Cafe Au Lait and Merry Christmas Eve

If you are going to take a morning tour, make it a coffee plantation one. Carlos was waiting for us at 8:50 am making us the first to get seats in the van. We had to shuffle a couple of times as the van exploded with 10 other tourists, but then we were on our way.

The tour lasts a little longer than 3 hours. It start with one of the farms the family owns. They have 12 farms, but each is branded differently to distinguish the beans from each. A coffee plantation has much more than coffee. This one has banana and orange trees intermingled with the coffee trees. Not only does the variety of trees keep the soil filled with nutrients, but it also distracts bugs and birds from the coffee beans. Because coffee has to be handpicked, the trees get pruned about every 5 years to keep them at a manageable height.   

Carlos was a wealth of information that needed to be recorded, not just listened to. The beans go through 11 processes before they are even close to being roasted. Afterward, there are another 5 steps to go through before being bagged for sale. We went to 3 different locations: the farm, the plant where beans are processed, and finally a café for tasting.We learned that the stronger the roast of coffee, the weaker in caffeine the coffee is. French roast and Italian roast have less caffeine than Medium roast. The longer roasting times, take the caffeine out of the bean as the beans burn to make the two latter roasts. Also, they recommend 48 beans per cup of coffee when grinding it yourself.

Nescafe and other companies buy the poorer beans with shells and twigs, grind them up and produce 'instant coffee' out of all of it.

During each part of the drive, Carlos showed us the areas that are now ex-pat gated communities. We had to drive through one to pick up guests from a hotel within it. He told us that during the rainy season, the land erosion caused from clearing the land in order to build this community, led to flooding. Much of the community was under water. He shared that this is happening more often. Developers come in to buy land in extensive quantities and then strip the trees. Without the roots of the trees, there is nothing to hold the earth in place.

We asked what the natives thought about the ex-pat community. He said it all started with International Living magazine, which promoted Boquete as an inexpensive place to live. Now that people are coming in droves, the cost of real estate has been skyrocketing. He repeated what Chichi, our guide yesterday had said. Neither they nor other locals can understand why people need to build ultra-luxury homes when there are so few of them living in them. He has an American acquaintance who has a 6 bedroom/ 6 bathroom house, but lives alone and doesn’t entertain. A Dutch couple built a home that looks like a castle at a cost of one million dollars, but is now trying to sell it for two million.

Locals cannot afford to buy property any longer. Farmers are giving in to proposals for tremendous amounts of cash for their property, so they are selling out. The ex-pat community is trying to create a law where all the stores on the central street have to paint their stores beige with red roofs. The local government is paying for the first painting.  Within the gated communities, there are strict rules to follow. You cannot paint your house any color than the authorized color of the community. Only one dog is allowed and only certain breeds. Guests have to register before using the pool, but even then only with community owners.

With the wealth from outside filtering in, the prices of everything are rising. Locals who do not own property are having to move away from Boquete in order to survive. If they can prove they have absolutely nothing, the government will give them money for a little box house. It was an enlightening tour. The things that come from this that I find so incredible is that these people are leaving their homes to find a cheaper place to live, yet they spend as much or more to recreate what they had back home. This is also the ugly side to immigration.

Well it is Christmas Eve, which within the town is not apparent at all. Unlike the towns and cities in Ecuador last year, it is not very festive here. We walked to the church to check on mass times, but with doors wide open when we went to check, there were no signs, postings, or other hints of information about any masses at all, not even Christmas. Ron questioned a number of people in local stores about Christmas Eve mass with multiple responses reporting it was at 10:30 pm.

By the time we reached the church at 10:15 pm, it was obvious that the mass was over and everyone was leaving in peace. People were pouring out of the aisles, down the stairs and into their cars. Not a soul was heading into the church other than the two of us. Being a non-religious person, I was only there for Ron. He took it in stride, but I could tell there was disappointment there. We went back to the hostel and watched Christmas movies instead. 

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Cristmas Eve - What Again?

Returning to Quito has been stimulation let down. In Otavalo, there were Christmas decorations in the public squares, on the streets, in just about every store and hotel. In Quito, you are hard pressed to find anything festive at all. In one square, there are some white lights strung on a few trees that look like the way I used to put tinsel on the Christmas tree I got tired of being careful. They are just flung on without regard to symmetry or appeal. Stores are crowded as it is so why bother putting up decorations when people are coming in anyway. Only churches have some sense of style, but one crèche after another is not my idea of fun.

