00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:14
[Music]
00:00:25
I'm Brett Renren. Um, I'm from Southern
00:00:30
California. So, anywhere between Santa
00:00:32
Barbara and Los Angeles. I get that
00:00:36
question a lot. You know, my guests come
00:00:37
through and they say, "Why did you
00:00:39
choose this choose this place to live?"
00:00:41
And I go, "Why did you choose this place
00:00:43
to come and stay, you know, on your
00:00:45
precious vacation days?" You know, so
00:00:48
that to to answer it um in one way, it's
00:00:51
just a gorgeous place, you know. It's
00:00:53
sort of a one of the paradises. There's
00:00:55
many of them in the world, but this, in
00:00:57
my opinion, is one of them. I have a
00:00:59
neighbor that lives across the street,
00:01:01
like so many um uh homeowners here in
00:01:05
Elva. Um there are vacation homes for
00:01:08
them. Some of them are, you know, lavish
00:01:10
estates. Some of them are just very nice
00:01:12
houses like the one right across the
00:01:14
street. The name of uh my neighbor is
00:01:16
Eric, and he's from the US or Canada. I
00:01:20
I never asked him that question, but I
00:01:22
see him out here about three times a
00:01:23
year and he lives in the city. And I
00:01:26
said, "Well, why don't you live out
00:01:27
here? It's so beautiful." He goes, "Oh,
00:01:28
it's too quiet out here for me, and I
00:01:31
prefer to just come out here when I want
00:01:32
a bit of quiet, you know, for like 2 or
00:01:34
3 days." And for me, um, it it's kind of
00:01:38
the opposite. I love the city, but only
00:01:41
for two or three days at a time. It gets
00:01:43
for me, it gets a little bit
00:01:44
overwhelming. And in general, this is a
00:01:48
very quiet town. it. You know, on most
00:01:50
nights, um, things kind of roll up by
00:01:54
8:00 at night, definitely by 9:00 at
00:01:57
night. So, if you're planning on going
00:01:58
out to dinner, you know, you know, plan
00:02:01
on doing that a little earlier rather
00:02:03
than later because you might be
00:02:05
disappointed. Um, and uh, which is which
00:02:08
is great. And it's just quiet. I mean,
00:02:10
you walk down the street at 9:30 at
00:02:12
night and you're going to be the only
00:02:13
person out there on that street, even on
00:02:15
the main street up here. It's beautiful
00:02:17
in if that's what you if that's what you
00:02:20
want, you know. And traffic out here is
00:02:23
even on the busiest days, traffic is
00:02:26
really not a problem, you know. Um
00:02:28
there's always parking. You've always
00:02:31
got abundance of parking out here. Even
00:02:33
on the busiest days, it's just not a
00:02:35
problem. So, and um we don't have a lot
00:02:39
of noise and a lot of noisy vehicles and
00:02:42
um um that sort of thing. Um, you kind
00:02:46
of have to be able to see this to
00:02:47
appreciate it, but there's a bike path
00:02:49
running the whole length of the downtown
00:02:51
area and a sidewalk, you know, so it's
00:02:54
very safe, you know, to walk and to ride
00:02:56
your bike from one end of the business
00:02:59
uh uh end of town to the other, which is
00:03:01
something that you don't have um in
00:03:03
every in most towns in including the the
00:03:06
cities, you know, in um in Panama. So,
00:03:09
that's something that's very special and
00:03:11
unique about um Elva. I always thought
00:03:14
that it would be great to have build a
00:03:16
small little hotel and uh just have that
00:03:19
as my retirement, you know, supple
00:03:21
supplement my income, keep me busy, you
00:03:24
know, um and uh do something that I
00:03:27
love, you know, as one of my favorite
00:03:29
passions has always been um I know this
00:03:32
might count sound kind of strange, but I
00:03:34
lived in Santa Monica and Los Angeles on
00:03:36
the coastal areas and there's so many
00:03:38
foreigners out there, you know, people
00:03:40
from from uh France, people from
00:03:42
Germany, people from lots of u Brits out
00:03:45
there and they tended to be my friends
