we’re having trouble finding places that are in our price range (which we’ve already increased twice) and meet our criteria. (Interestingly enough, Coronado Villa Victoria was instrumental in helping us define those criteria.)

One reason for this is the “high season”. That’s November through March when snowbirds from the U.S., Canada, and Europe come to Panama to escape the cold weather back home. Demand goes high, supply goes low, prices go up.

Another reason is “los Carnavales” - a Panamanian holiday that’s one big party for the first several days of March. Rental prices go through the roof, highways become parking lots, and certain areas become wall-to-wall people.

While we did try to find someplace different to spend March, places that meet our criteria tend to be long-term rentals and, for obvious reasons, we’re not really ready to tie ourselves down to any one particular area yet. (And when we are ready, we’re going to want to just buy an house; not rent one.) Ultimately, our former hosts made us a nice offer and we accepted. Not only did we enjoy our time there immensely, but Coronado checks most of our boxes and we want to look at houses (to purchase) there before moving on to other areas.

When we hired our attorney and began the process of getting our Pensionado Visas, they were shocked to learn that Panama Immigration had somehow forgotten to stamp our passports on entry. (I didn’t understand why; Italy never stamped our passports, either.) They encouraged us to take care of this ASAP since routine traffic stops are legal and relatively common in Panama and, if our passports aren’t stamped, the police won’t know if we’re here legally or if we’ve overstayed our welcome. (We have, in fact, experienced this problem firsthand at this point.)

”Be careful, though,” Will advised, “there’s been protestors at the airport lately and they’ll throw a rock right through your windshield.” As you can imagine, that had a bit of a demotivating effect but eventually we got in the car and headed for the airport.

The trip took about 600 hours (we didn’t realize that, since our arrival, they had moved the airport to Tijuana) but eventually we got there and broke a few traffic laws to get into the parking lot (which only had exits).

We went into the airport, explained our situation to someone standing around who seemed to have some sort of official capacity, and he pointed to where we needed to go. Again, swimming upstream, we went into the area where arriving immigrants were exiting through multiple immigration lanes/booths. We entered through the only exit that would allow “Emergency” entrance and were beckoned over by the nearest immigration officer. In my broken Spanish, I explained the problem.

”Let me see your passports.”

We handed them over.

”You arrived on December 10th?” he asked.

”Yes,” I said, somewhat excitedly, wondering how in the world he knew that just by looking at our passports with their lack of an entrance stamp…………

He pointed…

I’ve never felt like a bigger idiot.

We’re really looking forward to our stay in Casco Viejo. We spent a half day there previously and it’s a really cool area with a great vibe. Lots to see and do with several really good coffee shops! (Up until that point, I hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee since arriving in Panama.) It’s a little touristy but that’s OK; it should be very interesting. Stay tuned for some great pics…

"Our next place better have a bigger bed!"

“I don't know, I think we do more cuddling in a double bed.”

”I don’t think so. I think I sleep with your knee in my back.”

”Ta-MAY-toh, ta-MAH-toh…”

And if we pay cash, we get charged $6.80 for every withdrawal (Panama law). This will change once all of our immigration stuff is settled because the service provided by our attorney is a package deal that includes opening a bank account — but we’re not quite there yet. Anyway…

Credit Card fraud hits us especially hard since A) the card has to be canceled (and now I have no credit card to pay for stuff without getting hit with foreign transaction fees), and B) a new card has to be sent out to me.

Back in the States, not a huge deal. The card shows up in the mail in a week or so; inconvenient but liveable. In Panama, though, “shows up in the mail” is a whole different ballgame. All the more so because the “home address” that the bank has on file for us is our mail forwarding address. Not the package forwarding address, but the mail forwarding address — where things get scanned and sent to us digitally but not physically.

So now, Anytime Mailbox is going to receive my new credit card, scan it, and send me a picture of it. And I’m going to have to get them to send it to someone else so they can send it to our package forwarding address so that it will ultimately get to me in Coronado. (But will it get there before we’ve moved on to our next place on April 5…?)

There’s even a problem with that, though… The people at Anytime Mailbox won’t physically forward mail until I jump through some hoops in which a test piece of physical mail is sent and received/verified. It might be faster to just have them shred the damn thing and ask the credit union to resend the card to the other (package forwarding) location.

What a headache. 🤕

Krista got her out and did her best to soothe her but the hits kept coming. (LolaLu - ordinarily the Cowardly Doodle - was fairly nonchalant about everything.)

