February 15, 2015
As you drive around town, you will notice parallel cuts in the road surface.
These cuts represent the location of the new, high volume sewer line that will be installed beneath the roadway. It will send effluent that is clogging the old system, out to a new treatment plant about a mile south of town, between Rio Corotu and Rio Guanabano.
There are also half a dozen pumping stations in deep bunkers at various locations along the roadways. Large scale motors will pump sewage originating in town, out to the new treatment plant.
The original sewer system was built by Chiquita Banana. Some sections of the old cast iron sewer/galvanized steel water system are 50 - 70 years old, or more. The Chiquita system was of excellent quality and it has held up years longer than its design lifespan.
However, complete lack of maintenance by the local municipality, coupled with damage by several earthquakes, have taken its toll on the system.
Right now there must be about a dozen places where raw residential sewage flows freely from “last resort” pvc tubes onto the beaches, instead of out to the treatment plant.
To an equal, but less stinky degree, broken water mains gush freely, or spray, where they have been wrapped in a “bandage” of cut bicycle tire tube.
The work on the Puerto Armuelles water/sewer system should take the better part of 18 months to complete. The Puerto Armuelles Project is part of a national project to upgrade sanitary services. The system is being constructed by IDAAN (Instituto de Acueductos y Acantarillados).
A $100 million dollar loan from the CAF (Inter-American Development Bank) will help to fund projects in Chiriqui, Veraguas, Bocas del Toro, and Panama provinces. Total cost of the projects is estimated at $126 million.
This project is good news will be a relief to many residents. Although local residents have been amazingly patient about these repairs, I'm sure they will be happy not to have the smell of sewage filling the air.
Things are moving on all levels in Puerto Armuelles these days.
We recently spent an extended visit in Seattle, Washington. Given all sorts of pressing reasons, we ended up staying in Seattle for almost 10 months.
FYI We originally moved to Puerto Armuelles, Panama when my daughter Skylar was 5 years old.
Since then, Skylar has spent almost a whole year in Seattle when she we 6 and again, most recently, when she was 12 years old. We usually have only visited the States for 1-2 months each year.
In a way Puerto Armuelles and Seattle hold the same place in my heart, though they have different appeals
Skylar with a new friend, about to ride the duck in SeattleOn the one hand Seattle as more prospects for me in the way of activities, schools, and new friends.
On the other hand Puerto is my home. I 've even lived here long enough to pronounce the town name correctly. Saying Pu-er-to seems to be an unfathomable accomplishment for most of the retirees here.
(I, Betsy, made the graphic using her bullet points)
I Love Both Places, But Maybe Panama A Bit More For Its Freedom, Time, Friends, & my dog, ZiggyThis is especially true if I can bring my dog Ziggy with us the next time we go to Seattle.
My family and I used to consider a trip to Panama City a truly painful experience. At best a necessary evil to get extra pages in a passport or catch a flight.
Now our whole family looks forward to luxuriating in Panama City for a few days. We still wouldn’t like to live there, but now we enjoy, instead of lament, our visits.
In some ways, the changes to David, the 2nd largest town in Panama, have been even more
Conway is only 1 of the many new & compelling stores in Daviddramatic. Whereas Panama City used to be a chaotic "jumble", a big town struggling to become a city, David, as recently as eight years ago, was a sleepy place.
Its feed and fertilizer warehouses catered to the numerous cattle ranches in the surrounding hillside communities. Since then David has exploded in population, buildings, services, and ex-pat residency. In short, David has grown in every direction but up. Its limitation on going up is only because of its soil. For seismic safety, buildings in David cannot rise above 8 to 10 stories.
Here in Puerto Armuelles, we consider David to be a "not too distant" place to do our major shopping trips. You can buy pretty much anything you want in David, which was not true even 4 years ago. But now you can buy anything from an Apple computer to a tea kettle in David. While you can buy all of life’s necessities in Puerto, for luxury items a trip to David is still needed. About once a month we load our two kids into the car to do a "Costco" style shopping trip at "Price Smart", the Panamanian equivalent of a Costco. Of course, there are Panamanians, and expats, who think nothing of hopping in the car to drive to David every day, either to shop, or to conduct other business. If an hour and fifteen minutes in the car doesn't bother you, David is that close, or that far.
For the past year, construction crews have been working double shifts in an effort to complete the 2 lane expansion of the existing 2 lane highway connecting Puerto Armuelles to Paso Canoas at the InterAmericana Highway. (The InterAmericana runs the length of Central America, ending at Panama City)
With four functional lanes for travel, the drive between Puerto Armuelles and David should drop to just under an hour. This would place Puerto Armuelles within the radius of being considered a "bedroom community" to David. This new proximity to David is at least part of the reason for the presence of a whole new wave of investors and residents, both Panamanian and expat, seen driving around the town's various neighborhoods. Many are buying properties that are considered to be undervalued.
