Alone on the World?

No, not exactly. Not even in Panama and we are not even the only investors in Mariato district.
During our first visit, we negotiated with a Señor Remigio, who wanted to sell 47 ha. At that time he did not go lower than 17,500 US/hectare and he wanted to sell it all. Well, since we do not have a million to invest, we looked elsewhere. Today we heard that he did manage to sell to an Austrian investor for 16,500 USD/ha. That is still about 750,000 USD and much more than we can afford. But good for him.
There is also an American who is investing in Veraguas. I really couldn’t help overhearing him in Clarocom café since he seemed to think he had to shout in his phone to make himself heard in the US.
Somewhere else in the district a plot of 500 hectare, initially bought by Swiss people for reforestation with teak, has now been sold to a Norwegian who is going to build a golf club. Apparently the area wasn’t good for teak at all (makes you wonder whether those Swiss were stupid or played some game to make money).
We also heard that a french couple, who already worked in eco-tourism in the Dominican Republic, have settled on Gobernadora Island.

Are we afraid of the competition? Not at all, most of it isn’t competition in the real sense anyway. Most investors buy land, subdivide it in smaller plots they prepare for construction and then sell those plots on. This appears to go a lot slower than people want you to believe.
Again, when we were in Mariato in January, one guy had sold two plots: one to himself and one to his brother. Now, half a year later, he has sold another one.
OK, there is a lot of money coming in when you sell a lot (they go for about 65,000 USD) but the costs are quite high as well. Getting electricity to his plot costed about 20,000 USD. So I doubt he will be a millionaire after having sold his 20 plots.

The French couple are far away on an island, so we could probably collaborate rather than compete. When all is said and done, it appears that the Peace Corps is the most active organisation in ecotourism here. Peace corps is trying to help local communities to take advantage from the rising number of tourists by helpoing them to provide the services tourists are looking for.

More about them soon!

p.s. It should now be possible for everybody to make comments direct.

Land again , but also about a house

Yes, we have advanced another step on the road to landownership. Last Monday 14 August we signed the commitment to buy the land in Veraguas. The official ceremony took place in the town council of Mariato because one of the parties involved cannot read and has to put his fingerprint.

The Sunday before we also visited the plot ‘briefly’. We went to bring a copy of the commitment of the landowner, for him to read or to have it read to him. That was done by the granddaughter of the owner. The granddaughter is the owner of the house we want to buy, and she came along to show us the house that we would like to buy. We had a good look and noted that a lot of work has to be done to rehabilitate the house, so we offered less than the asked for and got the price we had in mind. The house has somewhat deteriorated because no-one has lived in it since 2001, except for a couple of bats and spiders.

However, real estate is about location and this house is right on the road and surrounded on three sides by the plot of land we want to buy, so it makes sense to get the house as well and include it in the property. And we can use the house, after substantial rehabilitation and some extension, as reception and office

Yes it might look quite decent on the picture but it really needs a bit of work. It needs a new roof (some of the beams are rotten) and we want a steeper roof angle of stronger material that insulates against the heat. And we want to install solar panels and solar heat collectors on the roof. The floor needs to be tiled and we will have to inspect the water and electricity systems. But the good news is that there actually is electricity and running water. We also want to put in more glass windows, to make it lighter. The picture only shows the front of the house. At the sides and the back, windows consist of ornamental breeze blocks. Very safe against thieves, but not against insects and they let in very little light.

While granddaughter spend tim ewith her famliy, we also ran around on the plot of land we want to buy with a tape measure, paper and pencil. Since it is rather hilly, we tried to establish the location of the peaks and valleys so we can start thinking of what to put where. This is physically quite challenging at 30 degrees centigrade and 85% humidity. We now understand better why the livestock keepers want to sell hilly land: Cows spend so much energy grazing on hills that they do not gain weight But it is interesting for our purposes. You can lay out the buildings in such a way that guests can have the privacy of their own little valley or hill top. We could also get into de diet-holidays: To get from your room to the restaurant you need to climb ten hills so weight loss is guaranteed!


p.s. sorry today somehow the photo´s do not want to upload.

Measuring up in Panama

To measure is to know, as the Dutch saying goes, but what do you know when more than one measure is being used? Well, we advise you to pay close attention. Apparently, the Panamanian government has never decided which set of measures they prefer or which should be legally displayed prominently in order to protect the customer, so you have to be careful when you shop around.

Distances are measured in meters and surfaces in hectares. Unless you talk to a building contractor, who will give you a cost estimate on the basis of the building area in square feet. However, should you decide to tile the place yourself, you will discover that tiles are sold per squere meter. You probably know that Americans use ‘letter size’ rather than A4, because of that option in a well known text editor. But did you also know that, in order to file that paper in ‘letter size’ files, the holes you perforate in the paper need to be a little bit closer to each other than for filing in A4 files?

By the way, speedometers indicate speed in miles per hour and in kilometers per hour, the first in large numbers than the second. However, the total milage the car has run is given in kilometers. Fuel is sold in (US) gallons, as is milk and paint. Wine however, comes in 0.7 l bottles, soda in 1 and 2.5 l bottles, but also in cans of 12 fluid ounces.

Fresh food, such as fish, meat, vegetables and fruit is sold per pound, but butter and margarine are measured in grams. Prepacked food comes in just about every imaginable size and unit. Size and unit usually depend on the country of origin. So balsamic vinegar is sold in a bottle of 250 ml ℮, locally bottled olive oil in a bottle of 8 oz and peanut butter (from the US, where else?) comes in a 12 oz jar. Panamanian coffee is sold in packets of almost 1 pound (212 g. = 7.5 oz). Note that packaged food from the US and Panama does not use the ‘℮’, which means that the weight stated should be the minimum weight, rather than the average weight.

You can buy Panamanian rum in bottles ranging in size from 175 ml to 1 gallon. However, be very, very careful. Next to the bottle of 1750 ml, a large sign from the supermarket claims that this bottle contains half a gallon, which is incorrect. After all, half a gallon is 1892.5 ml. Perhaps they think that peolpe who drink such quantities of rum are unable to calculate anyway?

Birds of Panama, the Tanagers

That Panama is located in the tropics is obvious, even from the birds you see in the city. In the city centre, not exactly a green zone, I have already seen three species of parrots, humming birds and a bat falcon. Other common birds are kingbirds and tanagers

If you go to the metropolitan park, you will see many more species. The Metropolitan Park is actually about 200 hectare of tropical forest, now virtually surrounded by Panama city. Apart from over 200 species of birds, you can see sloths, the endemic Geoffroy’s tamarin (a small monkey), coatis and agoutis. The tamarins are getting more and more rare because their habitat is decreasing rapidly.

But back to the birds and more specifically the tanagers. Tanagers form a large group of neotropical birds. Most are brightly coloured and feed on fruits. You see them quite often in gardens and if you put out some fruit, you can easily lure them quite close. In the tree nursery located in the metropolitan park, the staff put bananas on the fence and this attracts many tanagers. Tanagers appear to be quite social and friendly birds.

Because Kees, as you might know, likes to watch birds and hopes to become a bird guide and accompany other birdwatchers in Panama, we wanted a bird in the logo of our company. Since tanagers are colourful, social and friendly, we decided to name our company after them and to put them in our logo.


The tree trunk shaped T (big and small) symbolizes the reforestation part of our project in Veraguas and the birds and trees together symbolize our commitment to the environment.

What do you think of our logo?