Panama: Eight Destinations in Which to Spend the Winter Months

First Time Reader?

Why Panama? – This blog explains the rationale of 
the trip and this series of blogs.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lobo/excursions/1266327384/pod.html

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This epilogue was published on February 5, 2011 almost a year after my visit to Panama. Since at some point I would like to continue blogging the rest of the trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua I have left the map pin at Puerto Armuelles.
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Panama: The Epilogue

I have the feeling that my visit to Panama a year ago makes an in-depth epilog somewhat problematic as a lot of time has passed since then.

Nevertheless, let's get to the heart of the matter. Would I retire in Panama?

Right off the bat, I would run into a problem. I have been taking a daily medication for most of my adult life. The medication is not available in Panama. That makes it a non-starter right from the get-go. It begs the question, what do people in Panama do with the same condition? With this medication I lead a normal life, without it I would not bet on my long-term survival.

On the other hand in this age of Internet commerce anything can be ordered from anywhere. But what would the import taxes be and would my drug plan cover the expense?

I have to repeat what I said in the blog 193 entitled "After Mexico – What Now?" At the time I wrote that my first choice was to go and check out Uruguay as a destination. If that had gone according to plans my blog would have turned out to be: Uruguay: Four Destinations to Spend the Winter Months. I am somewhat guessing at that number four but beyond the obvious destinations of Montevideo and Punta del Este, what other destinations would there have been? Uruguay is a small country and I suspect I would have ended up exploring parts of Argentina that I missed in 2006.

My concern about having missed out on Uruguay and Punta del Este in particular was somewhat assuaged when I interviewed Dan Polley in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Dan is a well-known professional photographer with whom I struck up a conversation in a San Juan del Sur restaurant. He and his partner have lived in many exotic places and make a point of moving to another destination every five years. This year they were leaving beautiful San Juan del Sur to move to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

While my interview was primarily about San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, he did mention that he had stayed in Punta del Este, Uruguay. At that point I was all-ears as he went on to say that Uruguay in general was very first world and how impeccable and clean the beaches were in Punta del Este. It is however an expensive city where a meal in a nice restaurant would cost $30 dollars. The same meal in Argentina would cost $15. While the weather is nice in the summer, the weather is brutal in the winter and the population of Punta del Este, one of South America’s leading summer resorts, shrinks down to “nothing”. But then on the other hand I would not have been there in the “winter months”.

To me the deal breaker was the word “expensive”. I don’t want to go to destinations that are expensive since that goes against my grain.

Dan and his partner have a wonderful website that contains galleries of photos of Nicaragua and Panama.

www.DanCesar.com

So if Uruguay and Punta del Este, in particular, are relatively expensive the same cannot be said about Panama.

If there is one impression I have of Panama, it was that I had finally arrived in a destination where I was surprised at how inexpensive the cost of living was. That theme continued throughout Panama.

Inexpensive is however relative as the following comment I received would point out.

Richard has posted a comment in 'PANAMA - M E X I C O : 23 Destinations to Spend the Winter Months - HAWAII - ALASKA.......':

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you need to go traveling in Panama with a PANAMANIAN, and/or a Zonian that still lives in Panama (and that would be familiar with all the sites and places in Panama). definitely it seems like you only got to "remove the dust from the surface of the table" in regards to what it is (and what it means) to travel in Panama, eat in Panama, the prices and things. you say Niko's Cafe is cheap? the prices are cheap, to an AMERICAN and to anyone who makes what one can make [in terms of wage] in the States (keep in mind, also, that minimum-wage in Panama is less than $1 an hour. and that what call-centers in Panama typically pay, $4.00 to $6.00 per hour BEFORE-TAXES, is revered like if you make as much money as the King of England).

OK so I only managed to “remove the dust from the surface of the table” but I sure tried in the two months I was there to get a feel of how the lay of the land would be for an expat. My blogs after all were written with the expat in mind. It would have been great to travel with a Panamanian or a “Zonian” but I did not have that luxury. During the time I was in Panama I interviewed about 25 expats with many of the interviews having been included in the blogs. The predominant theme was how cheap Panama was for an expat.

Yes, of course, it is cheap considering the $1 an hour wage that Richard mentions but that is an entirely different matter that I am not addressing in my blogs.

