Plan your visit to El Estribo Equestrian Club in Capira

El Estribo Equestrian is located towards Cermeño in the sector of Santa Rosa that belongs to the municipality of Capira. Before this part of the country was part of the province of Panama but in 2014 the assembly decided to create the province of West Panama. The road that leads to the farm is paved and takes less than an hour from Panama City. This farm was certified when the agro-tourism project started in Panama, a little over 10 years ago.

The owner of the farm is Italo Salcedo who is Carlos’ brother, an old companion in the struggles for the rescue of the agricultural sector. The Salcedo family is a native of the area and are poultry farmers by profession. Italo tells me that his first job was at a bakery and he wants to go back to his roots.

Baking legacy in Capira

Capira has historically been a town of bakers. In the old days there were six or seven craft bakeries. Italo tells us that he was a pastry chef when he was young, selling bread and pastries in Quesos Chela in a small box. “This has always been the economic support of the capireño. My grandmother was a baker, my father was a baker and I was a baker. In this farm I wanted to continue the Capirenian tradition, so I did it in a well-structured brick oven just like the old days using nance firewood, “Italo tells us.

Yeyo was the last bakery and he died, so the family sold it. There are no bakeries left in Capira, only Quesos Chela.

Those who visit can make their own artisanal bread from preparing the dough to baking it in a wood oven typical of the interior of the country. Visitors can make egg bread, pastries and empanadas in conjunction with the estate’s bakers. They can eat everything they make and if there are leftovers, they can take them home.

El Estribo Equestrian Club receives groups

This club organizes activities and invites the public through its social networks. In addition, you can visit with reservations in groups of more than 10 people. The costs vary according to the selected activities. At the moment they are not open for the public to go when they want but they hope to do so in the future.

Food is prepared according to the preferences of the visitors. There are some who want meals cooked for them so they prepare breakfast or lunch. There are other people who are interested in preparing their own meals in a barbecue or wood-burning stove. They organize everything so that guests only have to bring the food.

They do not have lodging but they organize trips with camping where they take them in 4×4 to the highest part of the 150 hectares farm.

Choose your activities

The Club Ecuestre El Estribo farm adapts to the preferences of its customers. Before booking you are offered a menu of options according to the interest of the visitor.

Hiking is practiced in the higher parts of the farm where there are wooded areas. They also have the milling activity, where you can understand the process of making panela and its derivatives. They sow cane that is cut and processed in a mill to extract the juice. In the end they cook it to make honey.

They are large-scale aviculturists with 160,000 chickens in the galleys on the side of the farm. They are associated with the Melo group that buys all the production. The tour of the poultry farm is done without entering for biosecurity issues. They explain to the people the process of the industrialization of the chicken that is one of the most eaten proteins in the country. They have the highest quality standards to guarantee food safety. The process is explained from when small chicken arrive until it leaves to the slaughter plant.

The second agricultural activity of El Estribo Equestrian Club is livestock. They have a breeding stock of approximately 120 animals. They teach people how to vaccinate cattle and how the traceability of the health of each animal is maintained. They want to venture into an industrialized dairy to make cheese and yogurt. His future vision is to integrate the bakery with the dairy so that people can visit on weekends. If people want to milk manually, it can also be organized.