Los Islotes

[AMY TUSO]

Jessica, please share what you know of the development of Los Islotes. Are there grocery stores, doctor offices, shops planned? What about the general neighboring areas? How is the easiest way to get there from Panama City…drive or fly?
Thanks,
Amy

[AMY TUSO]

Jessica, could you please offer some insight on the Los Islotes development and surrounding areas/towns.
Thanks!
Amy

[COUNTRY EXPERT- JESSICA RAMESCH]

Hello Amy,

Sorry for the delay. I have not been to or researched Los Islotes (I tend to write more about towns and cities, less about private gated developments within a town or city). The website says it is a private gated community on the west coast of the Azuero peninsula (province of Veraguas).

The west coast of the Azuero Peninsula is an area I don’t cover because it’s not attracting expats (for a few understandable reasons, more on that in a moment). On this Panama Insider website you will find information on many places, including east coast Azuero towns such as Las Tablas and Pedasi. Azuero has one developed coast (east) and one primarily forested, undeveloped coast (west). While I have traveled the east coast several times and can recommend it as a place to visit or live, I would not recommend the west coast because the infrastructure is lesser and much of the land is national park land that should/will likely remain undeveloped (Parque Nacional Cerro Hoya aka Tres Cerros and the Western Cordillera). So in this region, compared to the regions that we do cover, there are less roads, vast areas without power or water (needless to say, Internet), etc.

I don’t mean to discourage you if you’re the pioneer type, but questions you might ask of the developers include how long the drive is to the nearest hospital (the nearest non-public, non-social security hospital), how long to Panama City, closest major supermarket (unless you plan to live without this). If you need high-speed Internet ask about that, too.

RE the importance of protecting forested zones in west Veraguas (and elswhere in Panama), a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Luis H. Cordova writes: (MACHINE TRANSLATION, bold added by me) “Very wet tropical forest:
This life zone is one of the best bio-climates for forestry. Occupies a significantly large area in Panama, reaching about 10,900 square kilometers or 13.4% of the country, represented in large block, continuous or in strips, to generally low elevations along the Caribbean coast and in the western part of Azuero Peninsula, in the Sierra de Cañazas, in the Coast Range north from Panama City to the border with Colombia and in the mountain valleys adjacent to the Colombian Choco Darien. Smaller but significant areas are presented in Chiriqui near the border with Costa Rica and the Tabasará Mountains in eastern West Chiriqui and Veraguas. Unlike other areas, most of this area still exhibits a high cover of mature virgin or secondary forest, although it is being colonized (Alto Chucunaque Darien). It is a difficult environment for agriculture and until recently was avoided for such purposes.

Soils are generally poor in high and zonal sites, which once cleared soon after become sterile. This is not a zone which can be devoted to livestock or commercially oriented farmers, rather its an area with a forest environment and in terms of national land policy, land in this area of life should, with few exceptions, be reserved exclusively for orderly forest production. Unfortunately it is not; despite difficult accessibility these lands are subject to titling without any preconditioning, and are being used for other purposes.

The natural forest has a variety of associations found in well-drained plains and ridges and convex upper slopes, with well-defined layers and a rich variety of species formed by trees, woody epiphytes, lianas, heliconias and more.

It is virtually impossible to attempt to draw up a complete list of species that can be found in this area of life…” report: http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad395s/ad395s10.htm

Hope this helps a bit.
Best regards,

[Author]

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