When a friend suggested that we take an excursion to La Laguna we were chomping at the bit to take a ride. From our condo it was a 45 minute ride to a very secluded mountain lake. The place was described as Jurassic Park in Panama. We agreed that the place was really cool but not a place to entertain our visitors. It was a great place for a hike and quiet solitude. There were very few others there, possibly because of the need for four wheel drive to reach our destination. At the end of the day we agreed that the best part of it was the ride up there. On our return to civilization we stopped at a housing project nested on the mountainside which was too cool not to explore. Sante’ Fe was in the possibility of places we could want to live so we took a look. We could build a new home for slightly more than buying a condo on the beach. This turns out to be a no brainer for us. We have decided that we are beach, rather than mountain people. Enjoy the pictures of this adventure. We had magnificent views of the ocean from the mountain housing project where we looked at lots. It seems that everything about Panama leaves us awestruck and amazed. Every day is a new adventure even if we never leave the condo. The weather here is always interesting and never a disappointment, even when it rains. It is rainy season here now but we rarely have more than a few minutes of rain. Most days we have plenty of quality beach or pool time.
We have discovered many great places to enjoy a meal. Unfortunately we rarely take pictures of our experience. We are dedicated to doing better at this. One of the best meals is right here at our condo. The chef at La Terrazas Del Mar is truly amazing. We have been there several times without a bad experience. We do, however, find the fondas the most fun and always cheap. On Sunday we enjoyed the fonda outside our gate. We will return often as we can eat there cheaper than cooking at home.
We also have found a great place where the half pound burgers are less than $5. They have birds and a great patio dining area.
Our best find was one afternoon we took off for a beach lunch. The lobster was pricey, but well worth the trip. It rained while we enjoyed a special lunch under a bohio.
When we are not eating we enjoy our church and have volunteered to teach English to the local community. We have 4 students each and have just completed the 4th week of this awesome outreach. We both feel like we are not quite qualified for this, however it provides us a degree of satisfaction as we see the progression of these wonderful students. They are so anxious to learn and they are all learning to communicate with the many North Americans who live in this community. We are becoming active in the church and look forward to church on Sunday morning as well as Bible study. Our pastor is a great communicator and our knowledge of the Bible is growing. We both feel that Gods purpose for moving us here is buried in the details.
We are looking forward to a visit from friends in less than 2 weeks. We love to share our adventures, and hope that we can show them a great time.
For now we will say adios and leave you with a great picture of a recent sunrise (the feature picture). We cannot express enough how awesome the weather is here. As we wrap up this post we are sitting on our balcony watching a storm come across the horizon.
Recent world events spark conversations daily about how safe it is to live in a developing country. Yesterday a gunman walked into a gaming event in the United States and killed participants before turning the gun on himself. Our dinner conversation last night was interesting. Does this happen here in Panama and we just don’t know it? Are these events isolated to the United States? The short answer is that this is a problem worldwide. We have done research on the safety of life in Panama and have concluded that we have to be diligent in protecting ourselves. We do not live in a vacuum ignoring local news, however it is much less “in our face” than media in the States. We live in a gated community with armed security. Our choice to live here is not as much about security as it is to reside in a place we love and enjoy. The majority of crime in Panama isn’t murder. It is crime of opportunity like petty theft (people helping themselves to something that is easy to take). The prevalent crime victim tends to be people who let their guard down or enter into transactions without due diligence. We do neither of these things and have had no problems. That being said, we don’t want to make this political at all, but believe that the news media often dramatizes stories to keep people watching the news. Our blog is another example of security in a developing country. Some of our viewers will notice that we changed our physical address to Panama today. Some may also have noticed over the past few days that when signing into our site there is a pop-up stating that we are not secure. This is false information. We compose on a secure network and pay for layers of security. We get weekly updates that show no security concerns. We pay big bucks to make sure that all of you can read our blog without concern for security. We have WordPress, VaultPress, and Jetpack investigating the source of our problem and will keep it safe or shut it down. Please let us know if you experience problems with our site.
That is about enough of things that keep people awake at night. It has been several weeks since our last post. We spent a couple of weeks at our home in the States and are returning to normal here in Panama. We love our friends and family, but frequent visits to Michigan are stressful. We have a great deal of interest in our home and are looking forward to turning it over to a new family soon. Our advice in this matter is that you should get your home sold before relocating. Remote care for real estate is difficult at best. On the flip side, we have stated on numerous occasions that you should not purchase property in Panama until you have been on the ground for a year. The real estate market in Panama is quite different from the U.S. and this time is necessary to gauge the market and find a location that suits your lifestyle. Rent for at least a year. We continue to stand by that advice.
