Panama Day 8: Arriving in Panama City

November 10, 2011

I slept like a log but still woke up around 6:00 a.m.  I took a long walk on the beach (about three minutes away) followed by a swim.  The sea was absolutely flat and the beach was incredibly wide because the tide was out.  There were some funky tubes sticking out of the sand that I assume were connected to a clam or other species of bivalve.  They left little excavation piles of sand as they dug through the beach.

After my jaunt to the shore I had a great Southwestern omelet at the restaurant.  My server reminded me of the Polish and Czech staff I had at my guest house because she asked me how to pronounce several English words on the menu – just like my housekeepers, she was dedicated to her guests and wanted to do even better.

Another hotel on Punta Chame beach

George and I talked some more about his marketing efforts and his overall approach to running the hotel.  He is a very savvy guy and his business acumen comes naturally.  He still has a commercial cleaning business back in the States but he is really concentrating on building up his occupancy at the Villas (already at 50% in just two years of operation) and completing the landscaping.  He is thinking of closing in the balconies on a couple of rooms to make them bigger and more easily able to accommodate larger families that need the extra room.  I suggested that he needs to build a presence on Facebook, make sure his website is fully bi-lingual and to consider having a Portuguese translation for the ever-increasing number of Brazilian tourists.  Not surprisingly, I received an invitation to visit his Facebook page a few weeks after returning home.

Boats left stranded by the ebb tide

As I was leaving Punta Chame Villas, George was receiving a fish delivery with tubs of langostino, snapper and the specially ordered grouper for his Canadian guest.  I drove down a few side streets to check out the area since it was raining lightly and almost dark when I drove in the night before.  There are other hotels and resorts and even a water sports park called Nitro.  The houses in the area are nicely kept up and there is a wide variety of architectural styles.  I came across a school and the medical center.  There are also several tropical plant nurseries that, no doubt, sell their stock to home centers and flower shops in the surrounding area and Panama City.

The traffic was light as I headed into PC.  If I haven’t already made it abundantly clear, road signs are all but non-existent in Panama.  And that is the excuse I am sticking with for taking the wrong turn on the Pan-American and ending up going over the Centennial Bridge instead of the Bridge of the Americas.  This cost me an extra hour to get to my hotel located at the beginning of the Amador Causeway (plus a few bucks in tolls).  With trusty map in hand, I pulled over after every other exit to take another look at the map and determine which road I should take in order to loop back around to the Corredor Norte  and eventually past Albrook Mall, past the YMCA and onto the Amador Causeway.  Even the locals told me that street navigation is primarily accomplished by knowing the major landmarks.  Thank God I had spent some time staring at the street maps of PC so some of these things stuck out in my mind as I was driving.

Driving across the Centennial Bridge

I checked into the Country Inn and Suites, which is very easy to find.  My room was quite nice; not luxurious but clean, comfortable and designed to US standards.  The real attraction, though, was the view.  I had a porch overlooking the southern opening of the canal and the Bridge of the Americas.  Wow.  I opened the drapes just in time to see a huge cruise ship exiting the canal right in front of me.  The hotel is undergoing a major renovation.  In addition to completely updating the rooms and laying new floors in the hallways, there is an addition being built for, I would guess, about 50 more rooms.  There are people from all over the world staying here and the tour buses were backed up the next morning taking people on excursions to the canal, jungles, the nearby aboriginal tribes and of the city itself.

Bridge of the Americas from my hotel room balcony

The hotel does not have much in the way of on-site amenities other than the TGI Friday’s restaurant and a nice pool.  There is also a free buffet style breakfast that has simple, but decently prepared fare and includes something for everyone.  After getting settled I went to the front desk to get directions to a store and maybe an ATM.  The lady at the desk was not particularly helpful as she kept directing me back to Albrook Mall.  For those that don’t know, Albrook Mall is the Panamanian equivalent of the Mall of the America in Minneapolis.  There are probably more tour buses in the parking lot than cars.  This is not where I wanted to go to pick up a few snacks and a six-pack.  As I left the hotel, instead of heading into the city I chose instead to drive the opposite direction if for no other reason than to prove the front desk person wrong – that there is more to Panama City than a shopping mall.

The Amador Causeway is just a road connecting several islands (Isla Naos, Isla Perico and Isla Flamenco) and the mainland.  There are a number of hotels, shops, marinas, boat repair shops and chandleries.  I found an HSBC ATM and a small shop to buy what I needed, plus I picked up some Panamanian coffee to bring back for the crew at the office.  I continued a bit further and noticed tourists, families and couples walking, biking and jogging along the broad sidewalks up and down the causeway.  It was an overcast but beautiful Thursday afternoon and everyone was out to enjoy it.  The boats were sliding through the blue Pacific waters and it was a glorious day.

The PC skyline from the Amador Causeway (note
the jumbotron in the center of the picture)

After a shower and some time on the balcony watching the ships, I drove back over the causeway to an area with several restaurants.  I chose a modest establishment with a good crowd, figuring that the food would be decent and reasonably priced.  I assume the menu was good but I’ll never know because I left the hotel without my glasses.  Idiot.  Even if the light had been better I wouldn’t have been able to read that menu.  I ended up communicating to the mechanic boyfriend of the waitress to just surprise me.  Although his English wasn’t good, it was a far sight better than my Spanish and he got quite a laugh out of the situation.  I really need to start the Rosetta Stone Spanish course I bought.  I ended up having a very nice plate of langostino in a buttery tomato sauce with rice and vegetables.  Dinner and a couple of beers came to about $11.00.

What the restaurant lacked in ambience inside was more than compensated for by the bobbing of the boats on the water and the starry skies.  From my table I was able to watch folks walking by on the boulevard enjoying the evening as much as I was.  I joined the strollers for a while before heading back to the hotel and watching the boats and ships still plying the waters in front of my balcony.

A retirement research sidebar -- International Living Retirement Index

The January 2012 edition of International Living is out and includes the annual Retirement Index.  Once again, Panama is towards the top of the list; in fact it is number two.  And, once again, let me say that while the index is interesting and contains useful comparisons between countries in a variety of categories, each of the category summaries need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Don’t get me wrong… the article is worth reading.  As always there are comparisons on real estate prices, cost of living, health care, climate and a total score.  My problem is this: how you come up with a single number that summarizes a whole country?  As an example, I keep reading about how wonderful the upland areas of Columbia are; year-round temperate weather, no need for heat or A/C and the coastal areas are outside the hurricane belt.  So why does Columbia get a score of 75 while France gets a 90?  The last I heard, there is plenty of snow and cold weather in France.

Read the main article; just use your best judgment when evaluating the data.  Separate links are available for each aspect of the index.  You need to be a subscriber to access the full article.  While I won’t reproduce copyrighted material, if you leave me a message I would be happy to provide a summary.  If you like what you see and you are interested in retiring overseas, I recommend getting your own subscription to International Living – it’s money well spent.