Panama's Best Kept Secret - Potrerillos

[Music] hi i'm sue davis i'm ed davis and we're from fort collins colorado we've been here just over 10 years and primarily in the puerto rios area we had some friends who had been here 20 years ago and bought land planted a thousand teak trees they wanted the four station reforestation visa they built a house and a garage and we were fascinated by what they did so when it got time for us to retire we remembered the stories they told us about panama and they said here are the keys to the house here's the keys to the car go check it out so december of 2010 that's what we did and then in february we came back because we couldn't believe our eyes it was so beautiful and we just wanted to confirm that this is everything we thought it was and when we got back from that trip we tendered our resignations and got ready to go sold everything we owned and packed four suitcases and came to panama such a warm welcoming bunch of people and were interspersed throughout all of this area as well as down in puerto habajo because this is ariba um but people next door are from united states and people down the way are from south africa and there are people from wisconsin and texas and so so diverse community but it's we've got lots of panamanians living around us some indigenous really great folks and everybody just gets along so well we love it here there's a little fonda down the road just a couple miles and when we first got here we found that the food was so inexpensive we seriously thought about eating there twice a day and not buying groceries but [Music] usually when we do buy groceries we go to price mark or if we need something quick there's several little tiendas around here that carry along you know a long line of products [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sue calls this area a goldilocks land because it's not too hot and it's not too cold it's just ripe bulkhetti was a little cool for us and a little wetter here it's it's drier less humidity but the temperature is always moderate so that's what we like about it most yep between 70 and 80 degrees almost every day and night so it doesn't vary a lot and of course being this close to the equator the the days are equidistant i mean it's six o'clock in the morning and six o'clock at night uh got it 12 hours of daylight 12 hours of night time as we got into more house city we got more animals and take care of and but we've had quite a range of house city but we enjoy it very much we started out renting and the people who lived there went back to the u.s and asked us to take care of their house while they were gone and then we went back to the u.s and they called us and said we've sold to somebody else they've agreed to let you rent so when we came back we rented from them for a while but then they decided to sell the house so we were house sitting again and then people in the area and our friends and neighbors heard that we did house sitting and pet sitting so that began our primary adventure just going around primarily in portrayals and a couple of times in boquete but house sitting and pet sitting and it's a lot of fun you know you get to see so many different neighborhoods and get to meet new neighbors and take care of their critters and we like it a lot [Music] [Music] selamar do we go over to volcano although it's beautiful sarah punta is beautiful with all those terraced gardens and vegetable gardens up and down the hillsides um but there's so much to do and so many good shopping places in boquete and david that we don't even think about vulcan although it's pretty but when our friends come here we take them there yeah to see it and we seriously looked at settling in vulcan but it was a little too chilly for us there and a little windier [Music] we were up in el banco before at the hummingbird house where we cared for about 70 hummingbirds who ate voraciously five pounds of sugar a day we were feeding about every four hours it was like having an infant except these were little fluttery crazy hummingbirds and it was beautiful probably about 15 different species and they were absolutely gorgeous so that was called the hummingbird house this could be called the butterfly house i i've seen so many different butterflies in this area right here i think they're drawn by some of the flowers out front but a species i've never seen before just gorgeous puerto ricos is about 2700 feet elevation we were at about 46 40 42 42 2200 1800 meters uh pochetti actually means little pastures and so that's what you see around the whole area are meadows and pastures and and farmlands and this is very rural this is for people who love uh the country life we are now campesinos portrayals itself about four years ago they put in sidewalks throughout the city the village and uh and you know the roads although some of them are a little tricky to to uh to walk on uh lots of people hike throughout the area in fact hiking is one of the best activities for us ulsters and we meet up with friends and walk with them and early morning between seven and eight great time still nice and cool everybody's so friendly too so everybody comes out and says hi and and the dogs don't bother anybody and the dogs that we are walking past they're you know for the most part pretty cool pretty chill [Music] these horses um we just got to meet them when we moved in less than a month ago alejandra is a mayor and her philly calypso is probably a year old two-year-old i think they're pasopinos which means that they were bred for their smooth gait there's lots of people with pasafinos in the area and the folks who own them are just around the corner and you know it's fun to have horses in the backyard especially these two they're so friendly you'll notice there's no bars on the windows we do feel very safe there's a little more people in the neighborhood than was on the mountain but we still feel feel safe and everybody's so friendly here that it's comfortable there's an uh company named rodney direct and rodney moreno is the founder and owner of this company it's a emergency contact system and he's available to tell people uh like emergency um folks where you live if you call him on his special number and you're part of his organization you're you're a member um then he guides ambulance or fire or police to your house giving them complete directions but he's a lot more than that he um he'll also do translation for you if you're not very good in spanish yet and you're talking with a policeman or a clerk who doesn't seem to understand you he will translate for you and he can tell you why your water is out and what's wrong with your electrical system that you're not having electricity today he knows about all the holidays and what's going to be happening those days are not happening so he's a great resource for us and we've always been part of his system it's so inexpensive like ninety dollars a year and it to have that peace of mind that he's available to you 24 7 right on your phone i had an amusing thing happen to me we were in santa marta and i turned and didn't there were no signs there but there was a policeman right on the other side of the road where i turned on and he wrote me a ticket for an illegal left turn well sue had already contacted rodney and i had rodney on the phone and i asked rodney to talk to the police officer and rodney talked to him for just a minute he handed the phone back to me and said pay the ticket but yeah but i was in the wrong so it was funny [Music] we like to go to los lajas we don't get there as often as we would like to now with the dogs and everything but we love it there it's a small