Before returning to the States we had visitors at our church from Logos Hope. Logos Hope is a floating mission/bookstore to take Christianity throughout the world. Our visitors shared testimony and told of their experiences aboard the ship. Over 60 countries and nationalities are represented aboard the ship. Many people who live on the ship are from countries where they would be persecuted for sharing Christianity. We were intrigued by this awesome mission so upon our return to Panama we went to visit the ship. Due to persecution, taking pictures was difficult. We are sharing limited pictures from the ship.
The ship left late last week to continue its mission. It will dock next in Guatemala. The wonderful people on board carry their message and bookstore to all parts of the world. Please check out their website.
Since our return to Panama we have been crazy busy. In addition to the Logos Hope adventure we spent a day (including the night before) in Panama City. The purpose of our stay was to complete the paperwork for our Cedula. A Cedula is the national identification carried by all Panamanian people. Most Panamanian people do not have driver’s licenses so this is the instrument that identifies a person and gives credibility for their ability to conduct business. A Cedula is not a requirement for our residency, however it will make it easier for us to conduct bank business and make major purchases. Our appointment was at 7 a.m. Our attorney had a solid agenda and got us finished very quickly by Panama standards. We highly recommend our attorney for all immigration needs. We are happy to provide her contact info to anyone by private correspondence. It has been our experience that her rates are very fair and her ability to get things done are without reproach. The process was entirely done at the Tribunal Electoral. The building was beautiful and well organized. We got our business started at 7 a.m. sharp, and waited the hour for paperwork processing, in a great cafeteria where we enjoyed an authentic Panamanian breakfast. Once the paperwork was complete we waited in line to have a photograph made and pay the fee. As a Jubilado there is a discount for the fee to get your Cedula. We took photographs below at the Tribunal Electoral.
We made good use of our time in the city. We made reservations for future travel and paid for our tickets using our Jubilado discount. We also learned that one of the future trips planned would require a vaccination, so we made our way to the Minister of Health and got our vaccination. As residents, we got the vaccination at a substantial discount. The experience was interesting to say the least. No officials there spoke English and we had a few communication issues. Fortunately there are wonderful people all over who know a little English and they helped us be understood. We used our due diligence and read the container which contained the vaccine to be sure we were getting what was required for our travel. They then provided a document that states the time in which the vaccine remains effective. This is called a yellow card and we must always be able to provide it before travel. We have committed to keeping it safely stored with our Passports. We have heard that people have been denied entry to some countries without the proper documentation of vaccinations. We plan to travel extensively in our retirement. We are anxious to explore and Central America is an excellent place to explore from.
We also got in a little retail therapy while in the city. We didn’t really buy much but we had a nice lunch at the mall. We have become big fans of Leonardo Pizza. Our lunch for two pictured below was just over $6 with our Jubilado discount.
Yesterday we traveled with friends to El Valle de Anton where we frequently enjoy the fresh vegetable market. We had purchased a huge clay pot for our balcony and wanted to fill it with tropical plants. Our visit was a great success. Our pot now has some colorful plantings that we will enjoy. We also picked up our usual supply of salad fixings.
Every day proves to be an adventure and it is the most relaxing, inexpensive, and beautiful place to spend retirement. We know that this life isn’t for everyone, but it suits us well. We continue to learn Spanish. The language barrier is only an inconvenience, and most of the time our English is enough to survive daily life. That being said we have volunteered to help teach English to Panamanian people in our community. The people here can get better jobs and prosper with the ability to speak English. We know that God had a plan when he moved us here and in some small way this may be our way to give back.
Tuesday was the pinnacle of our time here in Panama. We woke early and met 20 other people at Nueva Gorgona for a tour to the Embera Village deep in the jungle northeast of Panama City. Our group was led by a volunteer from the church where we have been visiting. She makes the arrangements and all the money collected goes directly to the Embera. The Embera are the most welcoming and gracious people that you can imagine. They live completely off the grid, surviving by living off the land, fishing and selling a few crafts to their visitors. By the way, their crafts are incredible.
We journeyed by caravan in 4 cars to the dock where we were met by a few men from the Embera Village. They took us in 3 dugout canoes (motorized) on the 1 hour trip up the river into the jungle to their village. We were met by a welcoming committee who were playing small instruments made by the tribe. We gathered for an informal question and answer presentation to educate us on the life and customs of the tribe. The tribe has their own indigenous language and only a couple of the members have learned Spanish so that they can communicate with their visitors and government. The government here respects the tribe, however they do require the children to attend school. The Village has a schoolhouse and two teachers who come from the city on Monday returning on Friday. They spend the week there in their own huts with one teaching the younger children and one teaching the older children. The children are required to wear uniforms to school, as are all children in Panama. We learned a bunch of great information about the culture. We had at least 2 people in our group who spoke fluent Spanish so getting answers to our questions was really easy.
