Tag Archives: Because…Panama

Cinta Costera

Apartamento Numero Tres or Third Time’s the Charm?

After another disappointing apartment loss, we found a third temporary apartment for January and February! I’m going to go ahead and post it here in hopes that if it’s going to fall through, it’ll fall through quickly.  I guess the good thing is that I’m not as in love with this one as I was with the other two. Eric made a good point: If we had started off in a place that we absolutely loved, we would be setting ourselves up for disappointment when we move to the more permanent place in mid-February. He’s right.

Plus, this place really is pretty great. Two bedrooms, two baths! We don’t need all that room, but that just happened to be the place that worked out best for us, in terms of price and availability. I have nothing to complain about. i think my lack of excitement now comes from three different places. 1) We’ve been burned a few times, so I don’t want to get too emotionally invested again. 2) The photos are not quite as bright and professional looking as they were for the other two places. Again, probably a good thing because my expectations will be more reasonable. 3) I’m just plain getting nervous about going. Like, really nervous. But that’s a whole other post, and I’m not sure I’m ready to share that one.

So, where is this new place? That’s one of the great things! It’s closer to the water, closer to where I’ll be working, closer to a grocery store, and closer to metro. Here’s another map. I’m getting more tech savvy…slowly…and we’re at the point of me being able to do a screen shot of a google map and draw really fancy circles on it.

Red circle - Lost apartment Blue circle - New Bella Vista apartment Black circle - UN Office

Red circle – Lost apartment
Blue circle – New Bella Vista apartment
Black circle – UN Office

The red circle is where we were originally planning to stay, in a neighborhood called El Cangrejo (“The Crab”). It’s near where we stayed when we visited last January.

The blue circle is the location of the new apartment, in a neighborhood called Bella Vista (“Beautiful View”). Better name than “The Crab,” right?

The black circle is the location of the UN Office where I’ll be working. It’s about a 6.1 km from the apartment, which Google Maps adorably tells me will take 11 minutes for me to drive. In Panama traffic, I’m guessing there’s no way it’ll be less than 45 min. We’ll see.

And now, some photos of the apartment.

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…