My friend Eduardo has a piece of land for sale. If you go on Via Boquete to the Plaza San Francisco, turn west on that road and go about 4 miles, that is where you will find this land.

Eduardo and his wife are Panamanian and local. He is a realtor and she is a lawyer, so I think we can be pretty confident that they bought a good piece of property. It has clear title, electricity, and water so it is ready for building. The family has gotten involved in some new business ventures that are doing well, and they are very motivated to sell this property so they can use the money in other ways.

To get to the land you will go on a good paved road most of the way, and then 300 meters on well maintained gravel road.

The property is 1000 mts, and at an altitude of 1028 mts so the climate is very nice. The area is quiet and private, great for someone who wants a natural environment with many trees. But, it’s not far from a paved road so it’s easy to get to Boquete or David for shopping or other needs. Asking price is $28,000 or best offer.

This is an example of a beautiful and affordable piece of land for someone who wants a lovely mountain retreat. If you are interested or know someone who might be, you can contact Eduardo Horna at riochiriqui@gmail.com 

I went to the ATM yesterday and asked for $200, and got it all in $5 bills! Usually the ATM gives $20 bills but sometimes you run into someone who doesn’t have that much change, so I’m not unhappy about the $5 bills or the wallet that is too fat to close.

But, this got me to thinking about how to manage money if you live here. There are many ways and you will certainly get different opinions from different people, but this is what has worked well for us.

We have found it very helpful to maintain a US address for banking and other business (We live in California with my daughter and travel a lot 😉 ).  If there is something important she can click a photo of it and email it to me. It is very rare that she has to physically send something down here. Keep in mind that if you have stock market investments, it is possible that your bank or investment company won’t even allow you to continue to do business if you have a foreign address. We like Schwab because they refund our ATM fees, and I have been happy with their service overall for many years.

Supermarkets and large stores take credit cards (If you are not a resident, your passport serves as your ID when needed). Roadside markets and smaller shops need cash. Our social security payments are deposited in our US Schwab account. We pay credit cards and other bills on line and get cash as needed from an ATM. You can operate this way indefinitely without a Panamanian bank account.

Joel and I have separate accounts and three active credit cards each. I have known people who come here with only one or two credit cards and then if there is a problem, it can be a huge problem! We have things set up so we can move money between accounts and between banks, so hopefully we will never be left without access to our money. There is Western Union here though in case someone is really stuck and needs money sent to them.

We were considering buying a bit of property in the past and wanted to establish a relationship with a Panamanian bank. We were introduced to someone at Scotia bank by a Panamanian friend, and went through the process of collecting all the necessary documents (letter from our US bank, proof if income and/or tax returns, letters of recommendation both professional and personal, filling out lengthy forms… it was a while ago so I probably forgot something but you get the idea). It was a process but we were successful in getting Panamanian bank accounts, so we each now have a savings and checking account at Scotia Bank. We were not residents at the time, and I have heard the process is easier after you get residency.

Having a Panamanian account has been convenient at times. I can refill my phone time on line, rather than going to the office or buying a card somewhere. I have had to pay a few people and I can transfer money from my Panamanian account to theirs. Some bills are even paid this way, by transferring money from your account to the company account. One thing was different though. I discovered my debit/credit card was using the money in my savings account, not the checking account. This isn’t a problem as long as I know, but I was a bit confused at first when my card said I was about out of money.

We have not financed a car, property, or other large purchase in Panama so I can’t say anything about how that would work. But, for our daily lives this arrangement has worked well for us.

A third of the homeless people in America are over 50. I’m one of them.

I ran across this interesting article today, an interview with a 66 year old homeless woman.  She talks about how it happened, the fear, the sleeplessness, the medical ramifications, the social isolation, and the importance of her dog.

Homelessness is something that touched my heart when I went on my bike trip a few months ago. (I wrote about it here.) I was biking and camping so I got a feel for what it is like to be living outdoors and even more, I got to see how the homeless are treated. People didn’t want to talk with me and when I approached them, I saw the fear in their eyes. How sad!

