in the past I passed it by. Yesterday Heather and I were driving back from David and decided to heed the sagely advice of Susan Thoms, “STOP there, it’s good”.
As usual, Susan was right.
Rancho Pais, named after the Paisa region of Columbia has some exciting cuisine.
“The Paisa cuisine is very influenced by their traditional rural background of the mountains. It belongs to the Colombian Andes cuisine with abundance of beans, rice, maize, pork and cattle meat, tropical fruits, potato and several types of vegetables.
- Bandeja paisa: It is the more traditional dish and is generally composed by carne asada (grilled steak) or carne molida (finely ground grilled steak), chicharrón (fried pork rind), rice, red beans, a slice of avocado, sweet fried plantains, a fried egg, a small white corn arepa, and sometimes chorizo (sausage). Bandeja paisa is also a very popular dish served in Colombian restaurants in Europe and the United States.”
- Boquete’s very own touch of Northern Columbia has some of these treats in a relaxed unusual atmosphere. The Restaurant is under a giant thatched roof.
- But there is more including a pool table and real swimming pool.
- There is the food, hearty fair from Paisa like this Bandeja de Carne, $10 and too much for the two of us to eat.
- Out first impression, we will return. They are open from 9:30am Wednesday through Sunday and it is a great place relax, chill out, play pool or swim and not have internet access.
I eat at restaurants all around Panama, I write a lot about restaurants in Boquete. With the exception of a great location for fried chicken in a broken down truck I have never had an exceptional meal in Bocas del Toro; until now.
Heather, Gumby, Rae and I had the opportunity to have dinner at the Garden of Eden in Bocas del Toro, twice. Not everyone has that opportunity, the meals are only available to guests. The resort is wonderful, dinner was better.
Served in a palm frond covered ramada by Helena and her staff everything about the meal was fantastic. Mood, drinks and above all food.
Our first evening was seared tuna, it was perfect. Seared on the outside and succulently raw on the interior. The second night was lobster, fresh caught by local indigenous and brought to the dock. My lobster was prepared by rolling in fresh shredded coconut and fried. I have never has this preperation before and it was hot, crunchy and the lobster was moist, most incredible.
The rest of the group received not one but two lobster tails steamed and bathed in butter. My daughter who has eaten lobster in every restaurant she could in Panama proclaimed it the best. Once again moist and succulent, not achieved in the normal Panamanian tendency to overcook.

It is worth staying at the Garden of Eden to relax or even just for the food and drink and not having to call a water taxi to take you home.
If Napa California is about wine, then Boquete Panama is about coffee. For people living in Boquete Panama before the influx of expatriates, the economy was coffee. It was when the price of coffee collapsed that local farmers sold their farms to developers and expats who had fantasies of growing and selling boutique coffee.
I have a small, postage stamp sized farm, far smaller than required for economic viability. Boquete coffee from either Jaramillo or the slopes of Volcan Baru is about the best in the world. I have written about growing, picking and drying in the past. Today, with the help of my friend Richard of Finca Dos Jefes, I am going to share my initiation to roasting coffee.
Finca Dos Jefes, located in El Salto on the foothills of Volcan Baru, produces an excellent crop of organically grown coffee. I showed up with a bag of beans of my own for Ricard to roast. One look at the beans and he explained they were not ready to roast. They were separated from the cherry, cleaned and dried but they still had the thin parchment layer around the beans. Perfect for aging, green coffee should be aged several months before roasting, but requires parchment removal.
Pretty with the parchment on in the photo above. Ready to roast without parchment in the photo below.
Richard is hand sorting the beans prior to roasting to remove any imperfect beans, stones or other debris. The roaster at Dos Jefes can roast about two kilos of coffee in approximately twenty minutes. You should always request freshly roasted coffee if you really want the flavor.
Richard, clip board in hand is about to release the beans from the hopper into the preheated rotating drum. The drum is at 420F before the beans are added. The temperature rapidly falls as the cool beans are introduced. It fell to 203F and then started to rise again. As the temperature increases, Richard checks the beans for color and aroma at various stages.
At 363F the beans have a pleasant aroma and are starting to gain color.
By 386F they have cracked, sounds like popcorn popping. The color is darker, a light roast.
By 405F the beans are at a medium roast, where I wanted them. The next step is to rapidly cool the beans. To do this they are dumped into this cooling tray and moved around until cool.