Heavy rains started to pour down. Then there was a big crash/clatter on our roof and/or on the wall outside. I honestly have no idea what it was. If anything, it sounded like it could have been a branch from the (huge) tree outside - with some sort of animal (likely as scared as Tink was) on it, landing on the roof and scampering off. (Do capybaras climb trees?) By the time I got shoes on, though, there was nothing to (no tree branch that I could) see.

Shortly after that, I left to pick up some dinner while Krista gave TinkerBelle some Benadryl to try to calm her. It was raining so hard, I had to drive slowly because visibility was a little sketchy. Just as I pulled into a parking spot at nearby Clayton Mall, all the lights went out. Moments later, while I was waiting in the car for the power to come back on so I could go in and place an order, I got a call from Krista.

The pool - 2-3 feet away from our front (sliding glass) door - AND UPHILL FROM US - was overflowing!

I scrambled to contact the owner of the apartment (who fortunately lives right next door) and she rushed over with a bunch of towels to place just inside the sliding glass door. Shortly after, the rain let up so no water ran into the apartment.

Meanwhile, the lights came back on at Clayton Mall and I ordered and received our dinner and brought it home. But our weird night was not over…

As we ate dinner and watched The Man Who Knew Too Little (a very funny Bill Murray sleeper - recommended!), we heard a big crash come from the other side of the (closed) bedroom door. It wasn’t the dogs; they were at our feet! When I got up to explore, nothing was amiss. STRANGE! The sound from the TV kind of masked the event so I can only guess that it was another (smaller) thunderclap combined with strange acoustics in the apartment — but it was really bizarre and left me with the feeling like I was in a Poltergeist movie. The second inexplicable noise of our most bizarre night in Panama yet.

Last night was the closest I’ve ever come to a supernatural event.

Thunderbolts and Lightning

Very, very Frightening

Things!

GALILEO!

When I tried to test fit one of the bars, it was clearly too wide to fit between the roof rails (as it's supposed to) – so I was stymied! I tried contacting the seller on eBay. No help. I tried checking YouTube. No help. Maybe some Amazon reviewer has posted a link to instructions... nope. But – someone did mention that the bars are different lengths.

So I checked and sure enough!! The roof rails get closer together toward the back of the car. And armed with THAT knowledge...

Coronado Villa Victoria – while not quite as nice as it looks in the pictures – gave us a really good feel for what life will be like once we buy a house and settle in — and life will be pretty wonderful, indeed! We both became more and more relaxed and felt really content and happy. We went in the pool at least once a day – sometimes 2 or 3 times. We just relaxed, floated around, talked about this or that, threw a ball for TinkerBelle, and watched her and LolaLu play chase. I always took our Bluetooth speakers out - and music just made everything that much better.

Getting up most mornings and not having anything that has to get done is overwhelmingly blissful. I'm actually having some trouble adjusting to it... but it's a nice problem to have.

Things we liked:

• The fenced in yard - we felt safe and didn't worry about the dogs being outside unsupervised. A doggie door would take this to the next level!
• The pool all to ourselves meant we could swim whenever we wanted - and throw the ball into the pool for TinkerBelle without anyone complaining (or being fined for it).
• Close proximity to anything and everything we could want -
  • beaches
  • good restaurants
  • live music
  • roadside fruit/vegetable (and seafood!) stands
  • grocery stores
  • mini-supers (convenience stores)
  • hardware stores
  • even a little two-plex movie theater!

Things that could have been better:

• The road to get there is VERY rough!
• It would have been nice if restaurants, stores, live music, and especially beaches were closer. Although (as Steven Wright says,) “any place is within walking distance if you have that much time”, neither of us would have been inclined to walk quite that far - especially in the Panama heat.
• The house has the tilt up/down glass slat windows (some of which don't fully close) and screens that are damaged - which did a poor job at keeping mosquitoes out.
  
• No water heater (which is not uncommon in Panama; as warm as it is all the time, Panamanians don’t feel a need for hot water - it’s just us silly gringos that think we have to have it!) I could probably get used to this but it would definitely take a while!
• No laundry facilities (there IS a clothesline and Krista did wash out some clothes by hand in the outdoor sink but a washer would have been very much appreciated).
• No air conditioning in the living room/kitchen (no TV, either) meant that we ate our meals in the bedroom.
• A dearth of flat surfaces — side tables, shelves, etc. to put stuff on — especially in the bedrooms and bathroom.
• Likewise trash cans/waste baskets.

It may sound like the Cons far outweigh the Pros but I'm picking a lot of nits. In spite of its many shortcomings, we were extremely happy here and would stay here again. In fact, we tried to extend our stay but they had other bookings so we couldn't.