Our Backpacker Dream became a reality! - Panama Travel Story
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Title: Our Backpacker Dream became a reality!
Website: http://www.laspiazapanama.com
We arrived to Playa Las Lajas, a beautiful, almost untainted beach of Panama's Pacific coast, in 2004 and fall in love with it. Back then no electricity, a terrible road and a very few people around. We came back every year while backpacking Central America...We could not get it out of our heads, as many backpackers do we dreamt to be able to live here forever, maybe putting up a hostel or a little italian restaurant...We started saving and working hard when back in Italy, and in 2006 we were able to buy a little piece of pasture land near the beach, by that time the electricity line came down...In 2007 we finally moved here for good and the following story is our "living the dream" experience of the past 17 months...maybe not a typical Travel Story, but we hope useful for who dreams to plant his backpack somere, just as we did... LA SPIAZA, A YEAR AND A HALF LATER… Time passed by quickly…it’s over a year now since we moved to what back then was just pasture land. Even though we do not have a precise idea of what day is today, we calculate it should be the end of April 2009, which means we have been living the Dream for 17 months… It had been really hard, probably the hardest thing we did in our lives, but we made it, at least up ‘till now…we are proud of what we archived going through so many hardships and we are willing to share this incredible and hard to endure experience with those who can still dream. Nowadays the beach is more or less full of inverstors, some ruthless and just interested in money making, some not…as well as them we count with a lot of nice people who help us in our aim of keeping this stunning beach an ecofriendly backpackers paradise. We already had the typical investor coming here at La Spiaza and asking us to sell: he opened up his briefcase and offered us a good amount for our (Promised) Land. We just looked at him from our poor gipsy tent, with our feet covered in mud, and, with a smile, told him “no, thank you”. He tought we were just tring to bargain and offered more…right in that moment we felt the (spiritually) richest people on Earth as we had the luxury to tell him that we would not sell it even for 10 million dollars: our Dream is not, and never will be, for sale! But let’s start up again in a clearer way: the 4th December 2007 we flied into Tocumen Airport, Panama City, where we had to stay for 3 never-ending weeks while fighting hard to get the container we shipped from Italy out of Customs…we packed everything we had: clothes, furnitures, our old 4x4 car as well as different items that were given to us by family and friends and our german tent, bought on E-bay some months before…our new house for the following 8 months. Eventually we got green light from Customs on the 28th December, we took possession of our Pajero (the old jeep) and got going towards Las Lajas as fast as possible, that was 40 km/hr as the pizza oven components that were loaded on the back weighted more than 7 tons! We left the most of the container stuff at the custom park in Panama City: we decided to transoport them ourself by going back and foward (almost 400 km one way) as many times as needed in order to keep our budget low. As in any real adventure we got caught many times in strong winds and heavy showers that made us stop every 50 km to fix the turp we placed on top of the boxes loaded on the jeep roof rack…the same panamenians looked at us in a pitious way, saying “may God look upon your trip guys, you really need that!” But we did not care about the dangers and tiredness as we would have crossed the famous Canal swimming if it would have helped our dream coming true! Even though we left the capital early in the morning we arrived at our beach after dark, which prevented us from putting up our tent at once. We slept in a beachfront bamboo cabin nearby, just a couple of km away from our land…as usual we got stunned looking at the incredible sky, peculiar of this magical place, but as well annoyed at the neverending lenght of the south-east Pacific nights… Eventually the next day came and, as soon as dusk came by, we rushed to our property were we found what was left of our first bar: the little hut we made the previous year out of recicled wood (that was given to us by locals) and palm leaves as a roof. It was almost falling down: the rainy season weater had been bad on it…We felt a bit sad we had to tear it down, but the past is past and we have to make space for the future bar. That was the price we had to pay to go on with our dream, so we decided to go away while our workers destroyed it. We would have loved to live again the incredible moments we spent there, but the past is gone and we had to go on…We used part of the wood from the first ranchito and made a big table that started as the very fist furniture and nowadays is still in use. Probably out of place: not fashionable for an outsider but for who shared Las Lajas with us for the last year and a half it’s a priceless piece. Around it people decided to travel together for a while, made friends and even fall (more or less seriously) in love. The first luxury we got was internet, we made the internet company serve the beach via radio wave, no cables coming down here…even the electricity just came 5 years ago…up till now still no public water or landline. Imagine 2 crazy sort of hippies who live in a big german tent bought on E-bay, all the boxes we got from the container scattered around it and then an unexpected hig-tec antenna tight to a bamboo pole… that had