00:03:47
when I was out there. I don't know I had
00:03:48
some they hold some fascination for me
00:03:50
you know just getting to know people
00:03:52
from other parts of the world you know
00:03:55
and becoming friends with them and
00:03:56
understanding you know their history and
00:03:59
their background and and um and of
00:04:02
course um this it's if if that's what
00:04:04
you like then this has been a paradise
00:04:06
for me because I get uh I've had
00:04:08
hundreds of guests come through here in
00:04:11
just a year and um a quarter and uh most
00:04:14
of them are from um Holland or um you
00:04:17
Germany and Austria, France, um Croatia,
00:04:22
um you know, the UK, you name it. Um
00:04:24
I've had guests come here from far and
00:04:26
wide. And thankfully for me, um most of
00:04:30
these places u um insist that they learn
00:04:33
English, you know, as a second language
00:04:36
back when they're in, you know, in high
00:04:37
school and all that stuff. So it uh it
00:04:40
benefits me because we can speak my
00:04:42
language and um and we can have very
00:04:46
very deep meaningful conversations and
00:04:48
that's my favorite thing. Well, I'm
00:04:50
nestled up in my perch up upstairs. I'm
00:04:53
on the second floor and even up there
00:04:56
I've got a loft for my bed. So, um I
00:04:59
have a window up there where I can look
00:05:01
out onto the street and in far and wide,
00:05:04
you know, I get the view of the hills
00:05:06
and um it's lovely for me. I I didn't
00:05:09
even put glass in that window because
00:05:11
it's um it's like camping, you know, for
00:05:14
me and I really enjoy that. We don't
00:05:15
have a bug problem here, surprisingly,
00:05:18
you know, cuz it's the jungle, you know,
00:05:20
but we really don't have a bug problem
00:05:22
out here. Probably even fewer bugs here
00:05:24
than I experienced in Southern
00:05:26
California. and they're very well known
00:05:28
for having very few bugs, right? So,
00:05:30
that's not an issue. Um, I love that.
00:05:33
Downstairs, I've got three rooms. Um, I
00:05:36
think they're pretty wellappointed. Um,
00:05:38
I've got a different theme with each one
00:05:40
of my rooms. Um, the the house is called
00:05:43
Casa Morava. That means purple house.
00:05:46
you know, people that speak Spanish,
00:05:49
they don't have to, you know, search up
00:05:51
and down my street if there's any
00:05:52
confusion about uh which is the place
00:05:54
that they're, you know, their
00:05:56
destination cuz they see a purple house
00:05:58
and there's not too many of those in in
00:06:01
Elva, let alone Panama. But Elva in
00:06:04
general, my goodness, there are so many
00:06:06
hikes here in Elva. And uh there's
00:06:09
something very unique about um this
00:06:12
valley in particular which
00:06:15
um typically when you think of a valley
00:06:18
you think of rolling hills and then you
00:06:20
know like a a break in the rolling hills
00:06:23
where there's pastures and that sort of
00:06:25
thing. Um but then the hills are you
00:06:28
know actually they they they're miles
00:06:31
they can go for miles and miles in any
00:06:34
direction. But because this is a unique
00:06:37
um geological situation here where this
00:06:40
is a crater of a ancient volcano, the
00:06:43
hills surrounding this are basically the
00:06:45
rim of the volcano. So when you look at
00:06:47
these hills, um they're a lot closer
00:06:51
than a hill would be where I come from
00:06:54
that is that high in your perspective,
00:06:56
you know. Um, normally if I looked at a
00:06:59
hill that had a peak that high, it would
00:07:01
be probably about 10 or 20 miles going
00:07:04
in that direction, but these hills are
00:07:06
close enough to where you can actually
00:07:09
see the definition in the vegetation on
00:07:11
the side of those hills. And that's what
00:07:13
makes it, I think, um, sometime, you
00:07:15
know, it's very much like Jurassic Park.
00:07:18
You know, I I have always thought that.
