This is a titled, 14.5 Hectare (a hectare is about 2.5 acres, so this is about 36 acres) property in the Chiriqui Highlands located in the village of Las Nubes (The Clouds) on the Chiriqui Viejo River a few thousand feet from the entrance to the La Amistad International Park. Las Nubes is a farming community which includes the largest park in Panama.
There is so much to say about this property that it is hard to begin, so I think it is easiest to simply tell its story. The short version is that friends from the States have owned the property and we have worked together to built it. But they have decided to stay in the States to be with family and now it is mine. I am Luis Galan, with a large farm adjacent to this property.
My friends came to Panama over ten years ago. They planned to retire there when Carol quit teaching (she was my teacher in the States). And to jump to the end of the story, one day they found out that they were going to be unexpected grandparents and they moved from Ohio to Sequim, Washington in the Pacific Northwest where they are busy building a house and a flower farm a few miles from the family. And the idea of spending most of the year in Panama has fallen to the wayside. But they didn’t know that then. So they looked for property with good roads, good neighbors, river, some tillable ground, building sites, and abundant nature. This property checked all the boxes. The village of Las Nubes is a farming community at the end of the road that leads to La Amistad park (or PILA as it is called locally).
It is easy to get to;
- just take the Pan American Highway (or InterAmerican as it is called there) almost all the way to Costa Rica,
- turn right on the Via Volcan in the town of Concepcion,
- then turn right on the road to Cerro Punta in the center of Volcan,
- left on a road with no name that we know of by the big potato farm (we say turn left at papas which is potato in Spanish) at the edge of town, and soon you will be in Las Nubes.
If you are not familiar with Panama, you are getting a taste of addresses and how folks get around. Our property is officially “Casa Rosada on the left after the second Las Nubes bridge”, but it’s now painted green, not pink. This is Panama.
The property has some elevation behind the house and lower crop areas with old growth cloud forest covering it. There are a few acres close to the road where they have built and where they have already prepared the ground for more building sites, greenhouses, or just farming in general. There are a about five more acres that are farmed, with the best land near the top of the property where there is deep, rich volcanic soil. It is currently farmed by the family that owned the farm before. They grow typical cool weather crops for the region, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, and the like. This region is the breadbasket for the country. All the vegetables for the country come from the highlands, where it is cooler.
As to future crops on the property, one would give serious consideration to Geisha coffee. It is a little hard to grow, but extremely rewarding. And for what it is worth, it should be said that this location is all about nature. There are English speaking neighbors in Las Nubes, and plenty of such in Volcan, Boquete, etc. This farm is adjacent to one of the largest natural areas in Central America; La Amistad Park is a national treasure and a World Heritage Site.
A Google Earth map can take you right to Las Nubes if you search for “Las Nubes Ranger Station” and when you zoom out you will see the general location in the country. You may notice the border between Costa Rica and Panama to the west where the border bumps out into Panama so that our property is about 12 miles from the border. And you can see that the Park extends for many miles to the Atlantic. And that we are close to the Continental Divide. At 7000 feet above sea level, Las Nubes has a very cool climate, much like say San Francisco.. As this is written the temperature there is 56F and the high was 66F which is typical for the village. Not much rain to speak of today.
This google earth image shows the property. The red line is close to correct. There is a smallish parcel between the river and the road of no more than half an acre. The property line then follows the river’s edge for a while and then it turns straight up the mountain where it then follows the tree line back to the left side of the image. Most of the forest is virgin cloud forest. There are big trees in there, hundreds of feet tall in some cases. Each of these huge trees is a complete ecosystem full of orchids, ferns, birds, and the like.
When they arrived, there were no buildings. They first built a smaller house with a little over 500 square feet with an open floor plan. It is built using M2 construction which is a foam core inside a steel frame that is “plastered” with concrete. It can be sprayed with a machine or even troweled into place. The result is an exceptionally strong, well-insulated wall with a lot of resilience compared to cement block. This is the higher end construction in Panama. It is a nice little house with a fireplace, adequate kitchen and a large bathroom with laundry, along with a king size bedroom. And for what its worth, we like sitting on the porch in the morning with coffee listening to the roosters doing their job on the nearby farms, and again in the evening as the sun sets. It’s our favorite thing. And since then, they built a large extension (over 1000 square feet) to the house. More on that below.
They also built a small very secure storage building for tools. It’s a solid concrete structure, lots of steel and concrete, including the ceiling. These are typically called a “deposit” in Panama.