been our house for 8 months. From that moment on the real work started: we built the first real bar with concrete floor and an orrible second-hand tin roof. We had to cover it with palm leaves to hide its ugliness and cool a bit the heat. Then the special pizza hoven we brought with the container: my dad even came here to build it personally to make it 100% italian. Then our own dwell that finally granted us running and drinkable water, the footings of the future main building on which our first bathroom was finally built after 5 long months. The bathroom was a milestone, the luxury that finally helped us to have a little comfort: before we had to borrow the bathroom from our neighbours during the day and to go out and dig a hole (cat style) at night. Now we count with 5 bathrooms (one for every month of penitence…heheh) and still the luxury of sitting down and flush, so common in Europe, makes us smile and think that this is a real treat as a good part of the world population do not have it. Time went by, the summer prooved to be more wonderful than expected, La Spiaza did great but suddenly the rainy season arrived! Having a tent as the only shelter against a tropical rainstorm is not that good…we had to stand it for 3 long months before our first cabin was eventually ready. Still now we do not know how we made it: the strenght that willpower (and distress) is able to build is incredible! I remeber when we were looking at our tent from the bar back window: we would stand there for hours while waiting to be tired enough to fall asleep at once…the bar roof was leaking heavily but still we were too AFRAID to go to sleep in the tent: during the last month our lot was always flooded, so every nearby insect and similar crawled to safety, i.e. our tent. The locals, by then good friends, came to get us during a storm, offering us to sleep at their place, safe and dry. They really were worried for us when they said that a latin can hardly stand these hardships, that we were not used to exteme conditions…We thanked those amazing people dearly, but told them that a good captain drawns with his boat. So they said “Cool, if that’s your decision, then let’s drink, it will be easier for you guys…”. That prooved to be true, in fact the tunders didn’t seem that loud anymore as well as the lightnings not that close… The tropical storms are beautiful: listening to the tunders shaking the mountains and watching the lightnings flash above the waves is really facinating…if you have a roof to protect you! If you are camping that makes you terrified and helpless, happy to be still alive at every flash of light. Those nights reminded me of the greek mithology, as I was thinking about Zeus trowing lightings at humankind, pissed off by our nuisance. I belive the secret of our “survival” was not knowing what was going to come next, we lived day by day, solving a problem just to go on to the following one. Expecting all that would have made us more scared. Eventually we moved to the first cabin, its unplastered walls looked to us an incredible luxury, as if it was better than the Hilton’s conference hall. And so did the insuite bathroom…we did not have to get soaking wet to go to the loo anymore!!! Our internet wi-fi system worked there too: a part from eating, we had all the basic needs solved there! In September we went back to Italy for a couple of weeks: cool to see family and friends again, cool to have all the modern facilities at hand, but our home was here, in Las Lajas, and we longed to go back asap. We missed having our feet wet 24/7 as much as the washing that never dries…Finally we got back to our land, determined to survive cruel October, the hardest month of the whole year. During this month it rains everyday, usually the whole day. The beach is deserted: only the few fulltime residents live here in the depths of rainy season…we proudly are part of them now and, except a Colombian family, the only foreigners too. The only road leading to the Panamerican, now new and fast, was at the time a complete mess. Huge pot holes covered by half a meter of water running along the same road made it impossible to drive even for a 4x4 truck. That ment, a couple of times, famine... In October you can really see the bad side of this place: the heaviest rain you can imagine, the floodings (our tent went underwater, with luck it was used just as deposit at that time), the insects (mosquitos, sandflies and so on), terrorized mice run away from the fields to land on the only merging spot (our house), snakes get out of their flooded nests (usually you don’t see many in the beach, but if your neighbours forget to cut their grass up to the point that it grows 3 mt tall…well, that’s the result), the enormous (I’d dare say monstrous) frogs (even though they compensate with their beautiful singing). We had to learn how to deal with all these things: we leveled our land and raised it according to the maximum water level (somewhere even ½ mt!), we scattered around plants such as Neem (an tree from India known for its insect repellent properties) and tobacco (great to keep away snakes), we adopted Patablanca and Carnefrita (our cats: not only they killed any rodent living near, but they greet snakes as one of their favourite prays). As for the dirty neighbours we had to point it out to local authorities as Panamenian laws recognise the high grass as a health threat, expecially near houses. We burn coconut external layer and tobacco as a natural insect repellent, a lot healtier than chemical stuff you can find in any store here. It is really difficult not to use chemicals (they are used to keep grass low as well as for killing rodents and snakes), but possible. All you