00:07:19
And, um, for hiking, it's it's
00:07:22
absolutely spectacular. you know, you
00:07:24
get up on the ridge of these um of these
00:07:27
hills and a lot of times it's a pretty
00:07:30
narrow ridge and uh you have a a pretty
00:07:32
steep drop off on on both sides, but
00:07:34
usually by the time you're up in the
00:07:36
ridge, you're above the tree line and so
00:07:38
you get really really nice views of the
00:07:41
valley and so from certain places you
00:07:43
can see both oceans from here. So on a
00:07:46
clear day doesn't happen very often
00:07:48
because just the atmosphere. It gets
00:07:50
quite windy down here during the um
00:07:54
during the dry season. Dry season could
00:07:56
just as well have been called the the
00:07:58
windy season because it is windy. And
00:08:01
when it's windy down here on the floor
00:08:03
of the valley, it's super duper windy up
00:08:06
there on the on those ridges. So I tell
00:08:08
everybody it's like be prepared for
00:08:10
that. Be prepared to go down on all
00:08:12
floors, all fours if you have to. just
00:08:14
stop what you're doing. You're almost
00:08:16
always given a little bit of a warning,
00:08:18
you know, when there's a strong gust of
00:08:20
wind coming through there and just be
00:08:22
prepared for that. I think I read
00:08:23
somewhere recently it was about 200 in
00:08:26
that we got here, which is a lot, you
00:08:28
know, considering that it doesn't rain
00:08:30
all day and all night like it does some
00:08:32
places where you might accumulate that
00:08:34
amount of annual rainfall. Um, it
00:08:37
actually, you know, we usually don't get
00:08:39
more than a couple of hours of rain. So
00:08:41
you can imagine if you're going to build
00:08:43
up 200 um inches of rain in one season
00:08:47
and the the rainy season is about
00:08:48
anywhere between 5 and 7 months. That's
00:08:51
a lot of rain concentrated in 2 hours
00:08:53
per day of rain. And it doesn't rain
00:08:55
every day. So man, when it comes down,
00:08:57
it comes down. It's fantastic. I love
00:08:59
it. You just got to be prepared for
00:09:01
that. you know, people that actually
00:09:03
live here and they work here, they
00:09:05
they're so accustomed to that that they
00:09:07
um they're just they duck under an eve
00:09:10
somewhere and they just sit and wait it
00:09:12
out, you know, and that's just part of
00:09:13
their natural routine and they're not
00:09:15
going to pull out their umbrella and try
00:09:17
to weather it, you know, most of the
00:09:18
times they're just going to sit down for
00:09:20
a little while and because they know,
00:09:22
you know, this too will pass, you know.
00:09:24
So, I would say this is a very active
00:09:27
social community out here in Elva. The
00:09:30
expats, they love pickle ball. I still
00:09:33
haven't picked up on the pickle ball
00:09:34
myself, but I intend to do that one of
00:09:36
these days. And of course, the they like
00:09:38
to hike. Um, so that's definitely a a
00:09:42
social activity. The gringoes out here,
00:09:45
not just the gringoes, the expats, which
00:09:46
are mostly gringoes. Um, they're
00:09:49
involved in pet um taking care of the
00:09:52
the stray animals out here. Mostly dogs.
