Chiriquí Mall is on the Panamerican Highway on the west side of David. It’s next to Pricesmart, has a movie theater and other stores, but hasn’t been exactly a hot spot in town until a few months ago when the City Mall opened. I’ve been curious so we finally took the time to pay it a visit.

It’s a really nice store, bright and attractive, merchandise in all price ranges, and almost anything you could imagine to buy, and then some!

Not the greatest photo (taken while we drive by in the car). A search should bring up others.

The first floor is a supermarket with a large selection of food, personal care products, and a place to get a snack. We didn’t spend a lot of time there or research prices, but word is you can find some good deals.

The second floor is clothes. We found some very inexpensive options, as well as much more expensive name brands so whatever your needs, it might be worth looking here. Again, everything was laid out attractively, and there were enough employees on hand that you didn’t need to look far if you needed help.

The third floor was furniture, housewares, and a very interesting play area with tables and chairs, trampoline area, and a number of virtual reality options. When we were there the only other person in the area was a friendly, English speaking employee.

The rest of the floor had many furniture options and a huge variety of other stuff. It was packed in tightly to fit everything in, and it was almost an overload to take it all in.

So, if you feel like a shopping trip this place might be worth a trip. We were just looking around to get a general feel for the place so don’t ask me specifics, but overall we were impressed with the various price ranges, the large selection, the new and bright surroundings, and the availability of friendly employees.

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Other than that, today is Sunday Jan 5th, and it feels like the first real summer weather. So far we’ve had some hot sunny days, but more overcast days and even some rain now and then which is most welcome in this dry season. Today, however, we woke up to clear blue skies, strong breezes (we get the trade winds in summer), and no water (happens quite a bit, but especially in summer).

I don’t quite understand the water which, to my understanding, is often rolling water outages to conserve water. Maybe you use a bit less, but mostly you just wait to wash clothes and shower, etc. until later when there is water. It was off so much last summer that almost everyone in the neighborhood who didn’t have water tanks, went ahead and got them and then used water normally, refilling the tanks when the water came back. So, overall I’m not sure how much turning off the water really saves. But, TIP (this is Panama) and though some things don’t make sense to us, we learn to carry on.

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On another note, I have to log on to my website host to check the mailbox for the blog, which I hadn’t done in a while and the spammers had managed to overload it. Usually, mail in the inbox (not the spam folder) gets forwarded to my main email address so unless the whole mailbox is full, they’ll get through to me. It’s cleared out now, but if I don’t attend to it often enough and your email gets bounced back to you, please leave me a comment and I’ll get on it. Thanks!