Holiday Weekend in the States, but not here in Panama...

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the States but not here in Panama. It was business as usual with the Panamanians. We did see a picture on the internet of one of our local grocery stores in Coronado, they had a display cases of beer stacked up to look like the American Flag. LOL..... I wore my red, white and blue but no american flags. The flag of Panama is also the same colors so I just looked patriotic,. A shout out to my husband Mike for his service in Viet Nam, Thank you for your protection then and now.

Since our container arrived over a week ago I have been doing extra wash. In it was the rest of my clothes, 4 sets of sheets, a blanket and a set of towels for the bath and the kitchen. 14 extra loads of wash, along with my normal wash.!!!!!!   I took them down to the laundry last week, 3 bags a day. Everything here is washed in cold water. Most Panamanian homes do not have hot water. Can you imagine taking a cold shower every day, I don't care how hot it is outside, I still want a warm shower.

We have been here almost 2 months and so far I have lost 21 pounds. Not really trying except the heat makes you crave liquids all day long.  We also don't have many sweets in the house besides our favorite Vanilla ice cream. So I will keep doing what I am doing and hopefully more pounds will drop off.. Another adventure for me....

Every day above ground is a good day and a chance to meet new friends...

Usually on one's birthday it is a good idea to reflect... Since this was my first birthday in Panama and being retired I considered it multi-tasking. Haven't had to multi-task much since we moved here...
Yesterday I turned 67 years old and today I do not feel any different. I am gratefull to be alive and healthy. My parents both died at what I call an early age, my birth father @ 48 and my mother @ 62...
My husband surprised me with gifts and dinner out @ a local Panamanian Resturant that I had been wanting to go to. We had Covina (Sea Bass) with lots of great spices, along with beans and rice. I love their spices down here, very flavorfull but not hot. Also a banana that had what Mike thought was a creole sause covering it...
My children , grandchildren and friends all called and sang the birthday song to me.  My friends and family posted "Happy Birthday" on Facebook, I am blessed and loved...
At dinner last night Mike asked me  "Well we have been here a couple of months,What  do you think so far?" My gut and my heart said  "Yes, I am happy here."
A year ago we decided we were going to move here in April 2012. I was scared to death and couldn't wait. After all the work we did to get here it was worth it. To get me to retire Mike knew he had to get me out of town and away from work.  Why?  Because I have always loved my job and I thought it defined me.  Not so, a new and improved Sandy is emerging slowly in Panama...
I did not have my peeps, circle of friends or family around me when we moved here. I have met a few friends and I am starting to do things on my own.  Last thursday they had a ladies night at Ty's Sports Bar and Grille, all drinks were half price.  Mike was in Panama City @ a bike store and was delayed coming home. I was uncomfortable, but I walked uptown and walked into Ty's by myself.  There were only a few ladies there and I had met one of them. She remembered me and intoduced me to a couple of other ladies who I chatted with while I had my 1 margarita that cost me $2.50...
After about an hour Mike appeared and we went to dinner... When the dry season is here they have lots of social things to do. I have been told that Spanish School , Water Exercise Classes, etc starts in December  and goes thru April. So I missed out this year...
I have started my spanish tapes and this coming Sunday is Ty's Sunday Brunch for all locals.  He always has a wide variety of food to choice from. That is another social gathering to meet people...
So life is good and I am looking forward to the next adventure...

House hunting in El Valle

back yard

front porch

front gate

     Yesterday we went and looked at the house we want to move into...all that's left is the signing of the papers.  It's located two blocks off of the main road, which means it.s quite a bit quieter...and is more than enough for what we need.  It has a master bedroom with bath, and a guest bedroom with a bath, as well as an office and a "dry room" with a dehumidifier...a place to keep books and important papers so they don't get damaged from the humidity.  There is also a third bathroom in the main hall, so there won't be any waiting in line!  The kitchen is quite large, and also has a utility room with double utility sinks and shelf storage for all the groceries.  It comes fully furnished and the rent includes sattelite TV, cable internet, and water.  We pay for the electricity and the twice a week maid/gardener ($28.00 a week). The basic rent is $700 a month, and with the electricity and maid/gardener it should be under $850 for the whole package.  We shall be moving in on August 1st and are really looking forward to it.  Pictures of the inside will have to wait until next time. 
     The house is on an unpaves street...it's all grass!  It's really beautiful and I'll be sure to include some more pictures next time, but for now that's our latest excellent adventure here in Panama!