have to do to get the info is checking it out on the internet and listen to the tips of the old local people and indians, even though making it work it’s not always that simple. October is cruel but charming: nature is prosperous, wild animals such as iguanas, ant eaters, squirrels, parrots, tucans, armadillos etc come out due to the scarce human presence, the sea turtles, nestling in Las Lajas beach Agust to December, are easier to see than in any other time, only the waves during high tide and the singing of frogs and birds interrupt the silence… It happened that no one pass by La Spiaza for two weeks, the beach is desert sometimes but that’s more pleasant that expected. We spent days without talking or seeing anybody (online messaging an exception)…Before moving here I would have dread this possibility, but I found it an unique, yet hard to describe, experience. A spiritual one, that made me realize that we are only animals just like the others: the modern world silence makes you ear the voice of nature, sometimes singing to comfort you, some other time screaming to scare you. For its wild beauty I regard October as a good month to die or to learn how to live. The modern and materialistic Elisa & Massimo died forever during that month (if they ever were real) and from what was left two real “cholos” (panamenian word meaning latin or indian people living up in the mountains) were born. Two new people: the essence the same but the crust of muddy consumism-egoism gone, washed away from october rain. I would do it over and over again if needed (even though I hope and think nothing will be as hard as winter 2008). Still now, when facing difficulties, we look back and say laughing: “ hahhahaha…that’s nothing in comparison!”. Then, suddenly as it came, the rainy season disappeared to make room for middle November sunny days and, in a month time, the dry season was there again. Along with December came the tourists and some money: finally we could work our asses off to raise the sum we needed to go on with our dream. We built a detached roof structure, the future hostel’s shared room, and with the same tecnique we refurbished the bar, adding as well a little second floor above the kitchen (really rustic but ocean view) where we finally were able to have a minumum of privacy! January, February, March and April went by quickly, the business good, the dream better…old and new friends passing by, some of them decided to live here too, as the new beach boy Ryan (a canadian guy almost as crazy as we are) who stays to help us going on with our sea turtle preservation project, maybe trash recycling too…who knows… the ideas are many and just a few people to help…so we are here waiting and longing for the untainted calm of the imminent “winter” (the rainy season) to come up with new solutions and, without doubt, to help us grow a bit more as human beings and animals… Elisa and Massimo
Website: http://www.laspiazapanama.com
We arrived to Playa Las Lajas, a beautiful, almost untainted beach of Panama's Pacific coast, in 2004 and fall in love with it. Back then no electricity, a terrible road and a very few people around. We came back every year while backpacking Central America...We could not get it out of our heads, as many backpackers do we dreamt to be able to live here forever, maybe putting up a hostel or a little italian restaurant...We started saving and working hard when back in Italy, and in 2006 we were able to buy a little piece of pasture land near the beach, by that time the electricity line came down...In 2007 we finally moved here for good and the following story is our "living the dream" experience of the past 17 months...maybe not a typical Travel Story, but we hope useful for who dreams to plant his backpack somere, just as we did... LA SPIAZA, A YEAR AND A HALF LATER… Time passed by quickly…it’s over a year now since we moved to what back then was just pasture land. Even though we do not have a precise idea of what day is today, we calculate it should be the end of April 2009, which means we have been living the Dream for 17 months… It had been really hard, probably the hardest thing we did in our lives, but we made it, at least up ‘till now…we are proud of what we archived going through so many hardships and we are willing to share this incredible and hard to endure experience with those who can still dream. Nowadays the beach is more or less full of inverstors, some ruthless and just interested in money making, some not…as well as them we count with a lot of nice people who help us in our aim of keeping this stunning beach an ecofriendly backpackers paradise. We already had the typical investor coming here at La Spiaza and asking us to sell: he opened up his briefcase and offered us a good amount for our (Promised) Land. We just looked at him from our poor gipsy tent, with our feet covered in mud, and, with a smile, told him “no, thank you”. He tought we were just tring to bargain and offered more…right in that moment we felt the (spiritually) richest people on Earth as we had the luxury to tell him that we would not sell it even for 10 million dollars: our Dream is not, and never will be, for sale! But let’s start up again in a clearer way: the 4th December 2007 we flied into Tocumen Airport, Panama City, where we had to stay for 3 never-ending weeks while fighting hard to get the container we shipped from Italy out of Customs…we packed everything we had: clothes, furnitures, our old 4x4 car as well as different items that were given to us by family and friends and our german tent, bought on E-bay some months before…our new house for the following 8 months. Eventually we got green light from Customs on the 28th December, we