I was given the difficult task of opening the chute and emptying the roasted, cooled beans into a tray, where they need to rest for 12-24 hours before bagging them into a vacuum sealed bag. The process is impressive and the taste of your cup of coffee depends on the quality of the beans, the preparation for the roast, the roast and the freshness of the post roasted coffee.
I did not know that when roasting coffee loses about 20% of it’s green bean weight and puffs up also. I try to learn something new everyday, today was full off coffee lessons.
Put you nose up against the screen and smell the aroma of fresh roasted Boquete coffee. If that did not work call Richard for a roasting experience.
Richard is giving interactive coffee tours of Dos Jefes, in this real boutique coffee experience you can learn all you ever wanted to know about coffee production then roast your own organically grown coffee. You get to take a pound you roasted home with you to savor the experience. You can contact Richard at dosjefes@gmail.com or call his cell phone, 66 77 77 48 . Richard speaks more English than Spanish so don’t be shy.
Almost three months ago I took guests to the Oasis restaurant in Boquete Panama to try a rack of lamb, it was not to their liking. Although I really enjoy eating at Oasis and recommend it, their lamb was not the best. This past weekend a group of dedicated lamb consumers and culinary taste testers decided to try again.
After considerable cogitation Terry and I decided that we needed to find a lamb and someone with the proper qualifications to prepare it.
Panama is not known for it’s lamb but hidden in Poterillos Arriba is Hacienda Rancho Arco Iris. We discovered it is a cornucopia of lamb and sheep. Roger and Susan the owners have pastures a plenty, filled with the raw materials for a lamb dinner.
We called them and arranged for a lamb pickup, one complete lamb butchered and ready for the kitchen. Before going I scoured about for ice chests not having much of an idea how big a dressed lamb would be. It turns out that our lamb once butchered, weighed 22 pounds and fit neatly into one cooler.
With the lamb on ice they next step was to find a qualified culinary expert. After careful research we discovered that the minimum requirement to cook lamb is an Australian passport. With that knowledge we turned to Geoff and Caroline our hosts in Montanas de Caldera. After turning the lamb over to them Terry and I were instructed to go consume some cold beer and leave the rest the experts. It was easy to relax in the garden and watch two professionals at work.
After a short time discussing the weather, it has been beautiful, we found the lamb was reduced to two legs, two shoulders, ribs and lovely racks. For Sunday dinner for eight our hosts they decided to use the Barbie, not the doll from Mattel, the primary cooking implement from down under. Lamb legs, potatoes, and onions were doused with a fragrant mixture of extra virgin olive oil, mint and salt and massaged gently.
After several hours of slow cooking, dinner emerged and it was fabulous. Our taste testers confirm that you can have great lamb in Panama if it grown with love, harvested with love, aged at least 24 hours and cooked by Australians.
Our hosts have a perfect venue for entertaining both indoor and out and the combination of good food, good company and surroundings made Sunday dinner a treat.
If you want a lamb for your barbie contact roger or Susan at fincaarcoiris@yahoo.com the lamb is $3.50 a pound dressed out or $2.25 a pound on the hoof and still walking. For an Australian you can contact Geoff or check at immigration in David.
After a satisfying breakfast and in anticipation of a late lunch what could be better than a Heineken and bitterballen. Around the world people know and drink a Heiny but outside of the Netherlands and it’s settlements it might be difficult to find Bitterballen. I a lovely outside bar in Curacao we discovered a perfect bar food.
Bitterballen (plural of ‘bitterbal’) are a savoury Dutch meat-based snack, typically containing a mixture of beef (minced or chopped), beef broth, flour and butter for thickening, parsley, salt and pepper. This is also called ragout. Some recipes also include nutmeg and/or curry powder. The ingredients are combined and cooked, then refrigerated so the mixture can firm up. Once firm, the filling is then rolled into balls roughly 3 cm in diameter, and battered in a breadcrumb, milk and egg mixture and deep-fried. They are typically served with a ramekin or small bowl of mustard for dipping. They are eaten in the Netherlands and Belgium, and hardly anywhere else. Popular on Dutch pub menus, bitterballen are very similar to kroketten (plural of ‘kroket’) in their ingredients and preparation/cooking methods, as well as flavour, though kroketten have a distinct oblong sausage shape, with a similar diameter, so kroketten are larger. Wikipedia
Note the Heineken is a Pilsner not a Lager.
Boquete Panama is not a port city, however Panama City has a port on the Pacific Ocean and Colon a port on the Caribbean. Panama has long been a cross road between the seas and a point of entry to the seas. If you are a resident of Panama the addition of Colon as a port of departure for cruise ships is an opportunity.
