Cañita

About Cañita:

Cañita covers 359 square kilometres of the Chepo district on the stretch of the Pan-American east of El Llano, before the highway crosses Lake Bayano into the Guna comarca of Madungandí. The town lines both sides of the road, with two petrol stations, supermarkets, a hardware store and the polyclinic on the highway or just off it. From the middle of town the side road heads south to the dam, 80 kilometres from Panama City, runs across it and climbs on toward Loma del Naranjo. Everything bound for Tortí and Darién passes through Cañita, so trucks and buses roll past all day.

The town is young. In 1942 Ceferino Delgado Villarreal, a farmer born in El Carate near Las Tablas, travelled to Chepo and followed the telegraph line out to the Bayano, where he found flat ground, water and plenty of game. By the end of the decade his brothers had moved here with their families, and other Santeños followed them. Getting here meant a car to the river port of La Capitana in Chepo, a piragua up the Bayano and the last stretch on foot or horseback. The first school carries the name of Clímaco Delgado, of the founding family, and every 10 November the patriotic parade still goes out in Santeño dress, although families from all over Panama live here now.

In 2010 the corregimiento had 2,514 residents, up from 1,721 in 1990, spread between the town and communities such as Flor de Laguna, Río Piedra, Jenené, Buenos Aires, Tagua and Río Paja. Cattle and crops such as rice, maize, cassava and yam take up most of the farmland. AES Panamá, which runs the dam, keeps an office in Cañita, and at Jenené the Ecotopia Teak plant mills plantation teak for export; it was the first plant in the country certified for that wood and can ship 1,300 forty-foot containers a year. The Social Security polyclinic has been open since July 2001, the Ministry of Health runs a health centre, the fire service has a station at Río Paja, and the Ministry of Agriculture’s local agency also works with farmers around the lake.

Water decides a lot here. The Cañita, Jenené and Bayano rivers cross flat to rolling ground, the same land that drew the first settlers, and they rise fast in heavy rain; floods have damaged houses in Flor de Laguna. Farmland along the Cañita and the Bayano below the dam also falls inside the operator’s emergency plan for spillway releases. Buyers are mostly neighbouring ranchers adding pasture, families from Chepo and the capital who want a finca or a country house, and people after a cabin looking over the lake from the hills around Buenos Aires. Before you fall for a riverside lot, ask how high the water came last time.

Houses in Cañita:

Houses here are single-storey family homes: in the town along the Pan-American, in the residential area at Río Paja where the fire station stands, and in villages off the highway such as Flor de Laguna and Río Piedra. On the fincas, the farmhouse is sold with the land. A house near the highway keeps the polyclinic, the schools and the supermarkets close, so you are not driving to Chepo for every errand. When you look at houses for sale in Cañita, ask how far the nearest river is and whether the yard took water in the last big storm.

Fincas and Land in Cañita:

Most of what comes to market is working farmland. Titled cattle fincas in Cañita run from around fifteen hectares to more than a hundred and fifty, with fenced pasture, creeks and stands of forest, and smaller agro parcels turn up nearer the road. Banks sell repossessed land here from time to time, including a large agro-ganadero holding in the Buenos Aires sector. Frontage on the Pan-American or on the dam road lifts the price, because a truck can reach the gate in any season; a farm at the end of an earth track costs less, and you pay the difference in October. Check the water too, since a creek that runs in August can be a trickle by March.

FAQ:

• How far is Cañita from Panama City?

  About 80 kilometres east along the Pan-American, past Pacora and Chepo. The Bayano dam, reached from the middle of town, sits at roughly the same distance from the city. Expect to share the road with cattle trucks and buses heading for Tortí and Darién.

• Can I buy land on the other side of the Bayano bridge?

  No. Once the highway crosses the lake it enters Madungandí, a Guna comarca whose land is held collectively and cannot be sold to outsiders. If a finca you like runs up to the lake or the comarca, have a surveyor check the boundary against the plan before you sign.

• Does land by the rivers or below the dam flood?

  The Jenené, Cañita and Bayano rise quickly in heavy rain, and houses in Flor de Laguna have been damaged. Below the dam, riverside land is covered by the operator’s emergency plan for when the spillway opens. Talk to the neighbours, look for water marks on fences and walls, and favour the higher ground.

• The finca’s title came from a state land grant. What should I check?

  Cañita was settled by clearing forest, and many parcels were later titled through agrarian adjudication, with the edicts posted at the corregiduría. Make sure the seller’s process ended in a title registered in the Public Registry, not in possession rights or an edict still pending. Then walk the fences against the survey plan and confirm the way in is a public road rather than a track across a neighbour’s pasture.