I talked with anyone I could and I also found that almost everyone was a bit older, maybe 40’s or more, and the over 60 age group was well represented. I didn’t meet anyone who seemed to have a mental illness. I did hear many heartbreaking stories though. When you are that far down I think it’s almost impossible to get up again without help.

On a related subject, I recently read a book $2 a Day, about people living on only $2 a day. I remember one woman who applied for 100 jobs and didn’t even get an interview. These people live in very bad conditions, often don’t have enough to eat, and how do you get a job when you have little education, no decent clothes, bad teeth, and skin of the wrong color?

We are so fortunate if we have a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, and people who care about us!

People not familiar with Panama have expressed concern that we wouldn’t have everything we need here. So, I decided to take some pictures in a few of the stores near us. We have some very nice shopping options near us.

We live in David, the second largest city in Panama. There is a large expat community in Boquete and many of those people come down here to shop. We are also close to the Costa Rica border so many people from there come here to take advantage of lower prices. David itself is a fast growing city with construction and growth everywhere you look.

We live on the north side of the city not far from the Pan-American Highway and the El Terronal shopping area where these photos were taken. Stores don’t usually allow photos (not sure why) so I couldn’t pull out my camera everywhere I wanted to but at least you can get a little idea.

First, lets go visit Arrocha. The main floor has a good pharmacy, personal care items, lots of makeup and beauty items, and kitchen and housewares. The second floor has office and craft supplies, tons of toys and baby related things, some more housewares and bath related things, phone and electronic accessories, some luggage, DVD’s, and a place to get photos printed and get passport and other ID photos taken.

If you are looking for every possible white dish and bowl, this is your place

Lots of small kitchen appliances

Lots of frying pans!

Coffee pots – and more very familiar brands

Upstairs, looking towards the electronics and accessories department

Office and school supplies

yarn, and other arts and crafts items

Plenty of dolls to choose from

lots of electronic gadgets

large baby and kid department in front and on the left

looking over just a small part of the cosmetics department as we descend the escalator

After Arrocha, we headed to another big store in the complex – Conway. The first floor has a lot of women’s clothes and accessories. The second floor has men’s and children’s clothes. The third floor has furniture, housewares, and a whole lot of kitchen things. There is also a little restaurant with a beautiful view of the hills beyond.

Lets head over to Conway

We started on the 3rd floor. Lots of kitchen gadgets

lots more kitchen stuff

what color towels would you like?

silver decorations, and a whole lot of glass things

What is that odd grinning thing on the second shelf?

lamps, mirrors, and paintings

the cute little restaurant with a nice view

In case you must have an oversize fruit, now you know where to look

King size bed, was $899.99, now $799.99

Coming down to the second floor with children’s and men’s clothes

A sneak photo on the main floor – women’s clothes and accessories

There are three large supermarkets within a block of each other in this shopping area. I visited two of them with my camera. The first one is Super 99. There is an older Super 99 on the south side of town, but this one here is very new and very large. We don’t go there very often because there is limited parking unless you go up to the parking garage above the store, and it’s a bit congested in the street you need to use to get there. We also established a bit of a routine before it was opened and rarely need to go there for something we can’t find elsewhere.

Deli means and cheeses

The meat department (which includes an actual deli section on the right, out of view

Toothpaste and dental care anyone?

Fruit juice of every kind

large selection of fruit, mostly apples

There is like an entire hardware store off to the side. We have found some plumbing items there one would never expect to find in a supermarket. There are also party supplies, clothing items, and who knows what else.

Next, we paid a visit to Super Baru. This is a smaller store with narrower aisles and no high ceilings, but it is one of our favorites. They tend to offer more unusual items and imported things that you can’t find in other stores. We generally don’t buy produce in supermarkets, preferring the road side vegetable stands, but if we do Baru has the best selection and price.

I think those are cans of tuna on the right, and there is lots of vegetable oil on the left

Lots of interesting pickled things and other condiments

A little of the produce department

Joel found an individual serving of cake. It is common to find individual servings of salads, desserts, and many other items

Butter, cheese, and a selection of yummy imported smoked meats

The third supermarket is El Rey (no photos, maybe next time). This is where we do most of our shopping since it’s on our side of the highway, has plenty of parking, and we know our way around it the best.

