Monthly Archives: September 2014

A “New” Law

Welp, I jinxed us.  Not 24 hours after posting photos of our beautiful apartment, I got an email from the owner saying that a “new” Panamanian law makes it ILLEGAL (yes, he used all caps because that made it easier for me to understand) for him to rent in the city.  That’s it.  That’s all the explanation he gave, aside from the following link:

http://www.michaellebeauzile.com/illegal-short-term-tourist-rentals-in-panama-owners-beware/

For those of you who are like me and aren’t going to read the article, I’ll give you the punch line.  This new law was passed in November 2012, and it says that no one can rent a short term place to tourists in Panama City for less than 45 days.  The law refers to these places as “clandestine lodges” because everyone knows what kind of shady activities go down in these kind of upscale vacation rentals.  I mean really – y’all saw the photos.

After taking some time to collect myself and discuss the situation with Eric, I emailed the apartment owner asking that he refund our deposit asap.  To his credit, he responded quickly – offering to rent us his very expensive beach house way outside the city, explaining that no expats want to live in the city unless they’re going to be working there…

And that brings us to the good news, after my rant.  As some of you have heard, I finally have an answer to everyone’s question “So what are you going to do there?”  The short answer, I’ll be working in the city.  Details to come in my next post.

In the meantime, I’m off to find out who is still willing to ignore this under 45 day law…

Una Lección en Geografía (A Geography Lesson) y Nuestro Primer Apartamento (Our First Apartment)

Panama is a bit of a strange country.  I’ve always assumed that Panama separated the Pacific in the West (on the left) from the Atlantic in the East (on the right).  However, Panama, for the most part, runs west to east, which makes things a little more complicated.  The Pacific is actually mostly south of the country, while the Atlantic – or rather, the Caribbean Sea – is to the north.  Here’s a map:

Mapa de Panama

And fair warning – the maps are a little small in this post, but you can double-click to blow them up.

So we’ll be living in Panama City, the Capital of Panama.  The locals just call it Panamá.  It’s right in the middle of the country, on the Pacific – or South – side.  The Canal runs along the west side of the city.  Technically, I believe it runs through the city, but most of what I know to be the city lies to the east of it.  Here’s a really detailed map of the Canal.  I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s definitely on the list.  You can see Panamá in the lower right hand corner of the map.

Panama Canal

The city is divided into barrios, or neighborhoods.  I haven’t been able to find a map of the barrios that I love yet, but this one gives you an idea of how they are divided up.  For some reason, every map of Panamá seems to be oriented in a slightly different direction.  It drives me a little crazy.

Los Barrios

If you double-click to blow up the map, you should be able to see the name of the neighborhood where we’ll be living during January – El Cangrejo – just over the most concentrated cluster of black dots indicating hotels.  At this point, we think we’d like to end up along Avenida Balboa, the road that lines the Panamá Bay, la Bahía de Panama.  The views there are really spectacular, as you might imagine.  More on that area later.

So we will be in our first apartment from January 3 through the beginning of February while we look for a more permanent place.  Again, this apartment is in a neighborhood called El Cangrejo (“The Crab”) which is in the center of the city, about two blocks from the hotel where we stayed in January.  It is within walking distance of a large supermercado (supermarket), just a few blocks from a metro station, and across the street from a park called Parque Andrés Bello.

Fountain in Parque Andres Bello

Fountain in Parque Andres Bello

We’ll be within walking distance of a decent sushi place that we tried in January, a churreria (if you don’t know what this is, please google “churros” right now), our taxi driver friend Jorge’s favorite restaurant El Trapiche, and countless other restaurants and bars.  Our building is right on Via Argentina, the main road that goes through El Cangrejo.  And Mom, the Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospital in Punta Pacifica is just a 10 minute cab ride away.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the new digs!

Gallery

Scouting Trip – January 2014

We never would have made it to all of our meetings without Jorge, our amazing cab driver and new friend (on Eric’s left).
The Panama Skyline
Eric loved the slogan for Balboa beer – “Balboa es para hombres.” Balboa is for men. It’s the darkest of the Panamanian beers – about the color of a regular Budweiser. Super intense.
This building is affectionately referred to as “El Tornillo,” meaning “the Screw,” due to its shape.

 

We spent most of the week meeting folks I had contacted prior to our trip.  The most interesting was a UNC alumna and her mother.  The mother was an art restorer who used to live two blocks from our house in downtown Raleigh!  They picked us up at the hotel, then took us way out to the Amador Causeway.  The Causeway is a skinny stretch of land that extends out into the water and takes you to a set of islands.  From there we had a beautiful view of the Panama skyline as we ate lunch, bonded over the Tar Heels and Raleigh roots, and asked questions about life in Panama.

We couldn’t have gotten through the week without our amazing cab driver, Jorge, pictured above to the left of Eric.  He didn’t speak much English at all, which was great for me.  He was patient with me, and I was surprised at how quickly my Spanish came back after years of not using it regularly.

Eric was incredible after only one semester of Spanish.  He understood FAR more than I would have imagined.  Either that, or he’s really good at reading people and knowing the appropriate times to laugh or smile.  He asked a lot of questions, engaged with folks in Spanish, and used his considerable set of vocabulary.  I know he would have no interest in learning Spanish or going to Panama for a year if it weren’t for me, so I am continually blown away by his demonstration of love through his commitment to our adventure.