00:09:55
You don't see too many cats out here,
00:09:57
but um that's their that's their um sort
00:10:00
of main charity out here. They feed
00:10:03
them. Um tomorrow um we're I'm going to
00:10:06
get involved and we're going to go um do
00:10:09
a drag net on all the um the animals in
00:10:12
town that have not been yet spayed or
00:10:14
neutered and we're going to gather them
00:10:16
up and um take them to Cornado and uh
00:10:20
they're going to have that procedure
00:10:21
done and then be brought back here. I I
00:10:24
wouldn't say it's all through that
00:10:25
charity. I think a lot of it the reason
00:10:27
why the animals out here, street animals
00:10:30
out here are quite friendly is because
00:10:32
they're wellfed. You know, you don't
00:10:34
these are not the kind of street dogs
00:10:36
that you see in a lot of uh countries,
00:10:39
you know, where they're starving
00:10:40
basically and they're desperate. Um and
00:10:43
you could see their ribs and they're
00:10:44
just sucked up and they've got um you
00:10:46
know, issues with their skin and that
00:10:48
sort of thing. No, these animals
00:10:49
actually look pretty good and they're
00:10:50
very friendly. you very very r rarely
00:10:53
have any kind of um aggressive you know
00:10:57
um action from them. So that is the
00:11:00
that's the main um sort of charitable uh
00:11:03
organization out here. Um but there's a
00:11:07
social gatherings as well. In fact,
00:11:09
tonight is one we uh we meet um the
00:11:13
first Friday of every month at a place
00:11:15
called Caritos in town and everybody
00:11:18
most people like to come out there and
00:11:20
it's um you get to know the people
00:11:21
pretty quickly. you know that um I've
00:11:24
invited two people to come to our
00:11:27
gathering tonight who have never been
00:11:29
there before and I'm I tell them it's
00:11:31
like this is a great way you know if
00:11:33
you're thinking about coming out here or
00:11:34
if you're out here or if you want to get
00:11:36
to know the community out here if if
00:11:39
timing works out for you this is the
00:11:41
best way you know come down because
00:11:42
these are these are some great people
00:11:44
out here you know we don't talk about
00:11:46
politics which is probably the reason
00:11:48
why we all get along so well you know um
00:11:51
and it doesn't matter you But we what
00:11:53
the what we have in common is more
00:11:55
important than any differences that we
00:11:57
might have. If you have a decent
00:11:59
pension, you know, even an average
00:12:00
pension, you could still come here to
00:12:03
Elva and live off that quite
00:12:06
comfortably, even if you're paying rent
00:12:07
per month. Um, you know, you there's
00:12:10
places in Panama where you could live a
00:12:12
lot more cheaply. But, um, like I said,
00:12:15
this is paradise, you know. Um, even I I
00:12:18
think of this as sort of like the Paris
00:12:20
of Panama, you know. There's there's
00:12:22
places where you might call that the
00:12:24
Riviera of Panama, maybe something down
00:12:26
on the coast, some of the coastal areas
00:12:28
and some of the islands are just
00:12:30
spectacular and beautiful. But this
00:12:32
place, I love I love to walk around town
00:12:35
and uh you know, I never tire of that.
00:12:37
Sometimes I'll ride my bike and uh but I
00:12:40
have a dog now and she loves to walk and
00:12:43
I love to walk. I don't think I'll ever
00:12:45
get tired of that. Um, I like to go up
00:12:48
to the the pl the area where all the
00:12:50
locals live, you know, because those
00:12:52
neighborhoods are uh to me they're um
00:12:55
beautiful as well, you know, and these
00:12:58
are not people that have a lot of money
00:13:00
like you down here on the floor, you
00:13:02
know, most of these houses are um people
00:13:05
that are fairly well off, you know, you
00:13:07
you would say fairly well off. So, these
00:13:09
houses, but there's a obviously a beauty
00:13:11
to that. You know, I love walking
00:13:13
through these neighborhoods. I would say
00:13:15
this would probably um the cost of
00:13:18
living here would probably be up u above
00:13:21
se the in the 70 percentile you know of
00:13:24
cost you know you there's places that
00:13:26
probably are even more expensive you
00:13:29
discover where the good deals are you
00:13:31
know you and uh who's going to walk away
00:13:33
from a good deal you know who's going to
00:13:34
spend more money than they need you know
00:13:36
I I was much more diet conscious when I
00:13:39
lived in California and part of it is
00:13:42
because I was able to be because any if
00:13:45
you can think it, it's it exists and you
00:13:48
can get it, right? So, uh ingredients
00:13:51
are pretty much um there's nothing that
00:13:53
you can't get where I come from. So, and
00:13:56
there's not too many places that you
00:13:58
know can to can boast that, you know,
00:14:01
and definitely Panama is not one of
00:14:02
those places. So, um, I've gained about
00:14:05
20 lbs since I've been here. Um, because
00:14:07
I've just, uh, I haven't really gotten
00:14:09
back to that routine because I know it's
00:14:11
going to be a lot more difficult for me
00:14:13
to find almond flour, for example, or,
00:14:16
you know, the ingredients that allowed
00:14:17
me to eat a eat a diet and, you know,
00:14:20
sort of walk away from the things that
00:14:22
are very enticing, which now I just
00:14:24
like, I love mashed potatoes. Let's have
00:14:26
some mashed potatoes. I love I love
00:14:28
bread and butter, you know. I love um
00:14:30
rice and beans and all of these things.
