A Welcome Sight

Whether you drive the 437km to Las Lajas from Panama City, or the 75km from David, there's always a feeling of homecoming when you turn off the PanAmerican Highway and see the "Bienvenidos a Las Lajas" sign straddling the road to the beach.

As you can see, the road is in excellent condition. This is the case all the way to Playa Las Lajas. The last two kilometres to our development are still rough - but in time we'll have a good road.

The township of Las Lajas is the closest residential area to us. It's a prosperous community which has recently installed several very neat bus shelters.

The day I took the pictures, the dog you see to the left of one of them was feeling very threatened by the dolphin statue at the front. Each shelter is different. The slogan on this one means "Las Lajas, Mountain, Sea, Sky and You." All the murals were hand painted. The store behind it is a local bakery. There is a good general grocery store in Las Lajas where you can buy pretty well anything you want, although we prefer to buy our meat in the supermarkets in David, which are world-class.

http://www.laslajaspanama.net/

Paradise Found

We were driving west along the Panamerican Highway from Panama City. On the way we stopped off at a number of resort developments, but couldn't seem to find anything that took our fancy. We stayed overnight in Penonome, and continued the same sort of itinerary the following day. We were beginning to think Panama wasn't for us, but still held our optimism for Boquete, in the Western Highlands. Many Canadians retire there, but we were of a mind we would prefer to be on the ocean.

By about 4:30 in the afternoon we had dawdled so much we realized we wouldn't make it to Boquete before nightfall. The highway across Panama is a good one, but we didn't want to be driving into the town in the dark.

We consulted the guidebook and discovered there was one, 14 room hotel at a place on the beach called Las Lajas. We decided to take a chance that they would still have rooms left (remember it was Carnaval), although when we saw a sign that it was 18km off the highway, we almost turned around.

The road to the hotel was a good one (except for the last 100 yards). They had one room left (phew!). We checked in, took our bags to our room, changed, then walked out to the beach - life changed in that awesome moment as our jaws dropped when we saw the beach, the waves, the sun, the surf. It was PERFECT, and there was hardly a soul on the beach even though it was a national holiday. Our one night stay turned into eight! We discovered that the beach not only looked good, it was safe - no riptide (unlike Las Ollas a few miles away). I have a fear of water and yet I could frolic in the waves at Las Lajas without qualm. The water is shallow for a long way, the bottom is all sand-no rocks. The waves are huge, but once you've jumped over them you are in waist-high water.

After a couple of days we discovered there was a private development just two kilometres up the road, and the rest is history.

Why Choose Panama to Retire?

Many have asked me why I have chosen Panama as my retirement destination. A couple of years ago, we went to check out Belize, and came back firm in the belief we could never live in Central America. So we went to Panama in March 2011 with mixed feelings. We had read a lot about the attractive retirment programs offered by the government, so decided to go.

We flew into Panama City on Delta and stayed in a hotel our travel agent had found for us. We had booked on the spur of the moment, not realizing it was Carnaval in Panama - one of the biggest holidays in the country. So all things considered the hotel was pretty good - excellent food, friendly staff, convenient location.

Panama City itself was a big surprise. Futuristic, it looks like a movie set.

We planned to stay in Panama City only one day, then drive west. It was Sunday. We decided to check out a mall. Took a taxi - agreed on the price with the driver first. I can only say my jaw dropped open when we got there. The mall was huge, far bigger than any in the Canadian city in which I live. The stores ranged from very nice to high end. The crowds of shoppers were well dressed. Definitely not the Central America we saw in Belize.

We came back to the hotel, stood on our balcony overlooking Our Lady of Carmen church, and offered ourselves up to the universe. If it's meant to be...

The following day we rented a car, only thanks to the dogged persistence of the friendly hotel staff - did I mention it was Carnaval? We got totally lost, thanks in large part to the street closures for the holiday, but also a lack of what we would consider in Canada to be 'proper' signage.

Eventually we were crossing the Panama Canal over the Bridge of the Americas, on our way to Boquete in the western highlands. Many expats have settled in the Boquete area. As we headed west, we were surprised by the excellent condition of the highway, divided all the way to Santiago. Approval has since been given for the section from Santigo to David to be twinned as well.

However, I digress.

We have yet to get to Boquete.Why? Because on the way we stumbled upon Las Lajas, where we planned to stay overnight and instead remained for eight nights.

If it's meant to be...

Next time I'll tell you what we love about Las Lajas, and why we're building a condo there.