To see Puerto's values, browse our listings here.
Currently there are at least 4 expat homes being constructed or remodeled on beach front lots in Puerto Armuelles. Though the local Panamanian builders here are still best known for low wages, and not for high quality, there are several builders, both Panamanian and expat, who consistently provide good quality at a reasonable price.
We even have one builder, Luis Miranda, who has a whole portfolio of homes he has built in Boquete's famed Valle Escondido gated community. Luis is currently in Puerto Armuelles doing an extensive remodel of an existing waterfront home. The current expat community now includes those who can afford to build more luxurious homes than we have seen in the past.
Currently, the only decent hotel in Puerto is the expat-owned Tsunami Inn; located in the beach neighborhood of San Vicente. It is where most international visitors spend the night. Owners, Scott and Bob (not a gay couple) are super friendly, relaxed, and give a good impression of what a low stress tropical lifestyle is like. They have recently completed two new cabanas, bringing the total to six.
Meanwhile, just down the beach from the Tsunami Inn, expat entrepreneur Milton Hutto is also building a beachfront hotel. I not yet been able to speak with him, but it appears that he is remodeling an existing houses, as well as building a brand new section right at the edge of the beach. This project is also in the San Vicente neighborhood of Puerto.
Milton has alot of experience building in Panama, he is likely to create a successful new hotel. Both hotels, given the current surge in interest in Puerto Armuelles, will most likely be full for the entire high season of December through April.
were similarly valued, 8-15 years ago. You can find those same values today in Puerto Armuelles.
For those of us who long ago discovered Panama's only true beach town of Puerto Armuelles, we can only wonder why it took everyone so long to find it.
On July 19th, Puerto's Downtown Waterfront Park Was Dubbed "Parque Ecologico"
Puerto Armuelles' San Vicente Elementary School
has created play structures, furniture, and planters from old tires. It is part of its recycling program.
With no help from any organization or government entity, this elementary school has developed its own recycling program. I commend the students and the
The tires add playful color to the parkprincipal for making it happen.
However, my heart sank when I first saw all the tire structures put up in the park. But it is amazing what a fun and colorful paint job can do to tires. I am pleasantly surprised by the cheerful effect.
The school did get the support for the park project from Panama's Bandera Azul program which supports environmental awareness projects. It is promoted by Panama's First Lady and administered by ANAM, Panama's National Environmental Authority.
ANAM was here in Puerto on July 19th to celebrate the structures the children had created by repurposing old tires.
Coincidentally, the beach or park railings are being redone. As you can see in the photos here and the photo gallery below; they were way past repair.
My family and I go to the park often; 2 to 4 times a week. In the last year or so the railings have disintegrated at an astonishing rate.
We often shared our concern over the condition of the park with our friend, Alberto Carbono, of the nearby Don Carlos restaurant. Each of us wanted to do something to help fix it up. Neither of us could drum up enough money to finance the railing project.
Then a few weeks ago, the local community started to donate money. It started as a trickle, but it is gaining momentum.
Just last week, Diputado Osman Gómez (a local politician) donated $500. Now the railings are being built at a rapid rate.
The cost per section of railing is $125,
Please consider donating to help buy rebar, paint, cement and labor so all 50 railing can be rebuilt.
Give your donations to Alberto Carbono, at the Don Carlos Restaurant located in front of the park.
The park is particularly special to Alberto. Not only was he was instrumental in the getting the park and the sea wall built about 15 years ago; but the park is also named after his father, Carlos Alberto Carbono. (See the photo at the top of this page).
His father also started the restaurant across the street from the Park, He named it after himself, Don Carlos. Alberto and his mother still run that restaurant.
If you go to his restaurant, ask to see the scrapbook Alberto put together detailing the process of getting the seawall and park constructed. It was done in the last years of Chiquita; but without Chiquita's help.
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Basically, it takes 5 and half months before the banana plant "gives birth" to the banana fruit.
Then it takes about 2 weeks for the bananas to fully grow.
To help them ripen and protect the bananas from insects the bananas are covered in a plastic bag, while still on the tree, for about 90 days.
Chiquita used chemicals and fertilizers on their banana plants. However, they are not necessary.
We have many banana plants in our yard and we never use chemicals or fertilizer.
In the video, you can see two ways bananas grow.
Take A Spin At The Fair in Puerto Armuelles This Weekend
The fair has come to town!
Depending upon who you are, this is either a wonderful event or something to avoid.
The Fair Has
We Always Enjoy The Fair. This is a 2010 Fair Photo.If you visit Puerto Armuelles this weekend, you will hear the fair until the wee hours.
We have kids, so we will be going.
We always have a good time. I particularly enjoy the bumper cars and browsing the stalls.