I suppose it’s like anywhere you live. You know this store has the best deals on chicken, but that one has that particular spice you need. You develop your favorite stores and pick one of them depending on what is on your list. You may not be able to find exactly the same item or brand here that you got used to in the US, but chances are you can find something similar or something new to suit your needs.

If there is something you really want to have on hand and you see it, buy a whole lot of it because it may not be there next time. We thought this was a joke but it is really true! Sometimes random things just disappear not to be seen again for a week, a few months, or ever and no one can explain why this is. We like Morton’s Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend. It disappeared  for well over a year. As soon as I brought a few bottles back from the US, it reappeared. Pricesmart was out of Joel’s favorite bacon for quite a while (it is back now and we have a lot in the freezer).

But, in general, I can’t say we lack for a thing. There is a lot of your familiar US brand food available here, and you can find whatever you need for your household. Maybe everything isn’t exactly like you are used to, but the Panamanians have been getting by for many generations so I figure we can too.

Yesterday we decided to go out for a drive. Our destination was the Caldera hot springs which I hear are nothing remarkable, but since they are in our area I wanted to see them anyway. We fired up Google navigation and set out up Via Boquete and then down the Caldera road.

We proceeded through beautiful scenery, through the town of Caldera, and beyond. The road got worse. The ups and downs got steeper. We felt more and more like we were far from any civilization. There were no houses and no other cars on the road. Finally though, we came to the intersection where google told us to turn. That road looked quite a bit worse and google said we were still 6 miles from our destination. I was driving our little old Mazda 323, definitely not a back country, rough road kind of car.

I decided we should forget the hot springs and continue on. Eventually we had to end up somewhere, probably Gualaca and from there we could get back home on better roads. So we drove, and drove… no houses, no other cars, very steep ups and downs, hairpin turns, and we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. We climbed and climbed, and the plants and trees were telling me we were at a higher elevation. Eventually we start seeing more houses, and then suddenly there is a good road with painted yellow line down the center. Yeah!! How encouraging.

But still, we drove on, and climbed higher and higher. I was way too busy to take photos so I enlisted Joel for that job. I should have thought of it before but as you will see, we caught the most beautiful parts of the day.

cows in the woods

We start getting high enough to see some views

Roads are still curvy but not as much as before

Joel likes the blurred plants in the foreground.

ups and downs, but mostly ups

The skies are getting more and more beautiful

Some areas have huge rocks

pretty forests

We were thankful for the better road, but we still didn’t seem to be getting closer to anywhere and I considered turning around. There is no internet connection up there and it’s hard to make sense of the little map on the phone. I thought we were headed in the general direction of Hornito which was OK, a town big enough to be on the map, and a place we could ask directions and get oriented, so I continued on.

Such beautiful country!

What is this, way out here in the middle of nowhere?

Ahh, a resort. It’s a gorgeous area with beautiful views, but I’m not sure what one would do way out here.

Thank you for the nice road

Cute wooden bus stop, and we are encouraged to see any bus stop and a few more houses

We drove by too fast to catch what was going on in these buildings

The photographer is caught in the photo… 😀

Finally we started to see a few houses which was encouraging. We were still climbing though, and the views were amazing.

more beautiful countryside

We caught some openings with stunning scenery. Is that a water pipe making the top of the fence?

A family walking down the road

Suddenly we reached the end of the road, and saw that the road it intersected had a ton of traffic. Yeah! I felt like we should turn right but not having a good sense of direction, I pulled over to see if I could make any sense out of the map on the phone. We were headed towards Rambala? No, wrong direction. Thankfully there was a very nice man walking along the side of the road who set us straight. We were right in the first place and shouldn’t have turned around.

We were still high up though, and it took a while to get down to Gualaca. I intended to go straight down to the PanAmerican highway from there. But I took a wrong turn in Gualaca and ended up on a road with very little traffic, so I knew I was off course. The little phone map said we were generally headed towards David so I kept going, and eventually we realized we were either on the Caldera road or headed in that direction. This turned out to be a good thing because it was the most gorgeous scenery of the whole day.