Following our discussion we were invited to a wonderful lunch of fish and patacones. Patacones are slices of fried banana. Lunch was delicious. We were about the only visitors from outside on that day so we were welcome to move about and observe the daily life in the village. Shortly after lunch we were invited to see and take part in indigenous dance.
Once the dance presentation ended we were invited by the father of the chief to take a walk through the jungle where he showed us native plants and explained their medicinal uses. The Embera maintain their personal health naturally and have a similar lifespan to the rest of the world. What he shared with us could put big pharma out of business. Our journey through the jungle ended at the school.
We visited the classrooms and interacted with the children. We had a family in our group with children 2 and 4 years old. The children were blue eyed with blond hair and the Embera children were in awe of them. We suspect that not many groups to the village have young children in them. We learned that the USO was there 6 years ago and installed a solar panel to provide lights in the classrooms. The chief told us that the lights stopped working a few days ago. A couple of the guys in our group did a diagnosis and believe that the batteries may have come to the end of their useful life. Some people from our group are raising funds to replace the batteries. This is the only electricity in the village.
We walked from there back to where we had started. We had the opportunity to look at and purchase their craft items, swim in the river with the Embera children, and have tattoos made from the natural dye in an indigenous plant. We boarded our boats for the journey back to the dock in late afternoon. The journey back was down stream so it took only 45 minutes.
We hope that you will all have an experience like this some day. We have not put a lot of written detail here in the post; but we are allowing the pictures to tell the story. We want to have the opportunity to return to the Embera Village soon to purchase some of the wonderful crafts to decorate our Panama home.
We will be leaving soon to return to the States. It is and has been crazy busy the last few days here. We appreciate that you all have continued to follow along. We are dedicated to keeping the information flowing as we prepare to move and settle in Panama. Our next post will be a recap once we get back to Michigan.
…and it seems like we just got here. We planned 1 adventure per week and have hardly scratched the surface. The thing we have done is made some decisions for where we will live. We know now that we will reside 1 – 2 hours west of Panama City on the Pacific. We have looked at houses and condos. Our first choice is an ocean front condo; we just have to find the perfect community for us. People here all have opinions about what makes a community perfect. We know that perfect for us is not necessarily perfect for others. We love Coronado Bay, but it is small, loud, and hot in the afternoon. We know that having a west facing balcony is out of the question because we enjoy our balcony to much to be kept off it in the afternoon and early evening. We also need a big balcony, because we would practically live out there if possible. We love to cook, and eat at home so the kitchen is important. We need a garage or covered parking because the sun is hot here and it is hard on the car to be baking in it 12 hours per day. We will be living there as our primary residence so we need a little more space than a glorified hotel suite. These are our minimal needs and you may be surprised to know that these minimal needs allow us to rule out many places. We are trying to find a place that is further away from the tourist and resort areas while close enough to find a clinic, grocery store, hair salon, and a dentist when needed. We also do not want to be more than 2 hours from the International Airport in Panama City. Currently that is the only place that has nonstop flights into Panama. There are other airports that have international service from Canada or by connecting through Panama City, but we want travel to/from the States to be easy.
This past week I had an appointment with a local dentist. He cleaned my teeth and did an exam. He spoke perfect English and his dental office was state of the art. His equipment put my dentist in Michigan to shame. The total cost here was $42. We would be happy to share his contact information with anyone who messages us. We have shared the names of many of our professional contacts privately here and most everyone is reporting similar good results. We also met with an insurance professional to discuss our insurance needs here in Panama this week. Our health coverage will go from $1267 per month to $383. Our homeowners insurance will be less than $400 per year and our car insurance (full coverage) less than $500 per year for a small 4X4 SUV. We are going to have insurance physicals on Monday morning. We will share that experience as it unfolds.
Next week we will also look at a few more condos in projects that we have not yet seen. We will also, return for a 3rd look at our current first choice. It checks off all the boxes plus has a golf course, children’s water park (grand kid thing), miles of walking and bike paths, pools, beach club, restaurant, and much more. Our other goal for the week is to open a bank account. Opening an account here is one of the hardest parts of integrating into the local society.
We are going to wrap it up for now. Our time for the next couple of weeks is going to be busy. We will be wrapping up our research for daily life and taking at least one more adventure. We are anxious to check out the jungle and go to a village of indigenous people in the Darien region between here and Columbia. Please continue to check back, follow and comment. If you’re following on social media, consider subscribing to the blog by e-mail. E-mail delivery is much more reliable.
We departed Coronado early on Sunday morning for our 402 Km drive to Boquete’. Our navigation system said it would take right at 5 hours with no stops. At Santiago we found that the brand new InterAmericana Highway was complete and the drive from that point was nice. There were very few places to stop. It was almost like an interstate highway in the States. Somewhere between Santiago and David we did find a truck stop where we had a nice lunch for $6.