Opportunity might come in a potentially in a rejuvenated tourist shopping center in Colon. Colon was the only port of call with no one selling anything to the tourists, an opportunity lost for a city with so much history. In fact the current benefit to Colon is a few jobs for security at the port and a small increase in taxi revenue. Colon needs an overhaul to benefit an investment in infrastructure and safety.
Panamanians made up a large portion of the passengers of this cruise and if their experience was like mine, it was wonderful. If you have never been on a cruise imagine an well appointed floating hotel, the old style, all inclusive of lodging, food and entertainment., liquor was an extra cost item. Each day you wake in a new port and can tour, walk or just stay on the ship. Eat, swim, dance, listen to music, eat, drink, nap, hot tub etc etc etc. If you have been to the Decameron but not on a cruise, it is similar except the food is better, the entertainment better and add the spice of a new port daily.
This was my second cruise, average cost was $70 a day per person including lodging, food (more food than you could eat), gratuities and alcoholic beverages. I will omit the small loss in the casino and the duty free tobacco products also consumed and enjoyed. Because the point of departure was Colon, traveling to the ship was a $15 less jubilado discount from David to Panama, a $2.50 bus ride from Panama to Colon and a final $2 taxi to the dock. Stated simply because the port of departure is in Panama, a cruise is a very inexpensive holiday.
Each person finds what is appealing to them on a cruise ship, the carrier makes many options available. Being a bit of a foodie the food is both the pleasure and the pain for me. Royal Caribbean has a buffet of some type available almost 24 hours a day. The buffet food is very good, they also have a lavish restaurant open for breakfast and dinner daily, lunch on days when the ship is at sea. On my last cruise I avoided the dinning room, on this cruise I succumb to the temptation and my friend Hilda the “Pirana” taught me that once is not always enough and if you want to try a second appetizer, entree or desert just order it. I found myself satiated with one but the option is there and she proved it daily.
The food in the dining room is as good as the best I have had in Panama and included many items not often found here. It was a refreshing change in diet.
From Prime rib to scallops and shrimp on pasta
The hazard of the ship board cuisine is two fold. First it is too easy to eat too much and despite the track the gym and the shore walking it is difficult not to over indulge. The other is the tragedy of not having an appetite for the treats to be discovering in each port of call.
Like this menu in Bonaire, I think it is in Dutch?
or this a home for displaced foodies in Bonaire.
I did discover a few things less attractive to me, but fun to see also.
I will find myself back on a cruise next time the opportunity presents and then I can try to learn culinary self control.
American television has Iron Chef an import from Japan. In Boquete Panama we have the Woolford and Buddies Ribathon, contest of six teams attempting to win the Big Boner Award for producing the best ribs in competition. 120 Pounds of pork ribs and 24 hours later the contest ends in the Ribathon.
As a warmup for the assembled masses, Gene a man told his is not qualified to cook a hot dog in Buffalo New York, prepared 50 pounds of chicken on a grill. Fortunately for him, Carol his buddy was qualified to make an excellent dipping sauce thereby saving him from Ribathon obscurity.
You can observe the effect the chipole sauce has on Genes hair dew. As the afternoon progressed you can see one of the qualifying master chefs of the rib, Lynn, massaging her ribs on the grill.
Notice how she clutches her shoulder to inject spirit from her being into the grilling ribs. Could this be a secret to success?
As the masses watched with laughter, rum induced, and amusement, a situational interlude, the judges convened. The judges were carefully selected from people found drinking at Amigos and were fully vetted as having no bias and perhaps not taste buds. You can observe in this photo Carol and Gene trying to bribe Adrian’s father, the most professional rib eater in the group.
Other judges including, Judge Judy King, Joe Kim, master Korean Rib taster, Horseradish Pat and a mystery judge hidden behind Pat.
The tension was in-palpable as you can see Jayne Ferrell could barely contain her anticipation as to who would receive the judges nod and the big Bone.
Then came the climatic moment, Judge Judy announced the winner. The big bone went to Tom, Dr. Pepper and as you can see here Barbie massaged the Boner Petit before handing it to Lynn the winner of the Peoples Choice award for ribbing us all. Lynn promptly broke out a bottle of Champagne that she brought along for the occasion.
Finally the winners posed for this momentous victory photo after a lap around the grill.
It is important to note that no kosher pigs were sacrificed for this event, I know, I asked. s good time was had by all and for those who saw Lynn at Amigos in the evening yes that has her Boner Petit award she was caressing and showing off to Papa Ricco.