00:14:33
and you certainly uh are not going to be
00:14:36
um uh have an issue finding those out
00:14:39
here. There's some things that are a
00:14:41
little bit on the more expensive than
00:14:43
you would expect them to be because they
00:14:46
don't they don't put they don't grow too
00:14:48
much of it out here. And there are as
00:14:50
far as produce goes, it um I'm I'm past
00:14:53
the surprise um of the fact that in a
00:14:56
tropical country like this where it
00:14:58
seems like everything grows um in
00:15:01
abundance, there are many many things
00:15:03
that don't grow because this isn't the
00:15:05
ideal climate. You know, I come from
00:15:07
Southern California, which is basically
00:15:09
desert, you know, in terms of the the
00:15:11
climate and not too far from like Mexico
00:15:14
um climate and the Southwest where
00:15:17
things like tomatoes, avocados, citrus,
00:15:20
um chilies, oh my god, I miss my
00:15:23
chilies. Um they don't grow so well out
00:15:26
here, you know. Um, avocados, they they
00:15:29
do grow out here, but they're, you know,
00:15:31
there's nothing like a good old hos
00:15:33
avocado, and they tend to be rather
00:15:35
expensive because they don't put too
00:15:36
much focus on them. Um, I would say in
00:15:39
general, um, the my grocery costs out
00:15:42
here probably would be about,
00:15:46
um, little bit more than half of what I
00:15:48
was paying where I came from. A little
00:15:50
bit more than half. But like I said,
00:15:52
Southern California tends to be rather
00:15:54
expensive. So,
00:15:56
um, there is a savings. There's
00:15:58
definitely a savings here. Yeah. Uh, you
00:16:01
know, there has to be, um, the, you
00:16:05
know, the local people, they're shopping
00:16:06
at the same places that I am, you know,
00:16:08
and, um, it's a lot harder for them, you
00:16:11
know, I'm sure, to to be able to afford
00:16:14
groceries, you know, than it is for most
00:16:17
people that come here from from the
00:16:19
outside. I haven't had anything, you
00:16:21
know, significant or catastrophic, but I
00:16:23
did, you know, uh, fall one time when I
00:16:26
was pushing a car out of a out of a one
00:16:28
of these culverts, a concrete culvert,
00:16:31
when the car finally took grabbed, um, I
00:16:34
kind of went down and hit my elbow. It
00:16:36
wasn't anything major, but it scraped it
00:16:38
up bad and burst the bersack, if y'all
00:16:41
know what that is. Um and um I was just
00:16:44
went in to get a a checkup locally here
00:16:48
um at the local clinic and um you know
00:16:51
um I met with the doctor and he says,
00:16:54
"Well, just in case cuz it's all scraped
00:16:55
up as well, we should probably put you
00:16:57
on antibiotics and I'll send you down
00:17:00
for x-rays in uh San Carlos." Right? So
00:17:04
he sent me down for x-rays and then 7
00:17:06
days of not just antibiotics but a an
00:17:10
injection, you know, seven days I each
00:17:12
day I had to go in there and get another
00:17:14
injection and um and then come back and
00:17:17
um uh uh the doctor reviewed the x-rays
00:17:21
and we had one final consultation. The
00:17:24
total
00:17:26
$28. Can you believe that? If I thought
00:17:28
I was never going to get old and never
00:17:30
have serious health issues, um, then I
00:17:33
would say, why would I ever want
00:17:34
insurance or why would I ever need to do
00:17:37
that, you know, because it's it's, you
00:17:39
know, very very inexpensive out here.