took possession of our Pajero (the old jeep) and got going towards Las Lajas as fast as possible, that was 40 km/hr as the pizza oven components that were loaded on the back weighted more than 7 tons! We left the most of the container stuff at the custom park in Panama City: we decided to transoport them ourself by going back and foward (almost 400 km one way) as many times as needed in order to keep our budget low. As in any real adventure we got caught many times in strong winds and heavy showers that made us stop every 50 km to fix the turp we placed on top of the boxes loaded on the jeep roof rack…the same panamenians looked at us in a pitious way, saying “may God look upon your trip guys, you really need that!” But we did not care about the dangers and tiredness as we would have crossed the famous Canal swimming if it would have helped our dream coming true! Even though we left the capital early in the morning we arrived at our beach after dark, which prevented us from putting up our tent at once. We slept in a beachfront bamboo cabin nearby, just a couple of km away from our land…as usual we got stunned looking at the incredible sky, peculiar of this magical place, but as well annoyed at the neverending lenght of the south-east Pacific nights… Eventually the next day came and, as soon as dusk came by, we rushed to our property were we found what was left of our first bar: the little hut we made the previous year out of recicled wood (that was given to us by locals) and palm leaves as a roof. It was almost falling down: the rainy season weater had been bad on it…We felt a bit sad we had to tear it down, but the past is past and we have to make space for the future bar. That was the price we had to pay to go on with our dream, so we decided to go away while our workers destroyed it. We would have loved to live again the incredible moments we spent there, but the past is gone and we had to go on…We used part of the wood from the first ranchito and made a big table that started as the very fist furniture and nowadays is still in use. Probably out of place: not fashionable for an outsider but for who shared Las Lajas with us for the last year and a half it’s a priceless piece. Around it people decided to travel together for a while, made friends and even fall (more or less seriously) in love. The first luxury we got was internet, we made the internet company serve the beach via radio wave, no cables coming down here…even the electricity just came 5 years ago…up till now still no public water or landline. Imagine 2 crazy sort of hippies who live in a big german tent bought on E-bay, all the boxes we got from the container scattered around it and then an unexpected hig-tec antenna tight to a bamboo pole… that had been our house for 8 months. From that moment on the real work started: we built the first real bar with concrete floor and an orrible second-hand tin roof. We had to cover it with palm leaves to hide its ugliness and cool a bit the heat. Then the special pizza hoven we brought with the container: my dad even came here to build it personally to make it 100% italian. Then our own dwell that finally granted us running and drinkable water, the footings of the future main building on which our first bathroom was finally built after 5 long months. The bathroom was a milestone, the luxury that finally helped us to have a little comfort: before we had to borrow the bathroom from our neighbours during the day and to go out and dig a hole (cat style) at night. Now we count with 5 bathrooms (one for every month of penitence…heheh) and still the luxury of sitting down and flush, so common in Europe, makes us smile and think that this is a real treat as a good part of the world population do not have it. Time went by, the summer prooved to be more wonderful than expected, La Spiaza did great but suddenly the rainy season arrived! Having a tent as the only shelter against a tropical rainstorm is not that good…we had to stand it for 3 long months before our first cabin was eventually ready. Still now we do not know how we made it: the strenght that willpower (and distress) is able to build is incredible! I remeber when we were looking at our tent from the bar back window: we would stand there for hours while waiting to be tired enough to fall asleep at once…the bar roof was leaking heavily but still we were too AFRAID to go to sleep in the tent: during the last month our lot was always flooded, so every nearby insect and similar crawled to safety, i.e. our tent. The locals, by then good friends, came to get us during a storm, offering us to sleep at their place, safe and dry. They really were worried for us when they said that a latin can hardly stand these hardships, that we were not used to exteme conditions…We thanked those amazing people dearly, but told them that a good captain drawns with his boat. So they said “Cool, if that’s your decision, then let’s drink, it will be easier for you guys…”. That prooved to be true, in fact the tunders didn’t seem that loud anymore as well as the lightnings not that close… The tropical storms are beautiful: listening to the tunders shaking the mountains and watching the lightnings flash above the waves is really facinating…if you have a roof to protect you! If you are camping that makes you terrified and helpless, happy to be still alive at every flash of light. Those nights reminded me of the greek mithology, as I was thinking about Zeus trowing lightings at humankind, pissed off by our nuisance. I belive the secret of our “survival” was not knowing what was going to come next, we lived day by day, solving a problem just to go on to the following one. Expecting all that would have made us more