resort uh very clean and uh the service is excellent and uh the rooms are moderately priced uh we we love it there and the beach is uh walkable it's not steep uh but it's it's a good beach so yeah and the little resort there las lajas beach resort only 12 rooms but each room has two queen beds and a single bed so if you've got a family you can you can house everybody the restaurant is terrific so that's kind of our happy place las lajas you go down to david and head toward panama city it's very pretty simple and the road's a lot nicer now since years ago they've updated the pan american highway so yeah we find that a lot of things are more affordable than uh what we found when we lived in colorado for instance our monthly electric bill is generally under fifty dollars our water bill here was less than five dollars medical and dental is very affordable so even people who don't have insurance can get to see a doctor for fifteen dollars a specialist for sixty and because we're older and we're on the pension auto program we get to enjoy a lot of things for with deep discounts automotive services are very affordable here body work and mechanical work so and of course the vegetables and fruits are amazing and roadside stands are the way to go you can find very fresh almost organic things there and and it's um it's not hard on the pocketbook i think the medical care here is excellent many of these people were trained at prominent universities and medical centers in the u.s many of them most of them speak english which is great for us and um we have a little medical clinic right down here in portrayals that can handle some very minor things if we needed any more care it would get we'd probably take about 35 40 minutes to get to the hospital that we generally go to for exams and things like that we have a doctor that we use in boquete and she speaks some english gives a great exam and has helped us in a couple of places when we've needed it i had to main poisoning one time and she knew exactly what to do and within a matter of a day i was up and around again you know it's amazing how many people don't know about po trios boccetti gets a lot of play magazines and throughout the throughout the country i think there are a lot of people from panama city who have second homes and vacation homes in boquete area but i think puerto rios has become beginning to see some of that activity in that interest too primarily because it is rural and it's very quiet no traffic and people just love the vibe here it seems that the houses we've seen in boquete and a couple of them we've house set were close to the u.s prices of housing and here in puerto rios the house we just came from sold for less than 200 000 and it was a two bedroom two bath house with a couple hectares and it's a it was a two-story house with terraces and wraparound windows and yeah very affordable so and fabulous views yeah of the ocean you can see the ocean from there [Music] primary challenge is the language although even if you don't speak spanish fluently pan-medians really appreciate you're making the effort and they're very they're very kind and very patient and even if you don't use the grammar correctly they they won't generally correct you and uh so that was a challenge so i would say if you're if you're planning to move to a country where you've got a different language spend some time before you get here to really learn the language and then hang out with with people in the area so that you're practicing your language frequently yeah it's a it's a safe city and it it suits our our living i the city we came from went from what sixty 000 when we first moved there to almost 200 000 and the traffic was just bumper to bumper and but it's one of those cities in colorado that they suggest you retire to but i like potentials better so we're within walking distance of friends who have free range eggs free-range chickens and and their eggs are fabulous they feed them special greens and they also have a greenhouse it's called global food providers and they they raise greens and then dehydrate them and powderize them and make them available to um widows and to children orphans so they're it's an outreach program for them and um and then right around the corner is our church so we're within walking distance of our church is a home church and so we've got everything right at our fingertips pretty cool well that's one of the main reasons i was glad we left colorado after uh one weekend uh it was a year or two before we left it snowed 31 inches i didn't get to do anything that weekend except shovel snow so but i think we even have a photo of it yeah it's so mild here that you know it's pretty much the same temperatures during the rainy season or during the dry season so yeah we love her there are lots of activities in potrios and boquete that deal with charities and some that one that we belong to is buenos facinos de buchetti but they serve the potteries area as well as the boquete area and providing families who are in who have food scarcity families who are supporting handicapped kids or adults we provide them with non-perishable food every month we get together and put the food baskets together and then deliver the food to many of our clients so we get to see these clients and interact with them and some of us have been dealing with the same families for five six years so we've watched their children grow really connected with them but there are lots of activities in charities like that people who love dogs and cats amigos day animalis in boquete there are plenty of people here who take part in their monthly program uh of spaying and neutering dogs and cats at very affordable prices and there are cat refuge and dog camp that rescues primarily dogs and so there's a lot to do and a lot of things that people can be involved with in 2012 we had an opportunity to go see our kids in germany our son was with the air force at that time and so we went to germany spent a little time there and then went to paris and then we spent almost a month in italy which was absolutely fabulous florence and rome and sorrento and siena and really beautiful places then some friends of ours a pastor and his wife were retiring and they wanted to go back to ecuador to quito specifically where they had done work with the wycliff translating program 25 years ago and so they asked us to come with them and we did it was great fun it was so beautiful ecuador is um you know the andes are so amazing they make our little vulcan peru look kind of tiny but so we went in september and there were still there were already snow-capped mountains we traveled to a beautiful city called cotekachi kodakachi and right nestled in this valley with the andes around it and it's a very touristy town in some ways and in some ways it reminds us of potatoes too though the the people there the expats are very um close to one another and do a lot of activities together and the town was a beautifully organized and well laid out very clean somebody goes through the whole town and washes down the the streets every day so but the whole culture in ecuador was lovely lots of fresh vegetables and lots of handicrafts and it was an amazing place but we like we like it here better than kodakachi we like panama better than ecuador um i think it's a it's a gorgeous gorgeous country we love it [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Panama Relocation Tours

Views: 38,791

Keywords: Panama, Retire in Panama, Expats in Panama, Living in Panama, Panama Relocation Tours, Retire in Panama Tour, Potrerillos Panama

Id: ZpgTzQketyo

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 12 2022