Ojo de Agua, Panama

After putting the job off for a long time I finally had time to repair an area of the road that had washed out after a strong rain storm two wet seasons ago.

The problem area was on the cut side of a curve coming up the community drive. A few years back while having some excavation done on the building sites of the lots we spread tosca over the road base at this curve to smooth out the steep incline. It really helped the curve but during a heavy down pour some of the material washed away leaving a large rut on the edge of the road. So I placed a marker on it to keep people from driving into it and “put it on the back burner.”

Many developers around here make nice neat concrete drainage ditches, but many times what happens is the water starts to erode around the outer edge of the ditch and eat the road. A professional mountain road engineer I met years ago by the name of Peter Scheiss told me to avoid concrete ditches as much as possible and if I ever needed one make them with a mix of concrete and as many rocks as possible. The rocks help to cut the velocity of the water down to limit erosion and create a zig zagging broken border that minimizes the erosion along the outer edge. Plus, it looks more natural. I was fortunate to have the rocks and concrete material left over from other past projects, I only had to move the material onto site and buy some cement. It took me a few days to get all the materials on site and prepare the work area. Once we had everything ready, Jose Maria and I started early one morning and were finished just after lunch. I positioned the rocks in concrete while he mixed using my concrete mixer and brought over the wheel barrels full of concrete. This was a physically hard project, but fun. We definitely got a good work out. Once the ditch was finished we backfilled the washout and ruts in the road with tosca and clearly marked it.

I can not wait to see how the new ditch handles this years rainy season.

Though it is probably not necessary, in keeping with the theme of having a well ventilated, cross breeze accentuating, non air conditioning tropical home, I decided to cut holes in the floor and install vents under my electric refrigerator and freezer. I assume it will help keep the house and the electrical components of the appliances cooler. Maybe the appliances will last a little longer from the venting as well.

There is still a lot of finish work and decorating that needs to be completed in the tropical home here in Ojo de Agua Panama, but it is finally comfortable to live in.

Here are a few photos of the progress.

After six months of off-and-on building a gate and set of concrete columns for my neighbors here in Ojo de Agua, James and Laurie, I can finally say the job is done. I think the slow pace of the endeavor nearly made James go crazy and I must apologize, it should have not taken so long. The actual man hours was really not very much, the problem is trying to do detail work on a new house, maintain a real estate project, catch some waves and help-out the two ladies in my life down here, my mother and Pucha. I’m also cursed with insisting upon doing most things myself, or with as few people as possible. I like to learn new things and I like physical work. It helps me sleep good at night. Also, for those of us in the know here in the outskirts of Panama, we understand that if you are not right there on the spot at the moment work is being done, must times it will probably not be done the way you want it. It’s not that Panamanians are bad workers, a lot of times it’s simply miscommunication or a different set of standards for the details. I would just as soon do as much as I can on any project and not have to deal with everyone else, even if it takes months longer. Sorry James.

The gate was a fun project. Dexter spearheaded the column form work and he, Jose Maria and I did the concrete pour for each column. I came back later to prime and paint the columns. The metal angle iron frame for the gates I had Toni, the local welder from Canas, fabricate. Toni also helped me locate the teak slats in Tonosi. I worked on the sanding, sealing and fastening of the Teak slats to the gate. Once I had the gates ready, Toni returned to weld on the hinges and mount the gates.

I know James and Laurie are going to love the new improvement to their beautiful property. Thanks for your patience.

My friend Bradley WIlson from Texas, which I have spoke of before on this blog, helped me by drawing some conceptual sketches of a small canal style tropical home that I may build on Parcel 2 here at the project in Ojo de Agua, Panama. His detailed drawings really help me visualize the potential for the lot.

If all goes well I will start building in a couple months during the early part of the rainy season, translate that as starting late, probably in the worst part of the rainy season. We will see how it goes. My plan is to sell either the home I am finishing now or the new one. It’s going to be a tough decision, one that I dread to have to make, but I can not keep both of them.

For now I will look at the copies of the drawings I have taped to the wall in my home and visualize the future building project. Fun stuff.

Thanks Bradley.

Any person that has spent any time around the project here in Ojo de Agua notices the amount of Vetiver Grass planted around the property. I have to admit that I have probably gone over board with the stuff, I just can not help myself. I love planting this grass!
I started with only eighty small sprigs of Vetiver back in 2007 and since then I have propagated and grown my Vetiver to well over a thousand full grown plants. Last year we had a few incredible rain storms that eroded a part of the drive coming into the house around a culvert. It was not to bad, but if left unattended it could become a serious problem. Instead of spending money and a lot of labor in building some sort of rock and concrete structure, I went the inexpensive and green route by just digging up a couple full grown Vetiver plants and broke them into smaller pieces and planted them on a temporary terrace system back filling the eroded area. I will keep them watered enough during this dry season to have a good root structure to hold firm during next years rainy season. I have done this in a few different areas of the property and it always works. I took a few photos of the repair, unfortunately I forgot to snap some before shots, but if you look close you can see the different color of the soil as we back filled and get an idea of where the eroded part of the drive was.
Vetiver is a great grass for erosion control. I highly recommend anyone who plans on living in the tropics to investigate its many uses. The Vetiver Network International at vetiver.org is a wealth of information about this amazing plant. Check them out.

