Panama Day parade in El Valle de Anton

El Valle is a parade town. The locals love to put on parades for every possible occasion:  Christmas, independence, various saints’ days, and more. These parades are big events, sometimes with half the town participating, marching, playing music, and riding custom-built wagons pulled by oxen. In between parades the youth practice, and the sound of distant rhythmic drumming can often be heard in the days preceding any parade.

Be aware that parades never start on time. They are always scheduled for an early time like 9am, but don’t actually get started until 10 or 11. That’s the Panama way, ha ha.

The parades are one the many things I love about life in El Valle.

A Baltimore oriole was recently sighted in El Valle, Panama

A resident of El Valle de Anton (Panama) recently reported seeing a Baltimore Oriole in his yard, and suggested keeping an eye out for this brilliant orange and black colored bird.

The Baltimore oriole’s habitat ranges from the Eastern half of the United States all the way down to Venezuela, so in Panama we’re at the southern end of its range.

It’s head, throat, mantle, wings, and tail are all black. The underparts, shoulders, tip and edges of tail, and rump are orange to yellow orange. The orange on the chest deepens to almost a sunset orange. There is a single white wingbar; the orange shoulder makes a second wingbar. The bill is pointed and silvery.

Panama has 972 species of birds. Because of its unique location as a connector of Central and South America, Panama gets visits from migratory birds from the entire range of the Americas.

El Valle is a birder’s paradise, and in fact there are hotels devoted specifically to birders. Every morning in El Valle one wakes up to bird song. It’s quite lovely.

Coronado Bay, Panama

Number Three: Coronado, Panama, just 35 minutes away from El Valle.

Yahoo Finance just published a slideshow titled, “8 Great Places to Retire You’ve Never Heard Of.” One of them is Coronado, Panama, which is just down the hill from El Valle de Anton, only 35 minutes away. Coronado is where El Valle residents go for larger grocery trips, or to have a Subway sandwich, or (if you know someone) to hang out at the beach.

My beautiful house in El Valle is for sale. Not only do you get to live in one of the loveliest places in the world, you’re only 40 minutes away from the Pacific beaches, and only 90 minutes out of the capital city.