May is Bug Month

We are sharing our house with bugs. I thought it was something we were doing wrong. We moved our 3 trash cans (recycle,trash and food) from the kitchen outside to our breezeway and then to the patio area to avoid flies. The flying ants have also doubled, no matter how I cleaned and how often..... they keep on coming. We have tried bug spray, ant traps and we are still looking for old fashion fly paper...Last weekend I bought a plastic fly swatter for 50 cents and by yesterday morning it was broken. It was all I could find in El Valle. We went to Coronado yesterday and bought 2 better ones and now we are both armed and ready...
We found out last night having drinks with our neighbors that every May the bugs appear. Thank God !!!!! So it is not anything we are doing wrong, it is just nature... As fast as they appeared in May they will disappear in June. Not all of them, I expected to live with bugs and I am getting better. I don't always jump when one lands on me now, I just flick it off and move on.
One thing we have noticed here in Panama, there doesn't appear to be any panamanians with white hair.  We see lots of older people (even older than me), and sometimes you will see a few gray hairs but that is it. There is alot of hair dye on the shelves and they are all dark brown or black, so somebody is buying it.  But you cannot tell by looking at the older people, they are either very good at coloring their hair or it is natural. I believe it is natural....We have seen a few islanders with white hair and of course the ex-pats that live here....
People ask me if I can feel a difference in our stress levels, and the answer is YES...The most stress for me was the container last week and that was because I couldn' t do anything to help Mike while he was in Panama City. I think it was a "woman thing".
In the last few weeks we have had the faucet in the kitchen sink go out, (which was fixed the same day) the refrigerator stopped working, (which took a few days) and last night we had no hot water or gas for the stove. They came and replaced the propane this morning. But no stress, we got two coolers and kept the refrig. stuff cold and the stuff from the freezer went next door to our neighbors. I am learning about MANANA here in Panama........

It's Monday Again...

Boy is our Valley turning Green. I thought it was Green when we moved here in April, I was mistaken..
We are only into 2 weeks of the rainy season and the color is EMERALD GREEN., everywhere.
I know I am gushing but when you come from Southern California, this is like a new box of color crayons with a new color called "Panama Green".
I would spend hours outside in our front yard in Coronado (California} watering that yard to get a green grass. Never could I imagine this color green as in "Panama Green".
And it is only going to get better as it gets deeper into the Rainy Season. Can't wait to see what that color "Green" will be.
Remember how I said you have to keep your eyes open and pay attention to what you buy. We aren't the only ones, I have heard from different people here on their little discoveries. One person bought Hormel Hot Dogs and opened the package and threw them on the grill and found out they were indivduaaly wrapped. We bought hot dog buns and they were not sliced open. LOL
I was looking for toliet bowl cleaner and I was excited because I saw the name "Vanish".. Only this Vanish was spot remover for clothes only.  I saw "Mr. Muscle" who did not look like 'Mr. Clean", he was dressed like the guy on the Brawny papertowels, but Mr. Muscle was a de-greaser.. The dish soap I bought somes in a  small tub and looks like a paste (for those of you who ever polished shoes} and you have to work up a lather to get suds.
Just some of the small things we have noticed along the way. But then again we are retired and we have the time to browse thru the shelves at the grocery stores.
Who would have thought that was a requirement when we came to Panama.....

Sometimes plans change...