After lunch, we continued to David, the second largest city in Panama, and it is where our journey turned north into the mountains. David has an international airport and a hospital with world class healthcare. This area was one of our of possible relocation considerations. There are beach homes and resorts on the ocean about 20 minutes south. We wanted to see some places which we heard about so our plan is to stop on our return journey. About 40 minutes to the north we reached our destination. Boquete’ is half way between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, high in the mountains, about 60 Km from the border of Costa Rica. There are a lot of expats there and we had no trouble finding people who spoke English. Our plan was to find a coffee farm and take a tour before finding a hotel.
Our navigation system took us to a coffee farm. We found the gate locked and nobody around. We would later learn that the tours of coffee plantations are only arranged by a tour guide. We had a nice drive through the mountains on roads not meant for safe passing, before returning to the downtown area to find a hotel.
We settled on a lovely place just out of town called the Inn at Palo Alto. We were surprised to find many places were already full. Boquete is a tourist destination, and the streets were packed with people visiting from all over the world. The Inn Keeper was able to sign us up for tours on Monday afternoon and suggest a hike for the morning. She also suggested a nice casual dinner place in town. We enjoyed dinner and went back to the hotel to rest for our day of adventure. The climate is cool and we were actually pleased to find a fire on the patio of the hotel bar where we enjoyed a drink.
Getting up early on Monday morning was no problem, because we had a chicken next door that kept us up most of the night. The first income source for this community is agriculture, followed by tourism in a close second. It is interesting to see the two co-exist to create a solid economy. We took it all in stride. By 8 a.m. we were having breakfast so we could get in the hike up the Pipeline Trail before our 1:30 p.m. coffee and cloud forest tour. The drive to the trail-head was a repeat of our drive on Sunday. The roads were narrow and often steep, with very little room to pass. The drive took us more than 30 minutes and we found the trail-head deserted with nobody to point us in the right direction. This hike would take about 3 hours and we were supposed to see monkeys, waterfalls, and rare birds. With no direction and no obvious sign of where to start we opted to forgo the hike. Neither of us wanted to be lost in the jungle, with nobody really knowing where we were. Upon our return to town we found another interesting opportunity for adventure, but I was unable to convince Jen to zip-line. The photos below are from bumming around waiting for our 1:30 p.m. tour.
We ended up at Boquete Tree Trek. Zip-line adventures, hanging bridges, hotel rooms and restaurant. We did not have time to do anything more than eat lunch. During lunch we watched the last 2 legs of the zip-line finishing there near the restaurant. We talked to a guy who had just came from the hanging bridge tour and it sounded great. Jen absolutely would not zip-line, but we nearly decided to do the hanging bridges. It would have to be Tuesday morning prior to the Market. Following lunch we made the drive back to our hotel where we were to meet our tour guide.
Jorge showed up at 1:30 p.m. and off we went to our coffee tour. The coffee farm was roughly 19 acres and employed 6 people. The coffee is all hand picked and processed (dried) to the green bean for shipment to the customer. The wholesale coffee customer will roast the beans to his own specification. The farms that grow coffee are very low tech and this farm was no exception. All of his drying processes were done with equipment made from recycled parts. The farm we visited has a very small roaster for demonstration and roasting beans which he sells on the tour. We found the entire thing very interesting and learned a great deal about the coffee industry in Panama. This coffee grower produces an award winning coffee and we were pleased to buy a couple of pounds at the end of the tour. He also grows the famous Geisha coffee which we opted not to purchase.
Once we finished the tour of the Coffee farm we had a very nice tour of the area up into the mountains and saw amazing views of the Baru Volcano. The summit on a clear day is the only place in Panama that you can see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from one place. It is, also, the only place in Panama where you may find snow. A hike to the summit is a full day adventure and we probably will never have that experience. For now it was enough for us to see the Volcano from a distance.
We spent the rest of the afternoon taking in the sights with our guide by jeep. The pictures below are just a couple from that part of the adventure.
We always believe that there is a reason for everything in this life. We decided to have dinner at a grill that was a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Georges Grill was the name on the sign and once inside we met George. There were two other couples in the small smoky place (George was cooking on an open fire). One of the couples was from Michigan and the other from Colorado. Both have spent considerable time in Panama over the past several years. We quickly became acquainted and had a great dinner together. The couple from Colorado, as it turns out, are staying at the Rio Mar, just a few minutes from where we are staying near Coronado. They were on an adventure of their own and headed to San Blas, once they left Boquete. We visited for a while and arranged to have dinner with them next week. We are anxious to get better acquainted. We also hope that they will share some of their experiences in Panama here on our blog. They are professional photographers, by trade; and we have already seen some of their amazing pictures on Facebook.
