We’ve been asked quite a bit about the drive down the beach at the end of the Punta Burica Peninsula, so we decided to shoot a little video to show what it’s like.

The road is still under construction and they are down to about the last 2km. They were scheduled for completion last year but ran into some problems with the contractors. Our local contacts tell us that they are expecting completion in 2010.

I recently took a trip from Boquete, Panama to Jaco, Costa Rica to see what’s changed over the last few months.

Probably the biggest development is that the road from Dominical to Quepos is nearing completion. They have taken forever to finish it, but it’s pretty great today.

The pavement had made it to Palma Quemada, when i was there in late October.

In todays market astronomical appreciation can’t be the business model for success. The days are over where you could literally throw a stone, see where it lands, buy that property and make money in 6 months to year on the sale.

When demand changes as quickly as it did, it can leave projects in a difficult spot. When projects were conceived assumptions were made about sales price, sales cycle, cost to build, duration of building, etc. When those assumptions are changed almost overnight you don’t have many options to right the ship.

The small town of Boca Chica has benefited from a new, paved road from the Pan-American highway in the last year.

It is the gateway to Boca Brava, the Chiriqui Marine Park, and dozens of islands.

Boca Brava is one of the largest islands off the cost of Panama. It is located just outside of David.

The island has several fishing lodges & hotels.

This short video shows how to cross the border from Panama to Costa Rica in Paso Canoas.

Some things to keep in mind.

• If you get behind a big tour bus, it’s going to take you a while, so you may want to go shopping. Jerusalem Mall isn’t bad.
• The agents leave for lunch randomly around mid day. If you’re unlucky enough to be coming through then, you’ll have to wait until they return. I usually try to avoid mid day.

So, the steps are as follows:

The Chiriqui province of Panama has lots of coastline. Most of it is undeveloped and remains in Stages 2 and 3 since the early focus in Chiriqui has been in the highlands of Boquete.

Boquete, just over an hour from the coast, has built a nice base of real live people who actually live or spend significant amounts of time at their home or condo in the mountains.

There is a real consumer demand for a place for those folks in Boquete to enjoy the beach. The problem is that the Boquete crowd are highly value oriented and price conscious. After all, they came to Boquete in the first place after “hearing twice the lifestyle for half the price.”

Playa Las Lajas, pronounced “La-Has” is about an hour east of David, Panama It is certainly a gorgeous beach, probably one of the best in the Chiriqui Province of Panama.

At low tide, the water retreats around 500 meters, revealing one of the largest all sand beaches that you will see in Panama. It stretches for 40 kilometers, and during the week you will have miles of beach to yourself.

Most of the locals think it’s the most beautiful beach on earth. I wouldn’t go that far, but it is an appealing area.

Las Lajas is one of those areas that has been stuck in a Stage 3 log jam for several years now.