     This aftermoon Sandy and I were going to go to Playa Coronado in search of Mexican or Italian food, neither one of which is available in El Valle...when my new friend Jose Luis came driving down the road and stopped to say hello. He was running an errand...actually a bit of work to be more exact...and he invited us to come along for the ride.  Jose is like most Panamanians in that he loves to point out the beauty of his country and share the things that he loves about it. He took us out of the valley and turned up a road that we had never traveled. It was a secondary road that quickly turned into a tertiary one...and at times it was more like a riverbed.  Up we went, and up some more, until we were passing the cell towers at the top of one of the peaks.  Suddenly we made a quick right and plunged into the bottom of deep valley.  All the while, Jose was pointing out the vistas and flora that were appearing around every corner.  I didn't know where we were going, but we were really enjoying the ride.  Then he even had to stop to go into four wheel low range to negociate the next quarter mile of bedrock and rubble.  Finally we reached his destination, a cute little house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by flowers and trees.  Here lives a three generation family, Grandma and Grandpa and their kids, one of whom has his own small family.  Jose had come to take the ladies of the family to the market in El Valle for a small price.  Just one of the things he does to make a living.   So, off we went, the ladies in the back of the truck and the two curious gringos in the front, back up the trail in four wheel drive and over the top of the mountain and back into the valley and the market. 
     What about that trip to find Italian food?  It got changed to a market visit for fresh veggies and a couple of beautiful wooden trays.  And dinner?  Would you believe a big plateful of BLTs fixed by yours truly?  Yummy!    Sometimes plans change here in Panama, and almost always for the better...and you never know where we'll find the next one of Mike and Sandy's Excellent Adventures in Panama.

     Saturday was a good day in paradise.  I went for a 30 minute bike ride with my friend Neil.  He's an experienced rider and makes me challenge myself...then he goes off and climbs a mountain to challenge himself.  Then my neighbor, Harry asked if we wanted some tamales from the market.  I bought eight for eight dollars and put them in the crock pot to warm.   Sandy and I went to Coronado to do some grocery shopping and when we came back it was pouring...just what you need to cool things off.  The time was getting late, and it was still raining, so off I went to the "El Valle Bread Club" to pick up my order.  You order bread on Thursday for Saturday pickup and I had to get there by 1:00, rain or no rain.  They have an extensive menu...we got a loaf of sourdough, six rolls, and an Apple Struedel, and I walked them home under my poncho.  I called Neil and had him come over for lunch.  We try to make our big meal in the middle of the day, so it was tamales, rice and good rolls for three with Struedel with ice cream for dessert...that's what makes afternoon naps possible. A note about the tamales...they were corn meal and bits of chicken with olives and raisins and are wrapped in banana leaves...delicious!  I got lots of praise for the meal and all I did was make the rice!  Life is what you make it, and here we're making it good...just another Excellent adventure for Mike and Sandy.....

Today is Saturday, and the living is easy.  I'll try to bring you all up to date on the latest adventure.  Wednesday I went into Panama City to see about starting the paperwork to get my box of household goods out of customs.  I was hoping to do it without paying for a customs broker, after all it was only one box.  An hour at the warehouse convinced me that a broker was the only way to go, so I arranged to meet with one the next day at 9:00.(Everything is better the next day.)  I hired a local to drive me and provide a truck for what I thought would be an easy day...but I had a lot to learn.  So Jose Luis picked me up at 6:00 sharp for the drive into the city, and we were at the appointed place twenty minutes early.   And we waited.  And waited. And called. and waited.  Finally my 9:00 appointment showed up at 10:45, without any explanation except something about "traffic".  He then took my passport and disappeared into the bowels of the customs office.  Meanwhile, Jose and I had to go deeper into the heart of Panama City to pay a $93 balance on the port hancling fees.  This should have taken ten minutes, but since my shipping company hadn't sent the proper bill of lading to me, they couldn't release the freight.   Rules are rules.  Eventually they called my company in the States and had the original copy sent by e-mail and we got it sorted out...after a delay of three hours. Luckily the office was air conditioned and the secretaries were cute, a fact that didn't escape the notice of my friend Jose.  So then it was back to the warehouse where we find that my broker hadn't yet escaped from the lower intestine of the Customs House.  So we waited.  And we waited....and when he did finally arrive we had a huge thunderstorm, a power outage, and the warehouse computers crashed!  You know what that means...Come back tomorrow.  So I gave Jose two hundred dollars for the truck and the driving and the translation services and we arranged to try it again on Friday.   Bright and early we left El Valle...but first we had to stop to get a tire fixed...another hour...and amazingly arrived at the warehouse to find my broker on the ball with wll the paperwork ready.  Twenty minutes in one office while everyone in the building got to read and stamp my papers, followed by ten minutes in another and we were ready to go!  In the warehouse I finally got to see my box!  In fact, I got to sit on it for almost two hours while I waited my turn for the inspector to visibly check out the contents.  When finally it was my turn, I took the top off and in two seconds he said "OK". and that was that.  I felt cheated!  I hardly got my money's worth...like spending hours preparing for a test and then they didn't ask any questions.  But, of course, it started raining again...and rained for the first hour and a half of the two and a half hour dtive home...but I got my stuff!  It was like Christmas at our house, seeing all the things we hadn't seen in two and half months. A note for you guitar people...My Stratocaster was still in tune!  Everything was just as I packed it, and now we have a big mess to clean up and put away...just like Christmas.  But all was not a loss.  I did make another friend here in Panama.  Jose Luis, my driver, and by necessity my translater, is a local musician as well as being a vegetable carrier and jack of all trades.  When he found out I had a Strat, he told me about his group that plays "musica tipica" and invited me to jam with them.  He also likes Mexican food and wants to take us to the best local spot for some enchiladas, followed by a stop at the local casino.  Yeah, I said Casino...we've got one just down the road in Playa Coronado.
So, all in all, it was as much as ordeal as it was an adventure, but you take the good with the bad here...and so far the good is winning hands down.  We're beginning the process af finding a permanent place to live and to get a truck as well.  And we haven't even started traveling yet!  You might say that we've gotten past the beginning, and now we're on the way to more of Mike and Sandy's Excellent Adventures in Panama.

