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Panama: Eight Destinations in Which to Spend the Winter Months

First Time Reader?

Why Panama? – This blog explains the rationale of 
the trip and this series of blogs.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lobo/excursions/1266327384/tpod.html
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 Volcán  and Cerro Punta - The Other Boquete?
Part 1 of 2
 
Destination no. 7 of 8 to Spend the Winter Months in Panama
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Date blog written: August 14, 2010 in Victoria, BC
Date of visit to Volcan: February 15, 2010
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Volcán, Spanish for "volcano", is another destination in the Chiriqui Highlands that is becoming more popular with expats. So is it another Boquete? The short answer is – no.

Before I explain further let me backtrack a bit.

David is the starting point for travel to both Boquete and Volcan. 


Note: do not click on the word "David" or "Panama" in the following website address:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=David,+Panama+map&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=David,+Panama&gl=ca&ei=oYNpTKbdIoL6swPLjo2HBw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ8gEwAA
 

To get to Boquete on the map, scroll directly north from David till you see Boquete. Note that the Volcán Baru is just to the west and the Parque National Volcán Baru is just to the northwest.

Scroll back to David and this time scroll west along the Pan American Highway to the city of Conception. From Conception scroll north till you see Volcán. Note that Volcán is located to the west of Boquete and on the other side of Volcán Baru and southwest of Parque Nacional Volcán Baru.

Further northeast along the road from Volcán are the towns of Cerro Punta and Guadalupe.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/panama/chiriqui-province/parque-nacional-volcan-baru

So now that the geography is taken care of let's talk about the bus ride to Volcán and Cerro Punta.

I almost decided to pass up on Volcán but it was a comment by a fellow traveler in Boca del Toro that convinced me to come here and I am glad that I did.

I went to the bus station in David the evening before to check out the quai from where the busses leave for Volcán. There was no sign for Volcán, instead it was for Punta Cerro located five kilometres past Volcán. Unsure as to which would be the better place to stay overnight I asked the bus attendant. He suggested that I stay at Punta Cerro because it is nicer. He also mentioned that I should definitely go to a small hamlet called Guadalupe that he assured me is the nicest of all.


Boy, was he right.

Let's not mince words. The bus ride that I took today from David to Punta Cerro was the most scenic drive I have made in Panama with the bus ride to Boca de Toro running a close second.

In my original notes I have such phrases about the ride as: well manicured scene - What a contrast to the countryside in Mexico - Beautifully manicured lawns and landscaping - Well kept properties - pastoral farmland and many scenic "fincas" (farms) – Finca Amistad – lovely drive - I can feel it getting cooler – nothing flat about this terrain – cows don’t need flat terrain – these are Holstein cows not the Asian Brahman cattle – now coming to a change in vegetation as spruce trees start to appear.

Well anyway I think you get the picture even if the photos don’t show it.

I must confess that my photos taken during the bus ride are nothing to write home about. Had I made the trip in a car I would have been able to stop and take decent photos.


What impressed me most was the scenic ridgeline driving as the highway gained altitude into the Chiriqui Highlands and the beautiful rolling green hills that were home to many “fincas” or cattle farms. They were all extraordinarily clean and well kept and reminded me of what I had seen in Switzerland or the Allgäu Region of Germany. I learned later that families with Swiss and German connections own most of the farms.

If the early part doesn’t look like the Allgäu, the part from Volcán to Guadalupe certainly does and that comes from one of the German travellers that I mention later in the blog.

Volcán’s main attraction is that real estate prices or rental accommodations are cheaper in Volcán than in Boquete. So in the bargain you get the temperate climate of Boquete at discount prices. For that saving however you get a town that is a lot less charming than Boquet. Let’s correct that. The town of Volcán is basically without charm especially along its main commercial strip that is concentrated at the intersection with the highway that leads to Cerro Punta. While Boquete has a population of 20,000, Volcán has a population of 7,500 so everything here is on a much smaller scale.

Furthermore I took very few photos in the town of Volcan. There was a reason for that – there was little interesting enough to photograph. 


I must qualify my comment by adding that I did not see the residential areas of Volcan and that I spent very little time in Volcan.

Expat Interview : Don and Betty Balzer


At the local Romero Supermarket I had the good fortune to meet Don and Betty Balzer. Don is a chaplain for Shannon Oaks, a Senior Living Community in Vancouver, British Columbia.

http://www.shannonoaks.com/qry/page.taf

Don and Betty have traveled widely having visited 52 countries with their preferred means of travel being cruises. It was during a cruise of the Panama Canal that they fell in love with Panama. They considered it to be the most beautiful of their destinations.

According to Don, Panama is a retirement haven with Boquete being its main retirement destination. That is where they went to check it out for themselves. They found nothing in Boquete suitable in their price range as the least expensive rental accommodations that were acceptable to them were between a $600 and $650 per month. They went on Craig’s List and found a lovely one-bedroom “casita”. It is attached to a house owned by a couple from Arkansas with “absolutely everything included” even Internet for $300 U.S. The only catch was that it was located in Volcán.

The casita is owned by a family from Arkansas and is located a 20-minute walk from the center of Volcán.

They acknowledged that Volcán is not everyone’s cup of tea as it has no entertainment, very laid back, quiet with only barking dogs and crowing roosters breaking the tranquillity.

They felt that there were too many “Gringos” in Boquete and some are of the opinion that they have ruined Boquete as a result. Volcán is still basically Panama before the expats changed it.