Adding to my misery, I cannot get a real latte coffee. It is the strangest thing, but each time I ask for a latte, I get regular coffee with hot milk separately or mixed, more commonly called café au lait. Describing in minute detail exactly what I want as I am practically climbing over the counter to demonstrate with their espresso machine, I get something different. Sometimes it is a demitasse espresso with milk in it or a demitasse espresso with no cow juice in sight. Where or where is The Daily Grind? Oh, yea! It is in Otavalo. Well here there is The Magic Bean, but that is in the new part of town, eight dangerous bus stops away, but it may be worth the trip.

It is Christmas Eve. It is raining. It is cold. I spot an espresso machine at the San Francisco Church gift shop and restaurant.  Hope is eternal. First we check out the gift shop; we want to approach this slowly and not scare off the barista. This is not a gift shop, it is a museum where everything is for sale. It goes on and on in this maze like fashion. Ron jokingly suggests I leave a trail of breadcrumbs so that I don’t get lost. I felt a need to tell him I loved him, Merry Christmas, and hopefully we would see each other again by my birthday in January.  Everything for sale of course was a replica, but beautifully constructed. It took me forty-five minutes to make my way through and find my way out again. We ordered drinks at the gift shop restaurant. Again, I was disappointed. The coffee tasted like they used pig sty mud to filter it.

There is no place to eat dinner at a reasonable hour. All restaurants are closing at 5pm. Not even the fast food restaurants are staying open beyond 5pm. We went to one place we had queried earlier and arrived at 4:20 pm, a bit early for dinner. They refused us, because we could not be done by 5pm.  We ducked into a close by fast food restaurant before they locked the doors. It is tough choosing a Christmas Eve dinner from a fast food menu, but dozens were doing it and I would bet many have diseases they don’t even know about yet.

Five o’clock in the evening, the streets were still mobbed with people. This is your big holiday. Get the hell home and cook dinner. Finish wrapping presents. Do something Christmasy, AT HOME! By 6pm, the streets were empty. They took my advice. We decided on 8pm Christmas mass. The only reason I go is because my heart would be in my mouth letting Ron go by himself. It is not confirmed, but the latest Christmas mass held at any of the 5 churches downtown is 9pm. I think that the police staff starts to thin out by 10pm, so for safety sake, they do it earlier and get it over with. It also gives all of the priests’ time to prepare milk and cookies for Santa.

Ron of course wanted to be at church by 7:15 to get a seat. Our church of choice or rather his was La Compañía de Jesús. I delayed us until 7:30 to reduce my agony. It was a joke. We had our pick of seats barring maybe 3 rows of pews. Long after I gave up wishing I had brought my book to read, the church was less than half full. Here is this church that is bleeding gold everywhere you look. They took up only one collection. By the time the basket reaches us, a quick perusal of the contents assures me it would not pay for a nice dinner at a semi-expensive restaurant. No fear of priestly embezzlement here unless they chip some gold from some hidden place. Even the wall sockets are gold.

Masses in Latin countries are so different. People are bringing up baby dolls with fire points coming out of his head. This is their Jesus from their crèche. They put these dolls and other items on a table to be blessed after mass. During mass, children are running around. People are staring with admiring eyes at the darlings, barely recognizing the fact that there is a priest up there doing something holy. Those who don’t belong to the child enjoyment society are busy speaking amongst themselves.

This is why I leave home for Christmas. I want the pomp and circumstance of other cultures to glide me through the holiday. It saves on sweeping up tree needles and repacking ornaments myself.

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Christmas Eve Evening

For this evening, we chose to book an excursion to Rainbow Springs Mitai Maori Village with the Kiwi Wildlife Park. The people at the hostel registration told us this was the best of those offered. Our transportation was here at 6pm to collect us and then some others along the way. After giving our names at the village, we were sent to a large tent where we were assigned to seating. Thinking the show would take place there, we took the prime seats being the first at the table. As it turned out, it did not matter. There were only four of us at our table and we were not there for long.