how we got here

Around October of 2010 I connected on Facebook with an old golfing buddy of mine from the Canal Zone.  We lived there from 1968 to 1970 while I (Mike) was in the Army.  So I posted that I had made the connection and thanked Facebook for it.  Shortly after that I got another post from a high school friend that wanted to know more because he was stationed in the CZ about the same time.  This was followed by another from a good buddy who had a grandfather who was in submarines in the CZ in WWI and wanted to know if I was familiar with the area around Coco Solo where his grandfather was stationed.  I hadn't thought about Panama much at the time, except to remember some good times when we were young.  Then I started seeing those insurance commercials on TV about the widening of the Canal, and one day Sandy came home from work and told me about a patient who came into the doctors' office where she worked.  She said that he was Panamanian and went on about how beautiful his country was and how we should come and live there.  When she told me that, I said  "Maybe we ought to do just that."  I had seen a website called International Living, and they rated places to retire...and Panama was on the top of the list and also the closest to California.  So we decided to look into it some more, and the more we looked the more we liked.  The next logical step was to take a trip down and check it out, so that's just what we did.  I must say that the Internet made all of this a lot easier, so in May of 2011, we flew to Panama City, rented a car, and off we went.  We stayed in PC for two days and took a tour of the city and the Canal, and then it was off to the interior. 
     Our first stop was in El Valle, a quaint little town nestled in the bottom of a dead volcanoe.  It sits at 2000 feet of elevation, so it's not too hot, and is completely surrounded by mountain peaks that top off at about 3200 feet.  We stayed at a great lodge that is owned by a retired German Merchant Captain, and found our little bit of paradise. After a couple of days we drove west to David, pronounced Da-veed, and then north to Boquete.  Boquete sits in a valley at 3200 feet, under the shadows of 11,400 foot Volcan Baru.  We stayed at a hostal there and I took care of some legal business in David that took a couple of days.  Then it was time to come down from the mountain and look at a couple of beaches.  Playa Palmar fit the bill, and we stayed a couple of days and baked in the sun. But all the while, El Valle was calling us back.  So back we went and stayed with the Captain again.  He introduced us to a Swiss friend of his who has a nice rental apartment, so we made arrangements to write them when we got home...and we did.  A rental agreement shortly followed and we made our moving plans...But first we had to pay off the bills and sell off the excess belongings, and convince our friends and family that we weren't a little crazy.  Having done all that, Sandy retired from her job on March 30th, and four days later we were on the plane headed South. 

     We're in El Valle now, staying at Casa Mariposa and loving it all.  There is still much more of the country to see and explore, and that will be the adventure part of the story. We'll be posting as often as we can, and many pictures to come from  Mike and Sandy's Excellent Adventure.

May 13th, 2012

We are starting our Blog from El Valle, Panama. After years of work and raising a family we both have retired @ 66 years old and we are looking for an adventure. We sold everything but a few items which we shipped to Panama in a container, paid off our credit cards and here we are in Panama. Our goal is to live on our social security and travel when and where we want. Please join us and we promise to tell you the good, bad and the ugly!