scared. Eventually we moved to the first cabin, its unplastered walls looked to us an incredible luxury, as if it was better than the Hilton’s conference hall. And so did the insuite bathroom…we did not have to get soaking wet to go to the loo anymore!!! Our internet wi-fi system worked there too: a part from eating, we had all the basic needs solved there! In September we went back to Italy for a couple of weeks: cool to see family and friends again, cool to have all the modern facilities at hand, but our home was here, in Las Lajas, and we longed to go back asap. We missed having our feet wet 24/7 as much as the washing that never dries…Finally we got back to our land, determined to survive cruel October, the hardest month of the whole year. During this month it rains everyday, usually the whole day. The beach is deserted: only the few fulltime residents live here in the depths of rainy season…we proudly are part of them now and, except a Colombian family, the only foreigners too. The only road leading to the Panamerican, now new and fast, was at the time a complete mess. Huge pot holes covered by half a meter of water running along the same road made it impossible to drive even for a 4x4 truck. That ment, a couple of times, famine... In October you can really see the bad side of this place: the heaviest rain you can imagine, the floodings (our tent went underwater, with luck it was used just as deposit at that time), the insects (mosquitos, sandflies and so on), terrorized mice run away from the fields to land on the only merging spot (our house), snakes get out of their flooded nests (usually you don’t see many in the beach, but if your neighbours forget to cut their grass up to the point that it grows 3 mt tall…well, that’s the result), the enormous (I’d dare say monstrous) frogs (even though they compensate with their beautiful singing). We had to learn how to deal with all these things: we leveled our land and raised it according to the maximum water level (somewhere even ½ mt!), we scattered around plants such as Neem (an tree from India known for its insect repellent properties) and tobacco (great to keep away snakes), we adopted Patablanca and Carnefrita (our cats: not only they killed any rodent living near, but they greet snakes as one of their favourite prays). As for the dirty neighbours we had to point it out to local authorities as Panamenian laws recognise the high grass as a health threat, expecially near houses. We burn coconut external layer and tobacco as a natural insect repellent, a lot healtier than chemical stuff you can find in any store here. It is really difficult not to use chemicals (they are used to keep grass low as well as for killing rodents and snakes), but possible. All you have to do to get the info is checking it out on the internet and listen to the tips of the old local people and indians, even though making it work it’s not always that simple. October is cruel but charming: nature is prosperous, wild animals such as iguanas, ant eaters, squirrels, parrots, tucans, armadillos etc come out due to the scarce human presence, the sea turtles, nestling in Las Lajas beach Agust to December, are easier to see than in any other time, only the waves during high tide and the singing of frogs and birds interrupt the silence… It happened that no one pass by La Spiaza for two weeks, the beach is desert sometimes but that’s more pleasant that expected. We spent days without talking or seeing anybody (online messaging an exception)…Before moving here I would have dread this possibility, but I found it an unique, yet hard to describe, experience. A spiritual one, that made me realize that we are only animals just like the others: the modern world silence makes you ear the voice of nature, sometimes singing to comfort you, some other time screaming to scare you. For its wild beauty I regard October as a good month to die or to learn how to live. The modern and materialistic Elisa & Massimo died forever during that month (if they ever were real) and from what was left two real “cholos” (panamenian word meaning latin or indian people living up in the mountains) were born. Two new people: the essence the same but the crust of muddy consumism-egoism gone, washed away from october rain. I would do it over and over again if needed (even though I hope and think nothing will be as hard as winter 2008). Still now, when facing difficulties, we look back and say laughing: “ hahhahaha…that’s nothing in comparison!”. Then, suddenly as it came, the rainy season disappeared to make room for middle November sunny days and, in a month time, the dry season was there again. Along with December came the tourists and some money: finally we could work our asses off to raise the sum we needed to go on with our dream. We built a detached roof structure, the future hostel’s shared room, and with the same tecnique we refurbished the bar, adding as well a little second floor above the kitchen (really rustic but ocean view) where we finally were able to have a minumum of privacy! January, February, March and April went by quickly, the business good, the dream better…old and new friends passing by, some of them decided to live here too, as the new beach boy Ryan (a canadian guy almost as crazy as we are) who stays to help us going on with our sea turtle preservation project, maybe trash recycling too…who knows… the ideas are many and just a few people to help…so we are here waiting and longing for the untainted calm of the imminent “winter” (the rainy season) to come up with new solutions and, without doubt, to help us grow a bit more as human beings and animals… Elisa and Massimo
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