We were greeted by a Maori entertainer who it turns out was one of the shuttle drivers. He basically did a comedy routine, before shuffling us off to the food pit, where our dinner was roasting. They dig into the earth similar to a Hawaiian luau, but here were dozens of chickens, lamb, white potatoes, and their version of sweet potatoes. Moving us forward, we followed a trail that wound through what looked like a tropical forest. The greenery was lush, with a high umbrella of foliage protecting the delicate ferns at eye level. We lined a wooden post fence along the river waiting for the Maori warriors to paddle their canoe downstream. Just as we were waiting, one of the fathers went to grab his kid from going down the embankment, slid, and went into the water himself. It was little over ankle deep, but still mortifying. Only a few of us held back our guffaws. Once the warriors arrived, we were then shepherded into the entertainment hall.

As I entered the hall, Ron and I had become separated, so I went to save good seats for us. The strangest thing happened; my pants ripped. What was so strange is that these are cargo pants with a dozen pockets and zippers that I only wear on vacations to warm spots. They did not rip on a seam where one would expect a pressure point to be, but completely away from any stress area. The material just shredded. It was funny that the only reason I realized it was because we sat on plastic seats and one part of me felt a bit colder than the rest. When I reached back, I was horrified, but totally thankful I had a sweatshirt on. I took it off to wrap it around my waist to cover up. Then of course, I had to wonder how many people had spotted my southern exposure, but never mentioned a thing. Thinking back, I don’t recall any snickering. Maybe this was my punishment for finding the humor in the guy falling in the water.   

 Ten Maori men along with 6 Maori women performed various ritual dances, war songs, shared some of their mythology, and the ways they are trying to maintain their culture and language. Each one had ‘tattoos’ on their face, both the men and women. It was not until the end that we learned that for most of them, it was only cosmetics. However, many Maori have their faces tattooed for real, women also. There are four bird symbols used. The bat is the first, though not a bird, when the Maori first encountered one, they thought it was since it could fly. The owl, the parrot, and the kiwi are the remaining three. Each has their own significance for home, hearth, wisdom, courage and so on. This performance was very similar to that at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, but Ron had never seen it anywhere. For me, it is always enjoyable.

Finally, we had dinner, a buffet consisting of over a dozen dishes. The main courses were chicken and lamb. Both were melt in your mouth tender and delectable. The unexpected treat was a cauliflower salad with mayonnaise and sesame seeds. The cauliflower was minced finely; raw I think. It was so delicious both of us had to have seconds. Dessert was fruit salad, trifle, and chocolate Yule log.
All of this and yet the night was not over. We were taken on a tour to see glow worms.   Glow worms are not worms at all, but are the larvae (maggots) of a particular type of fly known as a fungus gnat. A small group of fungus gnats are carnivores; therefore, larvae of these species use their glowing lights to attract small flying insects into a snare of sticky threads. One species, Arachnocampa luminosa, is found throughout New Zealand, and others occur in Australia. When hundreds live together, on damp sheltered surfaces or caves, their lights resemble the stars in the night sky. The Maori call them titiwai, which refers to lights reflected in water.

Our continued nature tour included learning about kiwi and finally visiting a couple of them in their protected habitat. Being on the verge of extinction, they are heavily protected here. From here we were deposited into the gift shop, but our shuttle drivers were anxiously waiting for us by their vans.  

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Christmas Eve Day

Without a coffee pot available we resort to tea. Neither of us takes to instant coffee without a struggle. Ron was getting breakfast ready, so I decided to look for butter. At the reception, they told me about a ‘dairy’ a few blocks away giving me directions to find it. Thinking ‘dairy’, I was not sure what to look for, but pictured a place with cows that offered fresh milk, butter, and cheese. After following the directions for five blocks, I found Diana’s Dairy, disappointed when what I found is what we would call a convenience store. Besides butter, I was able to find a bar of soap, we had forgotten that at the supermarket too, resorting to have to use shampoo for showering. They also had band-aids, so I bought a small box for my blistering small toe.