I just recently had a local artist named Rey paint a new wooden sign advertising the property. Rey did a good job depicting the view of Isla Canas and the Pacific ocean in painted form from a photo I have on the opening page of the website. Rey does a lot of custom art here in the area, from bamboo light fixtures to carved wooden trophies. Guaranteed if you pass through the Pedasi – Playa Venao area you will see some of his art.
Hopefully his latest work will catch the eye of an investor.

A potential investor searching for property here in Panama asked me to take some updated photos of parcel 2 so I decided to take advantage of the photos and post them here on the blog.
I was lucky enough to snap a quick photo of one of the Toucans that frequent the property this time of year. I barely had time to get my camera out and snap a photo. He was a little far for my zoom but you can see him hanging in the guarumo tree. As the trees keep growing and filling in we should be seeing more and more of the beautiful birds.
Parcel 2 really has a beautiful view and lots of space for a large home and guest house. Someone with creativity could build a nice home here.
For details on price and size check out the real estate section on the website.

The kitchen in Ojo de Agua was designed with functionality in mind. I enjoy a large kitchen with plenty of space to spread out while cooking.
Dexter and I built the bar and counter frames out of scrap wood cut-offs from around the job site and thick 3/4 inch plywood. We choose to hand make thin slats for the shelves to help with ventilation. Humidity is always a problem here in the tropics. Mold is a constant issue. Closets, cabinets any closed in areas should always have some ventilation at all possible.
Although, I must say, now that I have spent a lot of time in the house I don’t think the ventilation was necessary. The house is incredibly dry. When designing the house I took note of the style of the houses in the panama canal zone and back home in Florida. Obviously, building up off the ground, proper ventilation, roof design and large overhangs are the key. The ventilation under the house between earth and floor keeps the structure separate from the humid ground. The air space gap between the steel roof and sub-roof keep very little heat from penetrating the interior and the little heat that does enter is circulated out through the screened eave vents. In the hottest part of the hottest days the house is cool inside, in the early morning hours it’s rather chilly. I highly recommend building up off the ground here.
Anyways, back to the counters and bar. As shown in a previous post we built a granite inlayed concrete counter top for the main bar/dining area and had granite installed for the kitchen sink counter. I ordered the granite from a place in Las Tablas that specializes in granite, marble and other stones. Right now Jose in Guarare is working on a set of cedro margo uppers to go over the stove, fridge and chest freezer. Once the kitchen is totally completed there will be plenty of storage room and cooking space. Can’t wait!

Panama is known for it’s abundant food production. Over half of the three million plus population live in or near Panama City. The rest of the small country is very sparsely populated other than the cities of Colon at the caribbean entrance of the canal and David in Chiriqui province near the Costa Rican border. The low density of the nations geography allows for plenty of land to be used for agriculture. Almost everywhere you look their are food sources. Cows are nearly everywhere. Corn and rice are predominate crops nearly all over the country. Chiriqui is known as the bread basket of Panama. In Chiriqui people grow everything from international award winning coffee to incredibly delicious fruits and vegetables like strawberries, pineapples and broccoli. If I were not a surfer and addicted to the ocean I would want to live in the chilly, abundantly agriculturally rich and stunningly beautiful Chiriqui highlands.
Here in Los Santos Province where Ojo de Agua is located it is rare to see a yard with out food growing in it or chickens running around. Panamanians eat a lot of poultry. They make a chicken soup called Sancocho. It is cooked up almost every sunday and Panamanians love to serve it at almost every special occasion.
I am doing my best to follow the locals lead by planting crops anywhere I have space. I have already planted corn, yuca, platanos, bananas, pigeon pea or guandu, pineapple, peppers, cucumbers and melons to go along with all the fruit trees planted back in 2007 such as papaya, oranges, limes, mango’s, healing noni fruit, star fruit, guava, tropical cherries, and of course coconut palms.
My plan is to always have many different crops growing for my consumption and for future neighbors to propagate.
One thing is for sure here in Panama, one will never go hungry, food is always growing or grazing somewhere nearby.
Here are a few photos of some of the food producing at the moment, plus a photo of the local church in Canas with it’s new paint job.
Enjoy,