We passed an aqueduct on the right hand side of the road which leads to some sort of water plant just ahead. There was also evidence of a lot of hydroelectric activity in this area.

Ahh yes, there is Volcan Baru in the distance. We were headed in the right direction

As we got closer to Via Boquete the clouds were amazing

I have always loved gorgeous clouds

More clouds reflecting off the roof of the car

It was good to be back in familiar territory

I think altogether we drove about 2 1/2 – 3 hours. I’m glad we went out and saw some areas we weren’t familiar with, and if we go again we will have a much better idea of where we are. I found our route on a map and I think there is a much shorter side road to the hot springs a bit farther down the road. Maybe we will try again sometime, or I’ll just take the offer of other friends who have more suitable vehicles.

It was a great day but of course, it’s always nice to get home again too.

Home again. Can you spot the baby iguana in the tree?

A special thank you to Joel for all the great photos!

We have never gone out to the movies much, but sometimes there is something special I want to see. This time it was Hands of Stone, about the Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán. I really enjoyed the movie! It was very interesting to have a look at the life of a very famous boxer, and a lot of the movie was filmed in Panama with familiar sights and the familiar feel of life here. Here is the trailer of you are interested.

The movie cost us $4! With our retired people discount, admission was only $2 each. Including us, there were only 6 people in the theater so it felt like an almost private showing. The movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, but most of the parts filmed in Panama were in Spanish so I suppose if we had seen it in the US, we also would have had a lot of subtitles. Either way though, it wasn’t hard to follow.

Leaving the movie was funny. The theater is in the Chiriqui Mall. After the movie, you are ushered out the back door behind the mall and it took us a bit to figure out where we were.

Where are we? (These are the back doors of the theaters)

The other direction doesn’t look any better

Ahh, a passageway. This is where the other people went

And, we end up back in the parking lot.

The mall is undergoing a serious construction and expansion project, and it looks like it will double in size. It will be very interesting to see how this works out. Right now, the mall doesn’t have much going on. There is a supermarket, some shops, some empty spaces, and the offices for immigration and drivers licenses. Who is going to fill all the new space when the old spaces aren’t even filled? Maybe it will be something popular and the mall will take on a new life which would make sense. Many people from Costa Rica come here to shop for the lower prices, and the mall is right on their way into town. It’s also easy for locals to get to and has plenty of parking. It’s next to Pricesmart, another popular shopping destination.

The new construction as seen from the back parking lot

The mall, as seen from the PanAmerican highway

I don’t seem to be able to stick to one subject, so here are a few other random photos I have accumulated in the last week.

We were driving up to Boquete on a rainy afternoon, and I thought Baru looked interesting up ahead

Biking to Aguacatal on a gorgeous summer day.

An oropendula visits my neighbor’s papaya tree

A pretty little river

I’ll leave you with a video on the making of Hands of Stone that I found very interesting. Just think, the real Roberto Durán is right here, retired and living in Panama.

I love to grow things in the yard. If those things produce food so much the better. In this yard we have planted bananas, plantains, pineapple, yucca, and a few other interesting things. I even have a cacao plant which if the plant gods smile on us, might eventually produce fruit. Wouldn’t that be cool!

Food plants in the yard is a very common thing here. Besides fruit trees you often see guandu (pigeon peas, a Christmas holiday tradition), corn, plantains, squash, and peppers.

A friend gave me a couple plantain pups, and one of them fruited recently. Plantains are eaten green as like a starchy vegetable, sliced or grated into soups and other dishes, but the most popular use is ffor patacones. Those are fried chunks smashed flat and fried again until they are something like yummy little saucer shaped french fries. Ripe plantains are also very good. They turn yellow, and often you see them for sale so ripe they are partly black. Inside the ripe fruit is like a banana but firmer and larger. They are usually sliced on the diagonal and fried for a sweet treat after a meal. Today I put one in a smoothie with other fruit and it was great. A friend gave me a drink once of ripe plantain, milk, vanilla, and I’m sure more sugar than I should have but it was SO good, like rich, delicious liquid vanilla ice cream.

One day I noticed something much thicker than a leaf emerging. It was the beginning of this flower, photo taken 6/9.

