I know, we've been missing in action for some time now. I won't bore you with all of the details, but aside from both spending some time at home with our families, we've been 'very busy waiting' and have spent far more time than is desirable in lawyers meetings and hotel rooms.
But there is progress.... we think we've found 'the farm for us' and hopefully day by day we creep a little closer to actually owning it! The farm is in the Azuero Peninsula of Panama, nestled in mountain folds between a National Park and a Reserve and from the ridgeline you can see the Pacific coastline. It truely is beautiful and these pictures don't do it justice.
Despite not owning the farm yet, the sellers have very kindly let us visit and stay on the farm several times. Over Easter weekend we went up for 5 nights and for the first time, we took our own vehicle. We can report that she did very well, expecially after we discovered (on the 3rd dy of being up there!) that the shiny after market hub caps were covering the wheel locks that actually allow you to put the car into 4x4! The word 'relief' doesn't even come close to how we felt!
 |
| She's certainly not this shiny anymore! |
 |
Our main reason for going up this last time to the farm was to investigate the housing situation. After about an hour of me sliding downslope after the ever more agile and sure-footed Ethan, plus a short trek through the forest, we found one of the houses. The site is beautiful.... in the shade of citrus, mango, cashew and avocado trees, right next to the river which has gorgeous swimming holes and apparrently gold! It's just a shame it's only accessible on foot or by horseback!
 |
| Ethan on the hike down to the house |
 |
| Our future home? |
 |
| Cashews growing just outside the front door |
 |
| All the modern cooking facilities a girl could ever want! |
So the plan is that while we wait, we're going to take our neighbour-to-be up on his very kind offer of using his shack up in the mountains. It's within easy driving distance of the farm and it luxuriously has a tin roof that doesn't leak, running water that's pumped up from the spring below, cell phone signal a short hike away and best of all, this gorgeous view over the Ocean as the sun sets everyday.
This farm certainly isn't easy... we're going to have to improve access and build a house with off the grid infrastructure, all before we tackle the farm itself and actually put things in the ground! In some ways though, the challenge is the charm.... however this farm grows over the coming years, it should be the product of the hard work, thought and determination of ourselves and all of the amazing people that we have to help us. And we can't really complain when we have this vista to look at every day!
