Panama Forum

drdata
Joined 2018
Posts: 66

5 years ago

Thoughts about El Valle

5 years ago

Hello,

While visiting El Valle, I found the place nice, with lots of nice properties and not so hot weather (as long as you stay in the shadow). Nature is beautiful, and the place is overall quiet, although there are some big works on the main road at the moment. Dwellers are nice. I also found a few negative issues that I am going to raise. I do not mean to be negative, since the place is overall nice.

Maybe I missed some shopping places, but I found that the quality of what you can buy is fairly low. I was disappointed by the market where there are not so many good fruits. In this season, you will find only (very good) pineapples, oranges, clementines, papayas and (good) bananas, There are a few other fruits, like small watermelons, but not in season, or passion fruits, not in season, still with interesting taste. And that's about it. I thought there would be more fruits, even at this period of the year. Are there places I missed? Besides the market, the shops barely have fruits, but there are grapes (average quality, just one type) in Rey supermarket. Including at the market, the prices of several fruits (not all) are high. For example, one (big, granted) pineapple, although in season, is worth between 2 and 2.5 dollars.

Besides the fruits, the rest is of low quality, mostly. There are several supermarkets that are all the same, run by Chinese people, and with really low quality. I guess this is good that the Chinese bring such offer, but it is a pity they just duplicated the same shops many times. There are few competitors left, among which Rey seems the best. The prices at Rey are really high. For many products, it is either of higher price than in Europe, or of lower quality for the same price. I think this is expected because many products are imported. But when the fruit/vegetable section is not that impressive (and is not even entirely local; e.g. oranges are from Chile), it is difficult to either live like in Europe/US (which is fine, this is the deal) or enjoy local products with variety and even good prices. I really wonder how the rich people in El Valle proceed with buying quality, diverse food.

Thanks!

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