6/10, the flower is starting to open a bit

6/11, open more to reveal plantains in side.

6/12 things are progressing rapidly

6/13 Every day another set of fruits emerges

6/14

6/15

6/18 Things aren’t happening as fast now so I stopped taking photos every day.

6/27, things look more or less the same

6/29 I was told to remove the flower so the fruits would get fatter. Later a friend shared a recipe for banana flowers that I’ll have to try next time.

8/17 I notice the tree is looking a bit ragged and the leaves are starting to turn brown. I was told the plantains look ready. The pup next to it was just inches tall when the flower first emerged, and look at it now!

9/1 The tree is looking pretty done for

9/1 and we have cut the plantains. One of them split open so we figured it was past time.

Since the camera is out, I figured a photo of the heliconias was a good idea too. Do you see the star like green leaves on the knobby gray stems in the lower left part of the photo? That’s yuca. More on that later.

We also cut down our fruiting banana tree on 6/13 and got a big bunch, enough to eat, freeze, and share with the neighbors.

I don’t use a lot of plantains, but we have had very good luck freezing bananas. I may use one or two plantains for soup, and I think I’ll let the rest get ripe, slice and freeze them, and use them for smoothies. I have been using some of the frozen bananas in my oatmeal pancakes so maybe I’ll try the next ripe plantain and see how that works. (My absolute favorite though is oatmeal pancakes with mangoes! Who would have thought?)

You can see some of my yuca in the photos above (It’s called cassava in a lot of the world if you want to look up info). It has green sort of star shaped leaves on knobby gray stalks. It was growing wild at the end of the street so I just cut some and stuck some 8-10 inch pieces of the thick stems in the ground with a bit showing above the ground. It took off an grew! (so much it tends to fall over or get in the way when it gets really tall and leggy) I dug some a while back and it was the best yuca I’ve had, white, tender, and delicious. It’s very much like a potato so you can boil it like potato slices, or if you want something really good take the boiled slices and fry them in oil like french fries. I have also put them in the food processor to make something like mashed potatoes, and that’s also excellent.

The other day I dug out one root for some soup I was making. Then, I went back the next day to dig up the rest of the plant and this is what I found under the ground! I knew it was really big and I should have dug it some time ago, but I still had yuca in the freezer from the last plant.

This yuca was also excellent! The really big pieces needed more cooking but they came out fine.

Joel was excited by the big piece which was a long as his arm and weighed 7 pounds.

This yuca seems a little different than what I’ve bought in the store. It has the typical brown skin but under that there is another thick, purplish white skin which can easily be peeled off with your fingers, which makes preparing it a snap. Thank goodness the stuff freezes well! Besides putting it in the soup, we had mashed yuca for dinner two nights. There are three quarts more of mashed yuca in the freezer along with 2 gallon size bags of cooked, sliced yuca. And, I still have about half of the super big root yet to cook.

Hungry? Come to our house!  Our freezer is one of the most useful things we have. We bought it because we bought all that pork last year, but now it has bananas, yuca, tons of mangoes I picked up when they were in season, star fruit, various things we bought in quantity from Pricesmart, and who knows what all else.

Life in Panama – now that we have the time we can cook everything from scratch, use what is available around us, and we eat really really well.

Today has been a really good day in spite of some problems. Or, maybe I should say the problems were so much less because of some good things.

Yesterday we had plans to do laundry. But…. no water. The water was still out this morning but there was a heavy equipment trailer parked down the road. Word was that they were digging up pipes so they could repair something.

Yesterday it rained and gave us water for washing all the dishes, flushing toilets, filling empty gallons, and filling two 5 gallon buckets for later so we were feeling good. (We keep about 10 one gallon milk jugs and a half dozen 2 liter bottles of water on hand at all times for these water outages. They don’t happen as much as they used to when we first arrived, but I feel much better having a supply just in case)

This morning I set off on my bike towards Aquacatal and parts northwest. It was a spectacular day and I was anxious to be out, not having ridden since Saturday. The fields were green, the sky was blue with pretty puffy white clouds, and the scenery looked like something out of a travel magazine. I passed one green field with two guys on horseback. Then I passed another with three horses just running across the field for the fun of it.