When we woke on Tuesday morning it was raining. This is the only rain we have seen during our nearly 2 months on the ground here in Panama. Given the weather we did not think it wise to do the hanging bridge tour. We will save that adventure for another time. We enjoyed the Tuesday Market. It is entirely under roof, so even if it had not stopped raining, we would have still went to it. The market is a must see for any visit to Boquete. We bought a few things, and met a few people before embarking on our journey. Our return trip to Coronado was uneventful. We made a stop at PriceSmart in David to pick up a few supplies, then continued to the beach to look at a condo. The condo turned out to be horrible so we easily ruled out living there. We wanted to see one other, but we were not able to find it. We got on the highway and made one stop in Santiago for dinner. By the time we got home it was after dark so we kicked back and enjoyed the evening. Since our return to Coronado we have enough material to easily publish another blog post. We have continued to research our impending move and are learning every day how the economy here will benefit us for years to come. This post was long, and we fear that posts of this length will lose some of you. If you read to the end…THANK-YOU. Check back in a couple of days. We will bring this thing up to date.
Our good friends Ray and Diane left to return home on Tuesday, but not before we showed them a couple of more of our top picks for retirement residences. We have made the decision to make a permanent move to Panama. The real estate market is tough here. Supply and demand are badly out of check and it is a buyers market. We will not buy a home here until we have had 12 months to fine tune our must haves and have not list. Our first step to that end is to find a top pick community and try to rent there for a year prior to completing the purchase. The buyers market is likely to continue because there is a huge supply of new build condo projects on this stretch of the city beaches 1-2 hours west of Panama City. Once we move down here we will be in a better position to find a bargain. Rio Mar was the top choice for quite some time until we faced the reality that the price was above our comfort. Our second choice is Casa Mar and it lies just to the west across a river from Rio Mar. Casa Mar provides almost all the same benefits at a lower price point. In addition there is a 9 hole golf course, walking trails, a children space (splash pool with water slides), and increased privacy. The entire project is on 190 acres and has a future shopping plaza at the gate. It is also closer to Rio Hato where we will find lower prices on groceries and other daily needs. It is close enough to Coronado to easily make the journey if we would need the clinic or a visit to the dentist. We also showed our friends Bahia. Bahia is a 2 building high rise in Nuevo Gorgona which lies just to the east of Coronado. We were able to look at the condo directly next door to the guys from Dallas who bought their condo on International House Hunters. We did not meet them, but you can check out the YouTube video of their house hunt. We shared it previously in our post titled We survived Carnival . We do feel like a real life episode of House Hunters. Our episode would be more like Beach Front Bargain Hunt though. Seriously, The Bahia was a bit loud and lacked privacy. The unit was a bit smaller than we wanted and, while beautifully decorated, it was dark. We have ruled out Bahia. We will not maintain 2 residences even though we will be renting here in Panama. Before we make any decisions here we will be selling our house in the States.
We spend a little time at the pool and/or on the beach every day. We also continue to have our hour with the Spanish tutor weekly. Our Espanol is coming along well and we try to use our skills daily with one another. We plan to continue meeting with the tutor weekly by Skype once we return home. We are making arrangements to meet with an insurance agent in Panama to get actual insurance quotes for health insurance. We are currently paying $1267 per month for health insurance in the States. We think once we get settled here in Panama we will cut that cost by about $1000 per month for similar coverage. We can cover our monthly expenses here with that savings alone. We will share our actual expenses in future posts. One of the biggest reasons for our move is to save money. Everything isn’t cheaper here, but if you get out of the tourist areas you will find the cost of living to be less. I got the best haircut ever in a Barbaria for $5 (I was the only gringo in there). I also have an appointment on Thursday with a dentist for a routine teeth cleaning. It will cost 1/3 of my dentist back home. More about that next time. Jen had her hair done at a very high end salon, that caters to Americans and Canadians, yesterday. Her cost was less than her salon back home and she was thrilled with the result. We had Chinese take out for lunch yesterday. It was delicious and priced about the same as we would pay in the States. Tonight our friends and family back home will be changing the clocks for daylight savings time. In Panama we are only 9 degrees from the equator. The result is that we have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night every day, so daylight savings time doesn’t happen here. We don’t change our clocks.
We had a former co-worker of Jen’s here Thursday with her family. Her family was a delight to meet and we enjoyed sharing our afternoon entertaining them on the beach and at the pool. They are staying in the mountains northeast of Panama City. It sounds as if they have had a great vacation here in Panama.
On Sunday we are planning to take off for our next adventure. Boquete and David are about a 5 hour drive northeast from Coronado. We planned this adventure and posted what we are likely to find there in December of 2017. Check out that post in our archive or click the link #InSearchOfEternalSummer . We will be returning to Coronado on Tuesday after we go to the Tuesday Market in Boquete. We also hope to check out more of the country along the way. Panama and its people are beautiful and very welcoming.