00:17:42
So, obviously,
00:17:44
um, you're going to want to lose learn
00:17:46
Spanish out here. There are so many
00:17:49
reasons why you should do that. When I
00:17:51
came out here, I didn't know any
00:17:52
Spanish, and I still haven't advanced
00:17:54
too far from that point. No excuses. cuz
00:17:57
I used I had an excuse when I was
00:17:59
building this house, you know, that was
00:18:00
a year. It's like I would love to get
00:18:01
into, you know, but I don't have the
00:18:03
time for that. But it's been a year now,
00:18:05
so really no more excuses except for I'm
00:18:07
63 years old. You know, there's an
00:18:09
excuse, right? No, I really need to get
00:18:11
on that. Um I learned um basically
00:18:15
Google Translate is like um it's a
00:18:18
lifecher, you know. It really really is.
00:18:20
I came out here not speaking Spanish and
00:18:23
not knowing anybody, not really knowing
00:18:25
whether I was going to be able to pull
00:18:26
this thing off because, you know, of
00:18:29
these unknown variables. You know, I
00:18:31
come from the construction trade, so um
00:18:33
I knew that I could uh oversee the the
00:18:36
building of this place, but um getting
00:18:38
to know people and overcoming the the
00:18:41
language barrier, that was something
00:18:43
that I wasn't sure of. But between the
00:18:45
Google Translate and people uh helping
00:18:48
me with that process, I was maybe it was
00:18:50
maybe it would would have been better
00:18:51
had I been just thrown in the deep end
00:18:53
and I had to either learn Spanish or or
00:18:56
sync, right? I I'm forever grateful for
00:18:59
a Google Translate, but you get a lot
00:19:02
more respect if you learn the language
00:19:04
out here. And and why wouldn't you want
00:19:07
to? I mean, I've got lots of friends um
00:19:10
who are local people and they don't
00:19:12
speak English. Um, but why? They don't
00:19:15
have to speak English. It's not their
00:19:16
job to speak English. It's my job to to
00:19:19
speak Spanish. Um, but we're we're still
00:19:22
good friends to this day. And I that's
00:19:23
one of the things I love about um this
00:19:26
small town is um I can't you know, if I
00:19:28
walk from one end of this downtown area
00:19:31
to the other, I'm going to see at least
00:19:33
three or four people that I've gotten to
00:19:34
know over this two and a half years. Um,
00:19:37
but if you ever want to ingratiate
00:19:39
yourself to a community and get to know
00:19:41
the locals, build a house. I would say
00:19:44
that uh just as well as um you know with
00:19:47
the language, I if if you make a move
00:19:50
coming to not just Elva, but Panama or
00:19:54
anywhere like this that's that far from
00:19:56
where you came from, you should know,
00:19:59
and I think most people do, that it's
00:20:02
not going to be the same world. you
00:20:04
know, you're not in Kansas anymore. You
00:20:06
know, you all the things that are
00:20:08
available to you with a snap of a
00:20:10
finger, um, very likely, you know, they
00:20:13
will never be available to you again.
00:20:15
So, you have to accept that and adjust
00:20:16
to that reality. But there's lots of
00:20:20
wonder, wonderful things out here that
00:20:22
were not available to you where you came
00:20:24
from. And there is a pretty thriving
00:20:26
expat community out here. When I say
00:20:29
that, I mean mostly gringo because
00:20:31
that's what the expat community right
00:20:33
here is mostly. I would say probably um
00:20:36
80% uh people from the US and some in
00:20:40
Canada um and the rest um if if that 20%
00:20:45
uh Europeans. That's as far as I know.
00:20:47
Some of them some of them might never
00:20:49
show their faces. I I might not have met
00:20:52
them yet. But um I would say um you know
00:20:55
this has been a wonderful experience,
00:20:58
the best experience of my life. These
00:21:00
are my best years. You know, I never
00:21:02
thought I would say that at the age of
00:21:04
63, but these are my best years. And um
00:21:07
you know, I got my dog and yesterday I
00:21:10
inherited another dog. So life is good.
00:21:14
[Music]
00:21:24
[Music]
