Friends, we offer this essay, written during our first few days in Panama, as a fresh, first hand report of what it can be like, if you do things right and have a bit of luck, when you first relocate to Panamá. Bill Keene
I STILL CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE IT
October 2004
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Our First Week
Well, here I am sitting on our veranda using my laptop while soaking in the warm sunrise over the Pacific. (More precisely, I discovered that there are computer glitches in paradise just as there are in normal places. So, although I started this on our veranda, I am not there right now. No matter; the image is seared into the core of my being.) The ochre-tinted sky, the purple mountain’s haze, the fruited and treed multi-shade green slope down into the valley and the luminous ocean in the distance fashioned a jubilant and wondrous experience. Yes, my first observed sunrise in Panama was warm, impressive and quiet, aside from an occasional sound of nature.
However, moving overseas is not for the faint of heart or those lacking a sense of humor and we'd heard the horror stories about the bad things that can happen in “foreign” countries (every country is foreign to the majority of folks on the planet!). We were prepared for some proverbial bumps in the road and even a detour or two. But to our pleasant surprise - and the astonishment of others - here is what actually happened.
LAWYERS and REAL ESTATE PROS, PAR EXCELLENCE
Our real estate buyer’s agent, in addition to showing us the mountain chalet of our dreams, had recommended lawyers, shippers, insurance firm, restaurants and modes of transportation. The house seller’s representative, who is now our neighbor and friend, had, recommended a bank. ALL of these had come through wonderfully for us. FIRST CARDINAL RULE: DO BUSINESS BY REFERRAL. The lawyers, for example, had handled our Pensionado application and had deftly worked it through the Panamanian bureaus (despite a routinely disruptive change of government due to recent elections) so that we were approved in what seemed record time prior to our arrival this time. When we arrived we had our photos taken for our “Turista Pensionado’ cards at a local drug store, then the escort from the law firm had us in and out of Immigration in under an hour - and the cramped offices were packed with people. The immigration operations seemed quite efficient to our rookie eyes – especially the two guys taking the photos and the young lady who quickly and accurately hand-wrote receipts and stamped each of the seemingly endless carbon copies, while simultaneously appearing to complain to our escort about something unknown to us, but in a tone familiar to anyone who has been, or been served by, an overworked or over-stressed employee.
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| A good shipper lessens the headaches of moving. |
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EXCELLENT SHIPPERS & A FABULOUS INSURANCE BROKER, TOO
We arrived in Panama late one Wednesday night in October 2004, a few weeks after our household goods and auto had arrived by container ship. When you’re moving overseas, you learn the true meaning of “excess baggage’ and the extra charges - and we had plenty of both. With prior arrangements in place, our new neighbor and his wife met us at Tocumen Aeropuerto with a small van and took 15 of our 20 mostly large bags to our new house about an hour and a quarter southwest of Panama City. We checked into a hotel to get a good night sleep. And we sorely needed it after months of selling, donating and throwing away 40 years of accumulated stuff, weeks of preparing our Maryland home for sale and of final preparations for our departure, days of “final’ goodbyes to friends and family, and hours of hectic last minute errands and arrangements. And did we ever get a good night’s sleep (including an extra, unplanned hour). But we got up so we could get to our lawyers’ offices by 9:30AM. By 11AM, we had our Pensionado cards entitling us to discounts for a variety of services and serving as evidence of our approved status with the government. That was pretty amazing, but not as amazing as our experience with customs.
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Our shipping and storage company advised us of the option of paying the duty on the auto we had shipped, for which, as Pensionado’s, we are exempt. In this way, we could get the car in a few days instead of 3 to 4 weeks, during which time we’d have to pay for a rental car and storage (not bad at only $3 per day). But who would have believed that we could actually get the car on our second full day in-country at just before five – but wait, it’s even more unbelievable – on a Friday afternoon!! When I expressed concern at 3:45PM about the likelihood of getting the car with it being so close to 5PM, the shipping company’s receptionist told me in Spanish to relax. She had, she told me with a broad grin, called Customs and they would wait for me. “You’re kidding, right?!” is what I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how to even approximate that in Spanish and was afraid that an improper inflection would confuse matters.