Please continue to follow along. A great deal of time goes into this blog, and we want to share our experiences. Please drop us a note or comment if there is something you want to see or learn about Panama. Today’s Spanish lesson is two simple words…Se Vende. Translated it means For Sale. When we return to Michigan we will be putting our home on Gravel Lake up for sale.
Our days seem to be shorter and shorter as we passed the half way point of our adventure. On Tuesday we made the journey to Panama City, Tocumen International Airport to pick up our good friends. On the way we stopped at an outlet mall and checked out the best places for values on everything from home improvements and furniture to appliances, clothing and pharmaceuticals. We retrieved our friends grabbed some dinner and headed back to Coronado. Since they arrived we have had the best time taking them to share some of our favorite adventure places and great places to eat. We have also had ample time at the pool and even got in a few games of cards.
On Thursday we took them for an adventure to Valle de Anton. It was our second visit and we wanted to hit a few of the places we missed the first time and share the wonderful mountain destination with our friends. Our first stop was Hotel Campestre where the world famous square trees grow. We thought, based on our own research, that the square trees were growing near the hotel and we could spend a few minutes to check it out. Once there, we found the path to the square trees and paid the admission of $5 each. We embarked on the path for the short hike which turned out to be too difficult for our friend. The hike was nearly 45 minutes of steep, and often difficult terrain. Our hosts dogs accompanied us with only two of us completing the entire journey to the one square tree. The hike through the jungle was beautiful, however it would be easy for us to consider this stop a tourist trap. We are sharing the pictures of the square tree hike below and hope that all of you will draw your own conclusion. At the end of the hike we had the great treat to see a sloth. It was high up in a tree near the hotel. We couldn’t get a great picture even with a zoom lens.
Following the square tree adventure we took off for the butterfly habitat. All of us enjoyed our visit there. The $5 per person price of admission was considered to be fair. The tour was guided and very informative. We learned that there are over 1500 species of butterfly in Panama with over 1000 in Valle de Anton. Our guide told us that the definition of Panama is abundance of species and the butterflies certainly prove that out. We will spare you the details of life-cycle of the butterfly and all of that, but we did want to share with you some of our pictures.
By the end of the butterfly tour we were ready for lunch. It seems that the fondas and restaurants in Valle de Anton may be geared more to the tourist business. We had a wonderful fonda lunch, but the price was almost double what we have paid for similar food at other fondas.
After a brief discussion, we decided to save the orchid exhibit, zoo and reptile house for another adventure. The girls wanted to return to the mineral springs and mud bath, while the guys wanted to make the hike up to El Macho Falls. We talked about the mud bath in the post from our first visit to El Valle so we will tell a little about the El Macho Falls. The hike was short and beautiful with difficult terrain and suspended bridges. The guy at the gate gave us walking sticks which proved very helpful. This is a hike that most people could do with no problem, and well worth the effort. There is a zip line through the canopy but it wasn’t open when we were there. I imagine that it would be great fun to zip line down from the top of the falls. We hiked up through the jungle and the falls were magnificent. When we returned to the base of the falls there were pools of cool mountain water where we took a quick dip to cool off. From there it was a short hike back up to where we parked. It was only about 5 minutes by car back to where we left the girls at the mineral springs and mud bath. We are sharing pictures of the El Macho Falls hike below. The video is only a few seconds long to give you the sounds of the moment. We were not allowed to film or use video equipment at the pools, but we were the only ones there, so there is a couple of pictures. I imagine that clothing is optional at the pools (we took our dip in swim suits). There is a 3 sided wood screen where people can change.
We picked up the girls at the mineral springs/mud bath and made our way to the market. Jen bought the hat and we browsed through. The treasures and vegetables were nearly the same on Thursday as our original visit on Sunday. You may recall that the market at el Valle de Anton is called the Sunday Market. We were relieved that vegetables would be available every day.
It was time to head home. We had a message from an agent who would be available to show us through one of our top choices for a permanent retirement home. We wanted the opinion of our friends, so we made the stop. Rio Mar Pacific Tower is a beautiful, newly constructed 24 story (48 unit) condo. We looked at a 2 bedroom and a 3 bedroom unit and it is hard to not love this place.
It just may be a little above our comfort zone for price. It does include underground parking, a deposito (storage locker), 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, large laundry room (accommodates a full size washer and dryer), and appliances. We will share a couple of other top choices with our friends before they go back to Michigan.
We have been working on this post for 3 days now, and could go on for much longer. We will wrap it up here, though, because we do not want to ramble. Thank-you for following along. Once again, we want to express our gratitude for the kind comments. Please catch up, if you missed anything, by clicking on the archive links. We are pleased to have our blog and any portion shared. There has been time when we have shamelessly borrowed content from others. We consider it an honor when people enjoy our content enough to share.
