Tropical Dreaming

It’s been a very eventful couple of weeks and many back posts are forthcoming but this post is particularly relevant and should fill you in on a lot of important stuff. So with no further ado…

It’s been four months and one week since we arrived in Panama. These are the things we’ve learned (so far) and know about life in Panama and our future here…

1. The cost of living is a lot higher than we expected…
   1. A meal in a little fonda (traditional Panamanian cafe) is cheap but the food doesn’t really appeal to us. But a meal in a restaurant that does will be $50-75.
   2. Fish at a roadside seafood stand and/or veggies at a fruit/vegetable stand  is/are priced attractively but almost anything in a grocery store costs as much or more than it would in the U.S. And while they do have “PriceSmart” (Panama’s equivalent to Costco), where you can buy in bulk and save, at grocery stores, you can’t do that. You can’t even buy a 12 or 24-pack of Coke or soda water — everything is sold individually!
   3. A tank of gas is (I think) a little cheaper here than in the U.S. but not much. Prices here are per liter but if you do the math, we’re paying approx. $3.60/gallon (and that’s for 95 octane).
2. Housing prices are a lot higher than we had hoped.
   1. There are bargains to be had but there are always issues/trade-offs/compromises.
   2. We find ourselves pushing our upper limit higher than we had planned in order to get something that we like.
   3. The dream of buying a house—with a pool—within walking distance to the beach—that doesn’t need a TON of work… was precisely that - a dream.
   4. A lot that’s near the beach would give us the opportunity to have everything we’re looking for but working with Panamanian contractors and getting the necessary building permits, etc. is purportedly a nightmare so Krista won’t even consider it.
   5. Having said all that, we remain hopeful that we’ll find a place that’s exactly what we’re looking for! 
3. The nomadic lifestyle is hard. And stressful. And expensive.
   1. That may not be true for everyone, but we’ve identified certain needs and  essentials… like a fully fenced-in yard, a private swimming pool (places with shared pools frown on our dogs going in the pool with us), air conditioning, hot water (you can’t take that for granted in Panama!), a kitchen, and laundry facilities (at least a washer). And with criteria like that, the pickin’s get pretty slim. And pricey. And as we look and look for affordable rentals that meet those criteria, we ultimately start to run out of time. And now it’s, “OK, we could live without laundry facilities. What’s out there?” Followed by, “OK, we could live without laundry facilities and hot water. Anything affordable, now?” Until it’s, “We have to leave here in three days! Are we comfortable paying $500 more? Should we forget about the private pool?” Etc. etc……..
   2. Packing up everything, driving to another place, then unloading it all and putting it all away is tedious and more than a little strenuous. Krista says She always knew it was going to be hard (especially with me being such a homebody) but it is what we signed for…
   3. Plus, when we find a place we like and we’re happy there, saying goodbye is sad.
4. Medical care, whether for us or the dogs is excellent, and a fraction of the cost in the US. The following items pertain to our healthcare…
   
   1. You do spend more time in the waiting room, waiting as much as an hour or two beyond your appointment time to be called in to see the doctor, but…
   2. When it is your time to see the doctor, your appointment is unrushed. He or she takes his/her time and listens.
   3. You don’t have to wait as long to get an appointment.
   4. Prescription costs are, for the most part, also much more affordable.
5. The weather, for the most part agrees with us, but…
   1. Krista’s Fibro does get triggered/aggravated by extreme heat. It’s manageable, though, as long as she can cool off with a dip in the pool.
   2. Since Krista is a mosquito magnet/gourmet meal, it’s super important that we have air conditioning so we can close up the house and keep the little bastards out.
      
      1. Except that’s going to get expensive if electricity isn’t included in our rent.
      2. Of the places we’ve rented, only the condo in Cocolì could be totally sealed up. Every place else has had dozens of places where mosquitoes could find a way in.
      3. Once we have a place of our own, we can implement various remedies to mitigate the mosquito issue but as long as we’re nomadic renters, she’s just going to get a lot of mosquito bites (which she’ll scratch and scratch and scratch until they form scabs which become scars).
         
      4. We definitely plan to invest in solar-powered air conditioners once we buy a house.
         
6. This one is a bit of a shocker—even to us… Given the choice between a place near (i.e. walking distance to) the beach with no pool, and a place with a pool that’s further from the beach (e.g. a 10 minute drive) — we now know that we’d prefer the latter. We never would have guessed it ourselves! Here’s why…
   1. As mentioned in item 5.1 above, a dip in the pool is extremely therapeutic for Krista and helps her deal with (the impact on her health/pain from) the heat.
   2. It’s also, for both of us, very relaxing, enjoyable, and stress relieving.
   3. There’s actually a really big difference (for us, anyway) from taking a few steps into the back yard and jumping into the pool vs. walking or driving to the beach and getting into the water. (The time it takes to do that—and the heat it exposes us to—can easily negate the therapeutic benefits.)
   4. While in the pool, we can throw the ball for TinkerBelle and enjoy watching her chase it and bring it back—secure in the knowledge that she won’t run off because the yard is fully fenced. By contrast, chasing her for two miles down the beach, all the while worrying that this might be the time she doesn’t come back, just isn’t nearly as fun!
   5. Getting out of the pool, toweling off, and walking a few steps back into the house, we can just go about our business. We don’t have to spend several minutes going from the beach to the house, washing the sand and ocean water off of us, the dogs, our shoes, etc.
   6. At the beach, there’s no protection from the sun (at least not while we’re in the water). And sunscreen only works so well/lasts so long. Sunburn is pretty common for me. By contrast, the house in Coronado that we’ve rented in the past (and will soon be renting again) has shade at various times of the day. We only need to worry about sunscreen from around 11AM - 3PM. (When we have a place of our own, we’ll take steps to make sure the pool has shade.)
   7. Don’t get me wrong, the beaches here are gorgeous, and we do love going to them!
   8. It probably goes without saying that, if we could, we’d like to be near the beach and have a pool. But while I’m convinced that’s possible if we buy a lot and build, [see item 2.4, above]
7. Help—as in housekeeping, pool maintenance, gardening, and handyman services (those things that are either too strenuous or distasteful to do them ourselves)—is extremely affordable. And that’s very conducive to the lifestyle we’re shooting for.
   1. For less than $300/month, we can have a housekeeper come twice a week to clean our house completely and do all our laundry!

When you put it all together, it spells an eagerness to find a house we like and get settled. But we’re torn, too, because there’s so much of Panama we have yet to see. The Coronado/Nueva Gorgona area seems to have everything we’re looking for, but who knows if we’d fall in love with Puerto Armuelles or Bocas del Toro, or…? And maybe the perfect house for us is just waiting to be discovered in some other area of Panama.

And frankly, Europe isn’t completely off the table, either. I just did some checking and, per the official retirement visa requirements, we do make enough money to get a retirement visa in Italy, France, Portugal, and other European countries.

Having said that, we have a lot invested in Panama…