Month: October 2017

Indigenous Dance Show

Friday we were allowed back on the beach and in the pool area after the tropical storm had moved on up the coast. In the morning we checked out the low tide. The Pacific Ocean has extreme tidal activity compared to our experiences in the Caribbean.

As I mentioned in the previous post we were able to relax and soak up some sun. It was windy and we did not realize how strong the sun was. Jen got a little more sun than she would have liked. Thank God for SPF70.

On Friday night we were privileged to see a live show from a team of dancers in original costumes of Panama. The evening was filled with the great company of our travel buddies and great local Panamanian cuisine. Following dinner we were treated to a great dance show. My ability to get good pictures was affected by the lighting, but I wanted to share a couple of images and a video. The masks and costumes were amazing.        Indigenous Dance video

Our travel buddies were awesome. We have traveled with these two couples for several years. The Panama vacation experience would not have been the same without having had them with us. This trip came straight from our bucket list, and was an awesome way to spend our anniversary. We hope that they will not be upset that we found a place in the blog for them. I seem to remember telling them that we would keep them off the internet. Thank-you Ray and Diane Barber & Ron and Linda Tyler for spending this special vacation with us. All four of you were great sports.

In our next post we will share our Panama Canal tour. We wrapped up our week in Panama with a full excursion from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The tour took around 12 hours and we got a lot of pictures and video. Please continue to like, share and check back often.

What happened to that Panama blog?

Truth be known, the last 3 days of our vacation were packed morning to night with adventure. We took 4 gigs of photos and video which caused me a great deal of grief during the download process. All of this is part of the “learning curve”. I have spent the last couple of days organizing the media and storing it on an auxiliary drive because it overloaded my computer. Our goal has been to deliver only original high quality material here. We made the decision to go silent rather than try to just post something. Enough of all that. Let me tell you about how we spent our Thursday…

Panama Hat
The hat with the slightly inconsistent stitch size was fine with me.

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#PanamaGreg
…For those who were paying attention to the weather in Panama, or our Facebook posts, Thursday morning we woke up to a Tropical Storm Warning. The beaches and pools were closed. We enjoyed a great breakfast with our travel buddies and decided to take a shopping excursion to Panama City. What a great time we had. Communication outside the resort was problematic, but we managed to find some terrific things to buy. It was my lucky day. I was able to speak enough Spanish to learn about how to choose a Panama Hat. The more consistent the stitch size the higher the price. Being the financially responsible individual that I am, my hat is on the lower end of the price range of $50-$250. I chose the hat that I liked the best, regardless of the consistency of the stitching.

The day ended with another great meal at the resort and cards with our travel buddies. We were hoping for better weather on Friday, which we got. Tropical Storm Nate moved on up the coast of Central America and out into the Gulf of Mexico where it turned into a Hurricane. One of Jen’s friends accused me of being a storm chaser wanna be. With the Tropical Storm behind us, we were able to enjoy the beach and soak up some sun on Friday.  We were all thankful that Panama is never in danger of being hit by a hurricane. We will explore and try to come up with the technical reason for Panama never having been hit by a hurricane in a future post.

Thanks again for following along. If you are liking what you see, please, like and share. Sign up for e-mail updates. We continue to be excited to share.

 

We have found a temporary home in Panama

 

Yesterday was the day of our vacation which we had set aside to look for accommodations during our 2 month stay this winter. February and March are high season here and it is a bit more expensive to rent for 2 months. They like long term rentals of at least a year. There are ways to find short term, but the prices are a bit higher. Jen and I have been communicating with Beth McGuyton  at Try Panama for several months. Beth had our budget and knew our plans. Beth is a real estate professional and found us the perfect condo in budget. We were both relieved to know that we have a great place to live here, while we explore the great country of Panama. She found us a place that met all the “must haves” on our list. We will be on the beach in Coronado about 1 1/2 hours (33 miles) from Panama City. The traffic out of the city is terrible. The infrastructure here is excellent, however there are not enough roads to accommodate all the cars. We are anxious to explore the city while we are here next winter, but have decided to use a guide or public transportation. We will have a rental car for our exploration, but driving in Panama City is best left to the professionals.

Our guide yesterday was Marc Vargas. Marc is one of the professionals, whom I mentioned earlier. Our trip yesterday was mostly business, so we saw only small parts of the city on our way to Coronado. Marc used his knowledge of traffic and travel in Panama to safely deliver us to Coronado. The entire trip Marc was telling us about the Panama Canal, and giving us helpful information for our winter adventure. Marc introduced us to a couple of people here, and took us to a great open air seafood restaurant. We found Marc to be very knowledgeable and capable. We believe that Marc will consider us friends, and continue to be at our service when, and if, we decide to put down roots here in Panama.

It is a blast down here, and we are having a great time sharing our adventure. Please like, share, and join the conversation.

The View
This is the view from our guest room balcony
Lunch with Marc Vargas
Lunch with Marc Vargas
roof view
This is the view of the Pacific from the roof of the condo.

Panama Vacation Day 1

We are just starting day 2 of our Panama vacation. Personally I love to vacation  at all inclusive resorts. The cost seems prohibitive when making the reservation, but when you are there you never have to reach into your pocket for money. I am not going to review our resort other than to say it is nice and we are being well cared for. It is the rainy season here in Panama and the resort is less than 1/3 capacity. We relaxed by the pool most of the day yesterday and it sprinkled for about 2 hours in mid afternoon.

Our resort is close enough to the Panama Canal that we are watching the huge ships line up for miles to await passage. I am impressed by the engineering of this great wonder. On Saturday we will be taking a full passage tour of the canal. I am excited to share what I learn on that trip. I am planning to also share some video and fun facts about the canal. If I Google Panama Canal I get Wikipedia telling me it is about 48 miles long. I am not a big fan of Wikipedia so I will refrain from just regurgitating what it says there in favor of waiting until I can see for myself how it works.

Tomorrow we are planning a trip to Coronado to look for a place to spend part of the winter. Coronado is about 1 1/2 hours west of Panama City on the Pacific ocean. We chose to look there because it is closer to where we think we may ultimately want to live. There are also entire communities of English speaking people. We are working on our Spanish language skills, however we realize that it is a slow process. It is important to the Panamanian people that we try to speak a little Spanish. Our server at dinner last night was very appreciative when I ordered in Spanish. She helped me when I struggled for a word for something, and complimented my effort. I have found at this resort there are many employees who speak no English. I encountered 1 employee yesterday who spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish. He wanted to have a conversation with me in English so he could work on his English skills. It was amazing, to me, how well we could understand one another. Kudos to you Vladimir! You are a great asset to this resort. While we are in Panama this winter we will be traveling around the interior where there will be less people who speak English so we know that our ability to communicate in Spanish is a must.

Please, remember to like and share our blog. We would love to have some participation here in the way of comments and advice. We are so appreciative of our new friends here in Panama who are joining in and sharing. As we grow and become better at this blogging thing our content will improve. For now it is our hope that you find it entertaining.