Our new home in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, Panama July 7, 2014

First I need to apologize in advance for the blurry pictures.  Our camera leaped off the counter and onto the concrete floor.  It hasn't been the same since.  We are trying to find a new one, but it hasn't happened yet.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks here in Panama.  After our last post we made a trip out to Los Islotes to be part of a tour group and practice our skills of showing the property to interested buyers.  We met the group in Santiago on Sunday morning and then headed out to the property for the tour and lunch.  It is always great to meet others that are interested in living here in Panama.  We had made arrangements to meet our attorney in Panama City on Monday morning thinking we could follow the group back to the city after the tour.  Lief had other ideas and asked if one of us would drive his rental car back to the city for him so he could fly home with his business partner and wife.  Being the agreeable sorts that we are, we said sure as long as we could still follow James (another Live and Invest employee) back to the city and our hotel.  As such we caravaned with James in front, Peg in 2nd in Lief''s rental car and me picking up the end in our truck.  As I mentioned before, driving is a sport here and it turns out James is the gold medal winner.  As a result I was a lane changing fool and literally kissed the ground when we arrived at the hotel.

Traffic on the way into the city

We spent the morning in the city with the attorney going to immigration to pick up our temporary residency visas and then to the US Embassy where we had to have our US Driver's Licenses validated - the first step in obtaining a Panamanian Driver's License.  In order to get into the Embassy you have to go through a security check point much like the airport except they take all of your electronics and keep them until you leave; cell phone, camera, computer, WiFi router etc.  Then you go in and wait with a very large number of people most of whom are Panamanian getting a travel visa so that they can travel to the US at a cost of $120, but it is good for 10 years.  They collected $40 from each of us, looked at our licenses and signed a piece of paper.  It took about an hour.  We then had the afternoon off so we went to the Live and Invest Overseas office and met with Lief about our new job.  We are going to be handling the property tours out at Los Islotes along with helping to update their marketing materials and website.  Very exciting for us.  We then spent a lovely quiet evening in the hotel with no chickens in sight or earshot.

On our way out of the city we decided to stop at the mall so we could buy a printer.  The Albrook Mall is huge and only about a 15 minute drive from our hotel.  Well let me just say this....  we never made it.  We drove through every neighborhood in the city and finally ended up on the toll road that goes right by the mall on its way to Colon, but doesn't have an exit.  Colon is on the Caribbean side of the country and hours in the wrong direction.  The toll booth lady took our fifty cents and laughed at us. She pointed off to her immediate left and we figured out enough of what she was trying to say which was....if you don't want to end up in Colon that is the only exit/escape.  Peg went through the toll booth and flew hard right to make the exit before getting run over by the cars to her right which wanted to go to Colon. We ended up back down town where we had started.  We decided to throw in the towel and head for home.  We somehow made it across the bridge over the canal, but then exited the Pan American Hwy by mistake and effectively drove on the frontage road through two cities (stop and go traffic) until finally making it back onto the Hwy.  It was good to be back to our little house in Pedasi.

We spent the rest of our last week collecting shells, enjoying the beach, spending time with our friends and making the most of our last three Spanish lessons.  We had decided it shouldn't take us too long to pack up so we spent Friday putting our worldly possessions back into our eight suitcases along with a few boxes.  On Saturday we loaded the truck with most of the belongings carefully wrapped in garbage bags (it is the rainy season) and made our first trip to Santa Fe.  We were pleasantly surprised as the landlady had completely out done herself.  She put up a wall between our house and the other one on the property and added mesh fencing around the bottom edge of the existing fence to prevent the animals from escaping.  The house is furnished very comfortably, has a second bedroom, a washing machine, two amazing portable room fans, a tv with satellite and even a little desk area with office supplies.  We couldn't have been more pleased.  More than twice the size of our Pedasi house for $200 less a month and it includes all utilities.  She even offered to clean our house once a week for no additional charge.

Another beautiful beach in Pedasi

Good shell hunting

Beautiful sunset from our living room in Pedasi.  One of the last.

We unloaded and headed back to Pedasi where we had a finalé dinner with friends.  On Sunday we took one final trip to the beach with the dogs, cleaned the house, and packed up the crew.  We left Pedasi a little sad, but excited about our new phase in the mountains.  It is so beautiful here.  The hour drive from Santiago to Santa Fe is just amazing.  We are surrounded by green and the weather is about 10 - 14 degrees cooler and almost always breezy. We spent a few days getting settled in and are really enjoying our new space. The town is much smaller than Pedasi and we have only seen two other gringos, but everyone is very friendly. We even have a couple that delivers the best tasting homemade yogurt and cheese that we have ever tasted.

Our new living room with a comfortable couch!  that is the $70 fan our landlady bought for us complete with a remote control.  She put one in the bedroom too.

View from our upstairs window in Santa Fe.  This is a cloudy day.  We will take another when it is sunny.

New fence added by the landlord

We even have a storage area.

Locking gate

Kitchen with microwave and oven.  Yippee

We have made several trips into Santiago and have found our new favorite grocery store, hardware store, appliance store and are slowly learning our way around downtown.  We also were able to successfully order and receive an on-line purchase.  We decided to attempt the final two steps of the driver's license process ourselves without the help of our attorney.  She couriered our passports, embassy validations and Panamanian Authentication (step 2) to Santiago.  The final two steps are to get our blood types certified and then to the Sertracen Office (DPS / DMV).  We find the ATTT approved clinic in downtown Santiago - no small feat without addresses.  We walk in with our prepared Spanish statement "Necessitamos tipajo de sangue" and were actually understood!!!!!  We hand her the copies of our passport, were called to the back less than five minutes later, poked in the finger, watched as the tech mixed our three drops of blood with three different solutions.  He then wrote down our blood type on a piece of paper.  We then went back to the waiting area for another five minutes where we were handed our two official typed up certifications and asked for $4 total - $2 each!  And this was in a clinic the size of most of your living rooms and completely full of patients.  We then drove to the Sertracen Office walked in, handed in our paperwork, took an eye test, a hearing test, paid $40 each and walked out with our actual driver's license (not a paper copy) less than a hour later.  We couldn't believe it.  And as fate would have it, we were actually stopped at a police check-point on the way back to Santa Fe where we were able to show him our brand new license and residency visa.  Not bad for a day's work.  

Black and White Squirrel

We are all legal!