Tag: Beach Front Bargain Hunt

They Are Called Effigy’s

About two weeks ago effigy’s started showing up all along the Pan-American Highway. The effigy’s are also referred to as Munecos, Dummies, Old Year Dolls, and Judas Dolls. They are life sized “stuffed people” and they make up one of Panama’s many New Year traditions. Folklore has it that the effigy should be stuffed with fire crackers, beaten, and set on fire. The sins and evil spirits of the old year are destroyed to make way for good fortune in the new year. It is believed that ghosts are afraid of light and noise. The fire crackers, therefore, help drive the evil forces away. We went for a short drive and returned with a bunch of pictures to share. They usually try to make the effigy look like well known politicians, movie stars, or other popular people from the past year. We saw candidates for the upcoming Presidential election here in Panama and of course there were a few attempts at President Trump.

As you can see the imagination is off the charts. We find the whole thing a bit sacrilegious, so it was difficult to create a blog post using this tradition. As we thought about it, we decided that it would be unfair not to share fun and interesting cultural traditions regardless of our beliefs.

Other popular traditions for Ano Nuevo in Panama include eating 12 grapes at midnight making a wish with each. After eating the grapes you spit out the seeds and count them. The number of seeds is your lucky number for the new year. Use this number when playing the lottery (lottery is popular in Panama). Make sure you have a little money in your hands while eating your grapes. Having money in your hand at midnight ensures that you will have money throughout the new year. You should wear yellow underwear to have good luck throughout the new year. Wearing red will attract love in the new year. To get rid of bad energy from the old year you should burn incense. Hanging a bunch of oranges, rice, and wheat behind the front door will give you prosperity, work and health. Putting rice in a pot will attract wealth in the new year. Last but not least,  it is believed that a swim in the ocean on New Year’s day will clean out the bad from the previous year and bring good things in the New Year. In all fairness, we found most of this information on livinginpanama.com. That is where we turned when the effigy’s started showing up along the road.

The people in Panama like to have a good time. We actually spent our evening with friends at the restaurant right here on the property. It was much safer than driving. Our evening was capped by great fireworks and we didn’t see anyone burn an effigy..

Dinner at Terrazas
Dinner at Terrazas

Life is indeed good here. Over the past few weeks the snowbirds have started to filter in. January to March is high season here and we expect to catch up with some old friends from last year and make new friends this new year. We bought our own condo at the end of December. We put in a lot of time researching and looking for the place that was just right for us. We are doing a small bit of remodeling prior to our move. Stay dialed in to this blog, to see our new place and we will share the details for transacting real estate business in Panama. It really was like our own episode of “Beach Front Bargain Hunt”.

We consider it a privilege to share our life in Panama with you all. Please, like and share so we reach everyone. If you have not subscribed to receive our posts by email now is a great time to subscribe. We will never spam you and our security is outstanding. It is also a great complement to have your input and comments.

Feliz Ano Nuevo,

Greg and Jen

 

Daily Life In Panama

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.

The crowd inside was drinking beer and watching futball (soccer). The haircut was perfect. No English was spoken. He had a blast.
The Dental Office in the Coronado Shopping center is just upstairs from the casino
There are shopping centers on 3 corners of the entrance to Coronado.
The McDonalds is just in front of the Super 99 Supermarket.
The biggest shopping center is on the north side of the International Highway. There is a 3 level store in the rear that puts Walmart to shame. Jen found an upscale hairdresser in this plaza that is awesome.
Panama style “Walmart” el Machetazo. There is also a casino in this shopping center, right next to the grocery store.

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.

Dios Bendiga,

Greg and Jen