Earlier, around 1PM, I had called our insurance broker, who had given us a quote for the car and who had already written a policy for our house at a very affordable rate, to tell him we were thinking about paying the duty and to claim the car that day. He expressed serious skepticism that we’d have the car that day (“Bill”, he quietly remarked, “I don’t want to be the one to tell you that you won’t get your car today.”), but he put the coverage in force right then. He told us to bring the car by his office on Saturday morning, if we did get it, so that photos could be taken and, important to me but seemingly not critical to or necessary for him, so we could pay the premium (less than half what we paid in the US). Sure enough, we arrived at Aduana (Customs) off Transistmica after 4:40PM. Twelve sheets of paperwork and two receipts later amid good-natured chiding by the Customs staff of our escorts from the shipping company we had our car and two volunteers to ferry our rental car back to the hotel through rush hour traffic. Our Maryland tags got a lot of curious attention, too. I think the state coat of arms may look like a police shield to those not familiar with it.
But wait.
We had explained to our new friend and neighbor, who met us at the airport, that we would not have brought so much stuff with us and would have shipped (even!) more if only we had known that our household goods would arrive so quickly and that our departure from the States would be delayed. He said that we might be glad that we had all those items with us because our household goods might not be delivered soon even though they were already in-country. You know how it goes; anything might happen to delay the delivery. However, I had been greatly encouraged when I saw our household goods in several wooden containers on two flatbed trucks at the shipping company’s warehouse. (They had done a site visit (90 minutes from their office) before giving us the quote and they determined that the 40 foot container that sailed from the Port of Baltimore could not negotiate the two temporary tight turns on the otherwise fairly good mountain road to our new home.) The English-speaking owner indicated that unless we had heavy rain on Monday morning, they’d deliver. If we did, they’d come on Tuesday.
The Monday morning sky debuted clear blue, crisp and beautiful – like just about every morning. Mid-morning we heard the trucks straining up the hill. The six man crew showed up smiling and willing to help with anything we needed - such as moving some of the furniture we bought from the previous owners from one floor to another. They even assembled a nifty Martha Stewart metal bar for the veranda that we couldn’t bear to leave behind and which had to be disassembled to make it fit in the jam-packed shipping container. The moving crew of 6 and our gardener were our first guests at our dining room table when we treated them to lunch from the Pio Pio (fast food chicken restaurant). Total bill for nine (9) lunches: under $20. THAT'S HOW WE SPELL RELIEF?
So we arrived on Wednesday at 9:57PM and by Monday morning – 2 ½ days business days later! – we had received our:
- Pensionado cards, multiple entry visas,
- auto from customs and had insurance in force for it,
- furniture and household goods,
- small appliances and new keys for the house.
We also had:
- strolled the beautiful garden and complimented the gardener,
- our entire home cleaned,
- several great meals,
- our car repaired and
- one of two positive encounters in our first week with the ubiquitous Policia Nationale.
If we had needed to, we could have gotten up a little earlier on Monday and gone to the local branch of our bank to pick up our checks and ATM cards for the account we opened on our last visit. But we took care of that another day.
DID I MENTION AUTO REPAIR?
Although it was working perfectly on Friday evening, on Saturday morning the air conditioner in the car was not cooling at all. This is as close to disaster as my wife wants to get! We took it into a car dealer (Yes, I said “dealer”) and had it temporarily fixed for the grand sum of $20! Since it’s an American make, the replacement part and labor combined for the permanent fix will be equal to the cost in the US (parts higher, labor lower, both significantly). Parts for the much more popular Japanese cars are significantly less expensive in Panamá. Based on our experience with importing a car, we have some FREE advice. Just drop us a note. Also, we have a simple tip for increasing the odds that you’ll get good service each time you go to your mechanic.
STARTING TO SETTLE IN…
We also shopped for temporary appliances (a two-burner cook top, medium-size microwave and mid-size refrigerator), which we’ll later use in the separate downstairs unit so our guests can make use of those conveniences if they wish. When we have a houseful of our children and grandkids, we may stay downstairs with the grands and make popcorn in the microwave just for the fun of it. And did I mention the geese that came with the house? These are the famous “watch geese”, who “bark” when anyone comes close. The grandkids are going to have the time of their lives; feeding and chasing the geese and throwing pebbles into the mountain stream at the edge of our property.
With all that could have gone wrong, that first sunrise – perfect in every way – symbolizes our experience so far in our new home country - the underestimated, still undiscovered and very beautiful Panama. And we have yet to see Bocas del Toro, San Blas, Boquete (boh-keh-tae) or the Pearl Islands!
I still can’t quite believe it, but my fantastic, darling wife of almost 40 years assures me that it is true.
Copyright October 2004
Revised, but not updated, May 2005 and January 2007
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