The picture doesn’t even begin to do the day justice, but I was having too much of a good time to stop for a lot of photos.

I noticed some odd noises from the back wheel of my bike and thought seriously about stopping by the shop on my way home. Maybe something happened when I got the chain wedged by the axle on Saturday. I was feeling great though and the bike was still doing fine, so I pedaled on until… thunk… and then it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t see anything out of place, but as soon as I got back on the bike I realized the back wheel wasn’t stable and it wasn’t fit to even coast back to town.

By some huge stroke of luck, just then a bus came along and it even had a roof rack! I removed my panniers, they put the bike up top, and we headed to the bus terminal (cost me a whole $1!). As more luck would have it the bike shop is only a block from the terminal, an easy walk, and it was only 11:30. I could easily make it before the shop closes for lunch. But… no… they were closed when I arrived at 11:43. But one of the bike shop guys was in the shop next door so he took my bike, and I was asked to come back after 2 when the repair guy would be back.

Joel, again, came to my rescue and picked me up from the bike shop. As we got to our neighborhood we passed a water truck. They had filled all the containers that we left in front of the house, and were making their way around the neighborhood helping others who needed a resupply of water. We barely got in the house and discovered the water was flowing again! We made a dash for a most welcome and heavenly shower, cleaned up the kitchen, and filled any empty drinking water containers.

Back to the bike shop… the rear axle was broken, and the rear wheel spokes don’t look so great either so he will change them also, all for $12.

Now that we had water again, I figured it was a good idea to finish making the fish soup I had started. I dug a good yucca root out of the front yard and headed back to the house to discover the water had slowed to barely a trickle *sigh*. OK, quick, wash the lunch dishes, wash the yucca, and double check that all toilets are flushed and all containers are full. No sooner had we finished all this, than the water pressure picked up again.

The water is at full pressure now so it looks like we are OK again. My bike is being fixed and though it had a problem, I made it back to town with no trouble. The fish soup might be my best yet. I started with the bones of a big pargo (red snapper) so there is quite a bit of meat. Then I added a grated plantain (home grown), a nice sliced yucca root (home grown) some onion, celery, carrot, and a little green pepper. Yum. And, in the midst of all this, Enrique came by. He is our produce guy who comes every Tuesday and brings us the freshest fruits and vegetables, and he is a heck of a nice guy too so I’m always glad to see him.

This has nothing to do with anything today. It was taken on the way to Boquete last Saturday, I found it in my phone and liked it, so here it is. That was another very gorgeous day in the Chiriqui mountains of Panama.

I always have my camera with me so it doesn’t take long to accumulate a collection of pictures.

The other day I rode out towards Aguacatal, one of my favorite routes. Villa Patricia is a new housing development going in out there. They added another road recently, and suddenly there are four new houses there.

more new houses

I have to include a mighty machine now and then for my grandson

After you pass Villa Patricia on the left and a more established residential neighborhood on the right, you are in a rural area with beautiful green fields and mountains in the distance.

Green fields, usually with cows but they must have been elsewhere today.

Beautiful green hills beyond

The next day I headed out on my other favorite route, the road to La Barqueta. I don’t go to the beach very often because it is far and hot, but the whole route out there is wonderful with green sugar cane fields, cow pastures, and a few little towns.

Living fences bordering green fields

There is a bit of water you could easily pass if you aren’t watching closely

Back in the trees in the water are a lot of white egrets. It looks like quite a few of them are sitting on nests

This horse was nice enough to pose perfectly for me

Here are a few more photos taken on the way back into town.

The site of the proposed sports complex. Nothing much has been going on for quite a while though. I hear they are waiting on more funding.

Green fields, and many cows way back in the distance

Hanging out on the farm

You hardly ever see a mule

A few more of the beautiful, huge, Panamanian trees

But like almost all my routes, it’s time to come back to town and make my way home.

This is something I pretty much never see, a guy helping his drunk friend home in the middle of the day.

Squirrel on a wire

Enjoying my area at 10 miles per hour….there is a lot to be said for that.