Life is not fair, that is for sure. Expats revel in the fact that Panama is “relatively cheap” while Panamanians yearn for higher wages. There is the crux of the dilemma.

Perhaps that is what happened to the next country that I visited - Costa Rica. Once the poster child of an ideal place for expats to live, Costa Rica has fallen into disfavor due to rising prices, changing government policy of cancelling most of the benefits formerly accorded to expats and a rising crime rate that have all conspired to take the luster off Costa Rica.

I encountered several expats in Panama who pulled up stakes in Costa Rica to move to Panama.

Since I will not be blogging about Costa Rica in the near future I will make three observations here and now. This is due to my current occupation with Travels with Lobo – the YouTube version.

The first point concerns crime.

It is sad to see the predominance of iron bars that cover windows and heavy-duty fences that protect properties in Costa Rica. San Jose, the capital city, has a terrible reputation that had me basically by-passing the city entirely. It is the dichotomy of Costa Rica that it has the highest level of education in Central America and one of the worst crime rates. Mind you, it is not Guatemala.

When the discussion in Panama turns to crime an oft-heard refrain is that it is caused by the Columbians who come here. I wonder what the root cause of crime is in Costa Rica. It is after all a richer country than Panama.

The second point concerns prices. The cost of living is definitely cheaper in Panama. Where were the 50-cent beers and the 35-cent coffees in Costa Rica? A beer was more likely to be $1.50 and a coffee at least $1. By the way, even in Panama “the 50-cent beers and the 35-cent coffees” are not the norm. You have to go look for it but you can find it and maybe not in Panama City either.

Say what you will about Costa Rica it is above all a country that is physically beautiful. Wherever my bus trips took me I was impressed with the physical beauty of the place. That is something I could not say about Panama. For the most part there were few parts of Panama that struck me for their physical beauty.

That brings me to Panama City.

This city was an eye opener for me as it fell into the same category as Shanghai. Let me explain. A few years ago I was awe struck by the skyline of Shanghai that I saw on television. It had me thinking – “now where did that come from? Aren’t skylines like that supposed to be reserved for Manhattan”? But no, this was the new China that now regularly builds awesome skyscrapers in record time. I recently read where a skyscraper in China was built in six weeks. Now mind you, I would not want to work in that building but nevertheless it did happen.

“Dammit” - upon checking what I just wrote I realize that I am dead wrong (something that happens frequently). It turns out the skyscraper was built in six days! Check it out on YouTube. The only thing I would like to add is that the building would not be classed as a skyscraper but as a high-rise office building.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqS2dIZsnA

Now where was I?

Oh yes, Panama City.

My first glimpses of Panama City were a “Shanghai moment”, meaning that I was totally amazed at the forest of high-rise condos and office buildings that grace the skyline of this city. Upon closer examination I was impressed by a level of architecture that surpassed what I see in Canadian cities like Toronto or Montreal. Vancouver seems to show a higher level of imagination but not to the Panama standard.

If my aim as an expat was to live in a large cosmopolitan city there is no doubt that I would select Buenos Aires. Its beautiful old world architecture, lovely downtown pedestrian streets, tree lined avenues, amazing neighborhoods and less intense summer temperatures make it a great choice. The drawback here would be a higher, but not high, cost of living and distance in getting there from North America and Europe.

My second choice would be Panama City. It is an amazing city typical of a government that has put a huge investment into the capital city to make it a beautiful place. During my last days there I was most impressed with the latest construction to extend the Cinta Costera (coastal parkway) almost right to Casco Viejo. It is typical of what is happening in this city where power is concentrated in the office of the president – President Ricardo Martinelli.

Where Panama City misses the boat in my opinion is in the lack of a “zocalo” or grand square with pedestrian malls leading away from it in the downtown area. This would make it a pedestrian friendly downtown with a central focus. Right now it seems to have a scattering of areas of interest without any that leave a grand impression especially in the core of the city.

When you read my blogs about Panama City, there is no escaping the fact that I did like the city, so if big city life is to your liking, Panama City is the only game in Panama despite the intense heat during the dry season.

I say it is the only game in Panama, yet I found a lot of expats in David. As I said in my blogs, David was a city that grew on me simply because I came back there about four times in my travels around the country. I started to realize David was perhaps the destination where accommodations and eating out were the least expensive.