It takes nearly 2 hours to commute to and from Panama City. The traffic causes that time to vary up to 5 hours, depending on the time you leave. We had 8 am appointments at the American Embassy on Wednesday morning so we left home on Tuesday to do a little exploring on our journey. We looked at a couple of houses along the way and made a stop at PriceSmart (Panama version of Costco). We made the decision to join based on math that told us we needed a couple of things that we would save enough money to cover the cost of the $35 membership. We loaded up on the non-perishables and resumed our journey.
We checked into the Central Park Hotel again based on our proximity and need to be near The American Embassy, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and SERTRACEN (Panama DMV). We were treated very differently at the hotel this time. I wonder if they saw my comments on Booking.com or, perhaps, someone there is reading our blog. We got a great room with a large balcony and great views of the city. Jen got 1 picture crossing the Panama Canal which we have put below with 1 view of the city from our balcony at the hotel.
Once we got settled into our room we took a walk, grabbed some diner and went to bed early in preparation for our big day on Wednesday.
Our attorneys’ assistant, Marianna, picked us up from the hotel at 7:30 and delivered us to the American Embassy for our 8 am appointments. Our Michigan Drivers License had to be authenticated, apostilled and notarized which went fast and easy. Marianna then took us to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We had to deposit the fee into the Ministry account at the bank downstairs (they do not accept money there) and take the receipt to the office. There was also a stop at another office in the same building where our documents had to be stamped and another fee collected. This is mostly all crazy tax. The Ministry office was very busy and it took them 3 hours to approve our documents before we could go to SERTRACEN. We made good use of our three hours because we also had to have a blood test before going to SERTRACEN. That took nearly an hour and we relaxed with Marianna for an authentic Panamanian Lunch for the remainder of our wait. After picking up the documents at the Ministry, we were on our way to our final destination. SERTRACEN is very much like our Secretary of State (DMV). Lines and waiting everywhere. We waited in line to get a place in line, then waited to be called. We produced our documents, completed the paperwork, had a vision test, hearing test, and paid the fee. Then we waited again to be called. The prize after 2 hours in that place was our drivers license. Marianna delivered us back to our hotel where we picked up our car and headed back to Coronado. It was nearly 4 pm, and it would be critical to get out of the city before rush hour cranked up. We just want to say that without Marianna we never would have accomplished this in 1 day. She knew what we needed, when we needed it, and translated for us. She was awesome and we owe her a huge debt of gratitude. We highly recommend Marianna for this process. Should you need her contact information, message us and we will pass it along.
Our drive back was uneventful. We made a quick stop at PriceSmart for the perishables and something to eat. We were home in time for fireworks on the roof. They shot them off the beach so we were actually looking down at them. It was a spectacular display. We are trying to get some video from a friend here. If that happens, we will share it. We are continuously amazed at the things happening here. There is never a dull moment.
Thursday morning we walked up the beach about 2Km to a fishing village. We were on a mission for Lobster. We had one of our neighbors along and he and I split the guy’s catch of 12 lobsters. Our neighbor took 6 and we took 6. For Jen and I, 6 lobsters is 2 meals. Thursday night we grilled 3 of them and put the other 3 in the freezer for later.
This morning we had a another Spanish lesson. Our Espanol is improving, and we are feeling more comfortable out in the community. Jasmine is teaching us how to order in a restaurant, and many other important things. Her lessons made buying Lobster on the beach much easier.
We continue to take opportunities to look at houses. We have found some places here on the Pacific Coast that really appeal to us. Every day we enjoy the peaceful sound of the surf, and both of us are sleeping amazingly well. This is the windy season and at times the wind blows hard. At night the breeze is cool and pleasant.
We tend to make our plans on the fly lately so keep checking back. There is no telling what we will be doing next.
Our day started with a beautiful one hour drive into the mountains…destination Valle de Anton. We researched this place as a possible permanent home in our post of Today, Let’s Explore Valle de Anton in November of 2017. If you’re just joining the adventure, and want to catch up, it may be a great time to click the link and read about our research. When researching for our excursions we expected to find this wonderful place much further away. We chose to go on Sunday by design because the market there is called the Sunday Market. We now understand that it is open every day. This charming town is loaded with things to do and we didn’t know where to begin. The road led us to the mineral springs and mud bath. Our lack of fluent communication proved to be a small problem. We paid the $4 to enter only to find that it was only the mineral springs and mud bath, no paths to water falls. We embraced the moment and smeared mud on our faces and relaxed in the mineral baths for quite some time.