As I left the dairy, I could not help but notice a lovely bakery right next door. They had luscious looking goodies, so I splurged on 2 mango muffins for breakfast. They had coffee to go, so I thought to get 2 of them, but they didn’t have way to carry multiple cups back. I had heard the woman tell the guy ahead of me to be careful, it was hot, which clued me in to ask before ordering. She directed me to yet another place down the street. I cannot help but wonder how much business they lose out on with such a simple solution at hand. With an armful already, I hesitated roaming down the street, but noticed that there was a coffee shop two doors away from the bakery, yet it was not the one that the bakery lady had suggested. I went in and sure enough they had a cardboard tray for me to negotiate the coffees, the muffins, soap, butter, and band-aids that I had to cart back to the hostel.


When I arrived bearing gifts, well it is Christmas eve morning after all, Ron had already heated up the two quiches we had bought as well as ham on garlic bread. The muffins were set aside for another meal, but the coffee was certainly good.


We had decided to visit the Agrodome: The Unique NZ Experience where there is fun, entertainment, and education. Sales pitches like these make me suspicious, but it did sound fun at the same time. I was hoping they were not pulling the wool over our eyes. Having an early breakfast, we had time to catch the 10:30 bus to get us to the Agrodome for the 11am show. Directions for reaching the bus stop were a bit convoluted, so we had to ask multiple times, but found it with 10 minutes to spare. The driver let us out right at the foot of the Agrodome entrance and we rushed up the 3 block long entrance to get our tickets in time for the show.


We bought the combo tickets, so our first event was the sheep show, but prior to it starting, you are welcomed to go around and pet the nineteen different types of sheep will be displayed for the show. Not one of the stars was sheepish about having his photos taken; they all posed like the little lambs they once were. One by one, each of the nineteen breeds of sheep were introduced taking their place on a pyramid stage where their breed name is displayed beneath them. There was only one that was naturally black, but three breeds with big horns. The commentator gave a brief history of each variety once they were in place. After all sheep were on their step, the commentator did a sheep shearing demonstration. A champion sheep shearer can shear 700 sheep in a 9 hour day. Once the poor spectacle sheep was now shown naked and sent off stage, the next event was the dog herding exhibition where three trained dogs show off their mettle in handling three petrified ducks, not letting them get out of hand or off of the stage. Finally, volunteers were called to the stage. Ron was amongst them. Each was giving a bottle, and then baby lambs were let loose to be fed by the volunteers. At the end of the show, the sheep were left in place for us to pet again and pose with for photos. All nineteen of them said “Make sure you come baaaaaaaaack soon.”


Outside, the next part of the show was a dog herding demonstration with sheep. The dog ran those poor sheep this way and that way, but it is obvious the dog is well trained. Last on the agenda was a farm tour. A tractor pulls an open vehicle that holds about thirty people. We were taken into the kiwi orchard, to examine kiwi just now fruiting. If kiwi are not yet ripe and kept cold, they can be stored for up to 9 months. After they start to warm, they will fully ripen, making them ideal for exportation around the world. We also saw an orchard of a fruit none of us had heard of before, something like a jiajua, though we did not see any on the vines, so we still do not know exactly what they are. We were treated to kiwi wine and kiwi juice mixed with Aloe Vera.


From here the real fun began. The farm has thousands of sheep, goats, alpacas, and one llama. We were told that due to the mild year round climate, all animals can live outside year round, so they have acres and acres to roam. However once they see this vehicle, they all come dashing toward it. We are all given handfuls of pellets to feed them and they know the good guys have arrived. If you have never been stampeded by alpacas, you have not lived. One red alpaca took a shine to me, but butted me each time I gave any food to a sheep or another alpaca. At the same time, she/he would whine letting me know I had an unhappy furball on my hands. It was tons of fun playing Dr. Doolittle. The last part of the journey was through the cow pasture, where they have twelve varieties of cows from around the world. One bull was about the size of the bull statue in the NYC financial district and is often shown in movies. Humungous!! www.agrodome.co.nz

All during this time, we were wearing shorts, but the weather changed cooling down considerably. Once the show was over, we were anxious for the bus to arrive. Standing on the roadside, when we spotted the bus, we flagged it down the way the driver delivering us had taught us, but the driver of this bus pointed and passed us by. It took a couple of cold minutes to realize he was going to turn around to pick us up on the other side of the street. We made it back in time to rest up for the evening’s adventure.

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