Nevertheless Don indicated that outsiders for the purpose of developments have purchased large blocks of land.

Among them they mentioned the nearby “Hacienda Las Nublas” as a development that offers the best views in the area.

For a full view of the beauty of this area have a look at their website:

http://www.haciendaspanama.com/haciendalasnubes.html

At $50 a square meter apparently only 8 sites out of 60 have been purchased. It is a tough sell in these economic times

Las Nublas (the Clouds) is located at an altitude of 7,000 feet on the edge of the jungle with fantastic views.

Development in Volcán was scheduled to go ahead with great strides but has been cut off at the knees by the global economic downturn.

This has prevented Volcán from slowly becoming another Boquete.

Both Don and Betty also spoke of their love of hiking and how the surrounding region was great for hiking.

They like Volcán because “people are friendly here” even though they do not speak Spanish. As an example he cited a situation where they were lost and asking for directions. A local who did not speak English took them to an expat who lived nearby to get they information that they needed. There are about 500 expats who live in the Volcán region.

On the negative side they indicated that there is garbage everywhere as well as the “manana” attitude but you get used to it. There are spiders, ants and the odd scorpion but there are no mosquitoes.

The temperature ranges between 60 and 80° F. making for an “eternal spring” climate due to its location in the Chiriqui Highlands. Panama has 2 seasons – dry and rainy so it is important to know that the “dry” season is from December – April.

I asked Don and Betty whether they would buy property in the Volcán. To my surprise the answer was – “no”.

Reasons they gave was their lack of fluency in the Spanish language, lack of dependability on the part of locals and just the difficulties in getting things done. They bought some lights in David that turned into a 3 -4 hour ordeal. Don says that he does not want to enter into business deals as he does not have the patience for that. In conclusion, they just want to stay in their little “casita” and enjoy the Volcán region in the company of their “wonderful hosts” – the Arkansas family.

Cerro Punta

The surrounding Chiriqui Highlands get even nicer as the bus headed five kilometers further to the small community of Cerro Punta. (“Cerro” is Spanish for peak or Mt.)

The town is little more than what one finds along the main street and it decidedly has an agricultural feel about it as there are more “fincas” and “haciendas” in the area.. Unfortunately I have not been able to find the definitive difference between a “finca” and a “hacienda”. Some of the stores cater specifically to an agricultural base.

I stayed at the landmark Hotel Cerro Punta that can be described as adequate accommodations at best for a reasonable price of $25. Based on the “For Sale” sign, it is an older hotel looking for a new owner to put some new life into it. The dining room is “old world traditional” with plenty of wood paneling decorated with hunting trophies. The meal I had there in the evening was good but when it comes to food I am easy to please. The service is friendly and welcoming.


Perhaps the best attribute of the Hotel Cerro Punta is the surrounding vistas of which I took one of my favorite photographs. It is also centrally located for access to Volcán and nearby Guadelupe.


Lobo’s Featured Tourists: Wilfried and Maria

In the dining room of the Hotel Cerro Punta I met a German couple - Wilfried and Maria from Friedrichshafen located on the northern shores of Lake Constance. Maria is a physical therapist and Wilfried is a botanist/zoologist who very much liked exploring La Parque Nacional Cerro Punta for its diversity of vegetation. It was he who told me about the strange wispy growths hanging on the trees are called bromeliads (Tillandsia usneoides).


Wilfried and Maria had also experienced Panama is a very un-touristy type of fashion by spending extended time on a “camarca”. In Canada we used to call a “camarca” an “Indian Reservation” but it is now referred to as a “First-Nation’s Reserve”. Spending time on a “camarca” with the natives would be an incredible experience few outsiders would share.

They also loved Costa Rica and had been there on several occasions. It was the natural wonders of Costa Rica that particularly enthralled them as they described it as a beautiful country.

This was the most positive assessment of Costa Rica that I had heard on my trip through Panama and may have been a deciding factor in my deciding to travel to Costa Rica after Panama.

They suggested that I visit Santa Elena and Santa Elena National Park with its series of hanging bridges as well as Parque Monte Verde.

At this point I had no knowledge of Costa Rica, nevertheless it caught my imagination to think that there were hanging bridges running through the jungle. Perhaps it was worth exploring?

Wilfried and Maria were also kind enough to give me a large map of Costa Rica that became invaluable in my eventual travels through that country. I also enjoyed our far-reaching discussions in German over breakfast the next day.

By the way it was Maria who commented that the landscape around Cerro Punta reminded her of her native Allgäu region of southern Germany. It is a comparison I also made in my last blog about Boquete.

One final postscript: It is a Small World

At the Hotel Avenida in David, on two different occasions, I met a young German traveler by the name of “Martin”. The second time that I saw him he was nursing a broken foot.

It turns out that he was hiking by himself in Parque Nacional Cerro Punta. While descending a trail he twisted his ankle to such an extent that he could no longer walk. It was Wilfried and Maria who found him in this condition and made arrangements to have him evacuated and eventually to a hospital to have a plaster cast put on his leg. This all happened after my meeting up with Wilfied and Maria at the Hotel Cerro Punta.


see: David - Interviews

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lobo/excursions/1266521585/tpod.html

For further info about Volcán :
 
 http://www.volcan.chiriqui.org

Coming Soon: Guadalupe – Does it Get Any Better Than This?
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Feedback: travelswithlobo@yahoo.com
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