We decided after the mineral springs to visit the Sunday Market. We hadn’t prepared properly for the order of events. Perhaps it would have been better to go to the mud and mineral bath last. The Sunday Market was great. We found all the things described in our previous research. There were many cool paintings, granite figurines, and hats to mention a few. Jen found a hat she liked, however she was unable to negotiate the price to where she wanted.
You may recall that the vegetables are not too impressive here near our beach home. When one drives to the interior of the country there is a climate difference which is more conducive to vegetable growth. We got some nice fresh vegetables that are not available in the grocery store here. We will be making periodic, future visits to this new found place to further explore and buy vegetables. We had a great, late lunch at Carlitos before heading home. If you remember our previous post, we did not explore the butterfly sanctuary, zoo, waterfalls, or see the square trees.
This morning we had our 3rd session with the Spanish tutor.Her name is Jasmine and she is a wonderful teacher. As it turns out, everyone around here knows Jasmine and she deserves to be mentioned. If you’re in the Coronado area, and want help with your Spanish skills, give us a message, and we will provide you her contact info. This afternoon we are hanging out at the pool on the roof, and relaxing. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Panama City. We have to be at the American Embassy at 8 a.m. Wednesday morning to start the drivers license process. We hope to have our Panama drivers license by mid afternoon Wednesday before returning home. With any luck we will be able to make our next post on Thursday.
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…as if we haven’t had any adventures yet. Thursday we climbed in the car and took off for Peninsula de Azuero. This is the first adventure we planned in our adventure planning post of 10/24/2017 let-the-excursion-planning-begin. If you were not following back in October of 2017, feel free to click the link and go back to the planning stage with us. We reviewed our previous post before we left on Thursday. This excursion would take 2-3 hours of travel each way and appeared to be our shortest distance to travel. If we traveled to Pedasi the travel would be longer. We are in search of a place where we may one day consider living permanently. Our first stop was for fuel. We encountered nobody who spoke a bit of English. In fact, we didn’t find anyone who spoke English the entire day. In spite, we had a great time and used our new Spanish skills to communicate to the best of our ability. The natives love that we try to speak Spanish and help if possible. While on the road we encountered a few surprises. This wind farm had hundreds of windmills. We also saw a solar farm of which we could not get a photo.
We passed through Penonome’, Santa Maria, and Chitre’ before arriving at Las Tablas. The feature picture today is Jen at the Las Tablas sign. It was about time for an early lunch and we chose to dine at none other than McDonalds. I do not think you can out travel McDonalds. We had a Big Mac and Crispy McPollo (chicken), both value meals, and our total bill was $11.20. We may have made mention of it before, but for those of you who may not know Panama uses US Currency. Only the coins are different.
Following lunch we made our way to the downtown area where there were some cool shops and sidewalk vendors. After wandering about for a short while we decided that we should look for the beach. We had visions of a possible condo project or some cute little housing project on the water. Our GPS app (Waze) was telling us that we could be to the water in 9 minutes. Off we went carefully following the suggested route. It wasn’t long before we ran out of pavement. Thank God for 4 wheel drive. The 2 track we followed for at least 4 Km and 30 minutes did eventually get us to a deserted beach. You could not see anybody or any sign of buildings down the beach in either direction. We were running without a plan and the SUV had a full tank of gas. We thought we may find civilization at Playa El Uverito, so off we went.
Playa El Uverito was another 30 minutes or so away. Signs along the way led us to believe there were a couple of Hostels and Bed and Breakfasts on the beach there. We found the beach there with about 20 very depressed and run down homes. Many appeared to be deserted. This area was just too far off the beaten path to attract visitors, and to us it was heartbreaking. Sorry, we didn’t take pictures.
By now it was too late in the day to journey another hour to Pedasi, so we made the decision to turn back toward home. We wanted to make a couple of stops an the way back. Our first stop was a local grocery store in one of the small towns. We found many grocery items priced much better than near the tourist area where we are staying. It was the same when we stopped along the highway for fresh fruit. $1 bought a watermelon, less than a $1 for bananas, and $5. for a big bottle of fresh honey. We made a quick stop for el helado (ice cream). It was wonderful and also only a dollar. Our last stop was for Mexican food. It was dark by the time we left the restaurant and I was happy that we were not far from home.
Yesterday we toured a couple of more local condo projects. RioMar was above our budget, but moved to the top of Jen’s list. After, we had lunch here locally, I got a haircut and Jen had some copies made that we will need at the American Embassy this Wednesday. While all that was going on we had the car detailed. It was necessary after our journey off road on Thursday.
Our day ended with pizza at Picasso. Picasso is a local hangout. We have been there a couple of times because it is walking distance from our condo. The pizza was good, and not a bad price (special 5-7pm on Fridays), however, they have a long way to go to earn our praise.
Stay tuned in…we have great plans for adventure tomorrow in El Valle de Anton. Thanks, for once again reading and sharing.