Boquete At First Glance
Boquete was full of surprises for us. It has by far and away the most infrastructure of any of the expat communities that we have seen in Panama with the exception of Panama City and David. For being a small ex-pat community (OK expats, how large is Boquete at this point?), it has a little department store, several doctors offices and clinics, many banks, and lots and lots of restaurants. (Being from Santa Fe, restaurants are an important part of the social scene.)
There are plenty of coffee shops and delis. I even found a small health food store here that would have a lot of potential to grow. And there’s a lot of new construction going on both in the commercial arena as well as the residential arena. This is a very compact, well organized ex-pat community with a heavy focus on volunteerism. The expat community has definitely changed the entire face of Boquete from its roots.
So now the pessimistic side of me has to raise its ugly head and wonder if Boquete is growing so rapidly, is it a place I might still want to live in within, say, five years’ time or will it have become too North Americanized to be intriguing? Will it have too much traffic and noise? Is crime on the rise as a result of the growing expat community? Just how much has it changed in the past two or three years and what is the community’s outlook? Care to weigh in, Boquete residents?
Given the giant mall you saw, I’d say your suspicions have good foundation, Marta….