Later they built a garage and workshop. It too was a secure building with concrete ceilings, etc. And it was modified to include a rustic apartment. It is well suited for a farm worker and their family. The caretaker lives there now. Or it could be used as a rustic hostel for bird watchers and hikers visiting the park.
This is the garage/shop and apartment on the left. The building you see on the right is part of the addition or extension we have added to the little house. More on that further down.
One of the next things that was built was a trout pond. There is a spring coming off the mountain (these are called Ojo de Agua or water eye) and we installed pipes and built a “cement pond” in a natural basin in front of the house. There is a lot of cement and steel in that work. The mason that built it for us is convinced all gringos are prone to excess. It is a pretty thing. You could swim in it, if 60F water is to your liking. There is Koi in it now rather than trout as Koi don’t require much care.
Around this time, they added a small set of solar panels to the mix. Power can be a bit irregular in Panama and it is nice to have a generator or some other source of power for at least lights and entertainment. It’s a basic system, but it works well and is set up to run lighting and entertainment.
As they became used to living there, they decided to add on to the living space. They planned for Air B&B type rentals or simply adding space for family and friends. I helped them and we built an addition or extension as they call it in the region. It is pretty good sized, a bit more than a thousand square feet. It is also built with M2. It is quite tall with what one would call cathedral ceilings which are teak. It is built shotgun style like the old New Orleans houses with a living room, bedroom, bathroom, terrace all in a row. Tile and lighting was shipped from the States, and it turned out quite well. We found a large bathtub in Panama (a tub is not common in Panama homes). Lamps were brought from the States, many of which run off the solar panels.
So, when you have a river, you must have a bridge. This style of bridge is called a “vado”( or a “ford” in English). These concrete culverts are some six feet in diameter. It’s quite massive. The idea is that should there be high water, the water and associated debris will come up and just go over the top. This is a common construction in Central America. Originally, they built a conventional bridge, but nine years ago there was a storm that flooded the stream and destroyed the old bridge. The government came and widened and deepened the river to remove that threat for the future. They designed the replacement bridge and we built it. It is an exceptionally strong and well built bridge. There is a lot of steel and concrete in that bridge.
Please look at the photo galleries. This is probably the best way to see the property.
And a few more thoughts that were suggested by friends not familiar with the region. If you live in North America or Europe, you likely have well defined seasons of one sort or another. In Las Nubes, the temperature tends to stay about the same all year; it is cool and springlike and we tend to have 12 hours of daylight every day. And it can even feel chilly at times; visitors from the lowlands where it is always hot say “mucho frio”. Think San Francisco and the like. There is more rain in November and December, typically in the afternoons. So we have a fireplace that is a practical addition in a cool weather climate. And if one is lazy and doesn’t want to bother with a fire, a small electric heater works fine. In addition we included provisions for a future solar heating system by embedding pipes in the floors to each room and the utility room.
And then there is the question of amenities. It surprises some that Panama is pretty much like the States in that regard. The roads to Las Nubes are paved and easy driving. No street signs for the most part of course, but that is how it is. We have power, phone, excellent internet, and water from the community. Cell coverage has been weak at the property and we have installed a little signal repeater that helps, and excellent backup lighting from the solar panels. Internet bandwidth is quite acceptable for streaming and remote working in my mind (25 years running an ISP in the States). And now there is fiber service with TV, and very high speed bandwidth available in LasNubes. As to goods and services, Cerro Punta is five minutes away. It has restaurants, grocers, hardware, farm stores, gas stations, and even police. And the next bigger town is Volcan, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes away. Volcan is like any small town in the States, plenty of larger grocers, restaurants, gas stations, banks, building/hardware stores, and a hospital to boot. And still you will find yourself driving on to Concepcion or even David (the Provincial Capital) to see the doctor or buy materials from a larger supply house. And the best part of any of these drives is the roadside kiosks where fruit and vegetables are sold. As to hiring help, it works best to find help that others refer. The rules for employing workers there are not unlike the States with a few twists that are uniquely Panamanian.
And as to the cost of living. The short version is that cement, steel, vehicles, fuel, and imported food are about the same as the States. If you own your home, your vehicle, and actually cook at home, you can live a life of luxury and do so economically, even on the likes of Social Security.
And while they no longer own the property, they are glad to chat about life in Chiriqui.
As to the property itself, it is titled of course and the deeds are held in a Panamanian SA (a Sociedad Anónima, which is the equivalent of an LLC in the States). The SA does no business other than own the property. This makes a sale a very simple process.
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