It was a fact not lost on the numerous expats that I saw and met here. They appeared in greater numbers because they were concentrated in the Hotel Avenida, the Multicafe no. 1 and 2 and at the “gringo bar” the Park Vista Restaurant – Bar located in the Hotel Iris right on the main square, owned and operated by a fellow Canadian, Peter Hamilton. I would be hard pressed to identify such a concentration of expats in Panama City.

Finally let it be said that David has none of the pizzazz of Panama City and it seemed to be the hottest place of all.

The mention of heat is a factor that could determine one’s choice of where to “Spend the Winter Months in Panama”. All of the coastal or non-highland areas are intensely hot during the dry season. That would include Panama City, Coronado, Pedasi, David and Bocas del Toro.

Pedasi may be relatively cooler. It is a small beautiful inland town with lots of appeal if “small town” is what the expat is looking for. I also liked the nearby city of Chitré, described in Blog 210 and labeled as “Chitré - The Surprise Among Panamanian Cities”.

For more bearable temperatures during the dry season, meaning during the time that winter reigns supreme in North America and Europe, head for Valle de Anton, Boquete or Volcan since they are located in the central highlands.

Valle de Anton that is similar to Boquete has the advantage of being only an hour and a half from Panama City.

Boquete is cute and an expat favorite. By virtue of those factors it is also among the most expensive destinations.

Bocas del Toro, despite the heat, would be a great destination if a beach resort-type of atmosphere, typical of the Caribbean would appeal to you. There is no doubt that this was the most entertaining destination in Panama that I visited.

Let’s suppose that I had to place myself into one of these destinations for a period of three months. The thought of placing myself anywhere for three months, other than home, is problematic. I say that simply because my travels from day one have been predicated on the principle of “keep moving”. So what am I running from? That is best left to be answered by my former spouse who was a psychiatrist and who would be only too happy to oblige.

My own take on it is that I have a short attention span and when I travel I like to see something different every day. To me that is the purpose of travel. I am also a “lone wolf”, hence the moniker of “Lobo”. As a “lone wolf” it is best to keep moving.

So how does that explain that when I travel with Barbara, as for instance for the blog: Mexico: 23 Destinations to Spend the Winter Months we kept moving almost constantly for six weeks. Well, it turns out that that style is to Barbara’s liking as well. It would drive most people nuts but “that’s the way it is”. (Note from the editor – Barbara: sometimes I would have liked to stay longer.)

Now before I forget the question posed above, my choice would be between Panama City and Bocas del Toro based on their perceived level of activity. It is a tough choice since I even get tired of Paris by the third day. But stuck in Bocas del Toro for three months……!!!!

So be it – damn the heat – it is going to be “stuck in Bocas del Toro” for three months. There are many islands to explore and a lovely little town with a Key West type of atmosphere to hang around in. That is my final choice.

Looking back on the whole experience of having spent six weeks in Panama almost a year ago, I can only marvel at my decisiveness in having made the decision to go to Panama considering how I felt lukewarm towards the destination.

It turned out to be a wonderful experience because the trip was built around the framework of looking at Panama from the viewpoint of expats. It gave me a purpose and resulted in many conversations with expats that became part of my blogs.

During my trip to Panama I found myself making frequent comparisons with “Mexico: 23 Destinations to Spend the Winter Months” and in that comparison Panama came up short. The Mexican trip I made with Barbara in 2009 shall remain a classic for the diversity we discovered in Mexico. It was an incredible trip. Would I make it today? Frankly, no. The news coming out of Mexico concerning the war against drug traffickers is just too horrific. Yes, sit in a resort, no problem. But travel about the country on public buses such as we did, not likely.

Call me a “chicken little” or just “chicken”, but that is how I feel right now. To me Mexico is “paradise lost” at this stage in its history. Of course many would argue with me that Mexico was far from being “paradise” in the first place.

As I mentioned earlier my trip also took me to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Blogs may follow later or they may never follow. Therefore I need to make the point that I most enjoyed the stay I had in Nicaragua following the well-established tourist circuit of San Juan del Sur, Ometepe Island and the colonial cities of Leon and Granada. Now Granada is a place where I wouldn’t mind spending three months. It is a city resplendent in its Spanish colonial facade; it is one of the jewels of the Americas.

As my friend Bill Dunning would say – “enough said”.

Coming Soon:

After Panama – What Now?

Now head off to YouTube and check out Travels with Lobo on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/travelswithlobo