The San Antionio de Padua fair is much bigger than the Fair that comes to Puerto Armuelles in March.
Maybe we will see you at the fair on Sunday.
Puerto Armuelles' 2-Lane Road Will Soon Be A 4-Lane HighwayPresident Martinelli gave serious weight to his “soon” timetable, declaring that he and his close associate David Ochi, who will head the project, are giving themselves a deadline of 700 days in which to complete the new highway.
Of course, deadlines of public projects in Panama are proposed so that they can be broken. Still, with $114 million in government funding budgeted for the highway, it seems clear that there is some serious money to be made on the project. Both the President, as well as David Ochi, are well known to be highly motivated by money.
Given that workers on the road expansion are already actively looking for places to rent in Puerto Armuelles, it seems that Martinelli's speech was not just talk. The road expansion really does seem like it will happen "soon", even in the North American sense of that word.
As a sidebar to this story, for sometime there has been talk of President Martinelli’s friend Mr. Ochi quietly taking over the leases on many hectares of the former Chiquita Banana plantation around Puerto Armuelles. With the defunct banana workers’ syndicate, Coosemupar, safely out of the way, it was just a matter of time before a major Panamanian player found a way to wiggle into a position of control of the Banana Plantations.
What does this mean for Puerto Armuelles? Plenty.
After the departure of Chiquita Banana from Puerto, several international fruit companies, including Dole, Del Monte, and even Chiquita, have expressed interest in taking over the production and distribution of bananas from Puerto Armuelles. However, each interested party has been either given the cold shoulder by politicians, or actively scared off by threats of more labor union action.
The real problem was that there was no major Panamanian investor who stood to benefit from the renewal of Banana production in Puerto Armuelles.
Now that David Ochi, and most likely, President Martinelli himself, stand to make millions of dollars from the sale or lease of the banana plantations, as well as making tens of millions of dollars on the construction of the new Puerto Armuelles/Paso Canoas highway, the project is a “definite”.
Better still, if the president and his associate David Ochi want to get funding under his own administration, then they will have to get started right away.
Meanwhile, gringo retirees continue to trickle into Puerto Armuelles, at an increasing rate every year. It’s not a flood yet, but it seems clear that the Ex-pats are in Puerto Armuelles to stay. The new highway is sure to draw more attention to Puerto Armuelles from retirees, as well as foreign investors.
But you really need to see this piece of beautiful Panama real estate in person.
It is located in Panama's only true beach town of Puerto Armuelles.
Click the link below the video to see the listing details.
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There is no Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall It’s always about the same temperature. You don’t need much of a wardrobe; In fact you hardly need anything at all.
Because life is reduced to its basic elements, one quickly falls into a routine here. You might think that it would get boring. Yet, somehow there are lots of little “extras” to keep things from becoming tedious.
For instance, yesterday my eleven year-old daughter woke up and was so excited. She came running to alert the family. We had to get up and see the sunrise. The morning sunrise was the most spectacular red that any of us had ever seen before.
This morning when I awoke, I was greeted by the neighing of a small “herd” of the neighborhood horses. They looked up from their grazing to give me a little “nicker”, as if to say “good morning”. Wow!, I thought, the new foal is really getting big.
As I write, the birds are beginning to warble and chirp in the trees, and the huge flock of parakeets that swarms around the neighborhood every morning like a squadron of miniature emerald green fighter planes on patrol, is just warming up its engines.
From the forest behind our neighbor’s house, I can hear the grunts and guffaws of a family of howler monkeys. They have broken their slumber and are getting on with the day’s tasks.
As with much of life in the tropics, the monkey's “to do list” is quite easy to remember: Eat bananas, sleep; Eat papaya, sleep; Eat mangos, sleep….etc…etc…etc...
A few mornings ago, I had one of my most unusual, even frightening, adventures. It happened in the midst of a perfectly routine morning.
Most mornings, while the family is still asleep, I tip-toe downstairs, have my tea while listening to all the morning sounds. Then I drive the ten minutes to our favorite beach for a swim.
I find swimming slowly on my back, looking up at the morning sky to be the perfect meditation. Generally, there are gulls and pelicans dive bombing schools of sardines just offshore. Far, far above, practically touching the quilted tufts of clouds, can be seen isolated silhouettes of frigate birds, dense black construction paper cutouts, against a soft pastel sky of gentle white and blue.
I usually ignore the feeding birds nearer the sea, instead focusing my eye, and my mind, on the more “distant deeps and skies”.
On this particular morning, I was in my “zone” steadily stroking along the beachline, eyes fixed far overhead. The waves were quite small, so I was swimming close to shore, in water barely waist deep.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught site of a black shape on the water, not too near. “Pelican” registered my mind. But something in me had already registered that it was definitely not a pelican. It was too sleek. It was too sinister feeling.
…. To be continued….
