My husband and I finally made it to Panama! We were in Coronado for five nights and then stayed outside of PC for one night. We were there to see where we would like to retire to in two years, and we realized that we really do like El Valle as much as we thought we would. Coronado and the beach area isn't for us. We will make more trips there in the coming years, but El Valle was wonderful.
The first dinner we spent at Locos in Gorgona. I was meeting some "virtual" friends there and wanted to try out the burritos here (they are huge and everything was delicious).
We spent the first day with Ty on his ATV tours in El Valle. He spent five hours with us taking us to the waterfall, we swam and basically rode through El Valle for two plus hours on the ATV. He was very open with us about his Panamanian experiences, his family, business and life in general. We spent time at his restaurant and visiting with Mona, the monkey. We stopped at the coffee shop on the way out of El Valle and sat outside watching the rain (it is rainy season but four days it rained only in the evening). We ate dinner later that day at Picasso in Coronado.
The next day we packed a cooler and hit the Santa Clara beach (white sandy beach with calm water and very quiet). We paid $3/person to park the car and use a bohio. There are a number of grocery stores in Coronado so it was easy to load up on groceries for our condo and for the beach. El Machetazo also has a cafeteria in it that had a great breakfast selection. During rainy season we found that many restaurants are closed during the week or just not open (or they have closed down altogether). El Rey is open 24/7. And then there was Super 99. There three casinos also and penny slots are the best! Won a whopping $85.
We ate dinner at Carlitos -- delicious. Empenadas were excellent and the pizza along with eggplant lasagna were fabulous.
We spent another day at El Valle zoo (happened to be the day Panama was getting tail wind of Hurricane Sanday). This was the only day it rained the entire day but we were prepared with ponchos and raincoats. It had been 85 degrees and sunny the first time we were in El Valle and on this day it didn't hit 70 degrees. The clouds were very low. We ate at Tierra y Mar and enjoyed our Peruvian meal of chicken and rice, fried chicken, milkshakes and shrimp creole. We shopped and ate dinner in Coronado at El Rincon del Chef--also very good. The presentation of the food was nice and the restaurant decor is pleasant.
Many times we were the only one's eating in the restaurant. Quiet times. Pantay was the exception--it was very busy and service was slower since there was one waitress working. But we arrived early and had no problems with service (other couple left when they were sitting longer than five minutes waiting for a menu).
When we left Coronado, we visited the Panama Canal, returned our rental car at the airport (we didn't know we were so close to airport or we would have kept car one more day) and took taxi to the Courtyard MetroMall Marriott. We shopped at the mall, walked over the overpass to the outlets, spent time in the casino (penny slots!), saw a movie ($13 for two adults, large caramel popcorn--yes, caramel and large soda)--in English with Spanish subtitles and a beautiful theater, and the final day we spent time at the mall pool. We decided to shop again at the outlets, but rioting had picked up in PC and was trickling to the other towns. A wonderful Panamanian man told us politely to "get a taxi, get back to our hotel room and go. NOW." The shops were shutting down due to possibility of rioting, the mall was still open but we decided to head to the airport a little earlier than planned. We didn't want to be caught in a road closure. Everyone was relaxed at the hotel about things-- "It's Panama" They told us the mall would close down when they felt the urgency (found out late that Albrook Mall did close down, but I don't know if MetroMall every did). We were also alerted through email by State Dept of what was going on and we knew that during the week there was rioting in different areas. Just not in El Valle, Coronado, Farallon, Chame, etc.
It was a wonderful vacation. We had a small list of things we wanted to see and do, and we will return to see the other things we didn't get around to doing or seeing.
Panama trip
Hi AlliG!
Thanks for sharing 
Armand
Thanks AlliG, that was one of the most informative blogs I've read lately. Why were they rioting? I thought the government there was stable now, ahh well, guess you can't have everything, we will be out there sometime in the next year, probably fall to check it out ourselves. Again, thanks for the excellent report.
Kurt.....
Hey Ali,
I'm glad you finally made it. I'm headed to El Valle in a couple of weeks. I've always wanted to visit there and I've heard it's stunning. Like you, I'm not really into the beach life. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and just got tired of it I guess.
To answer Kurt's question, the rioting had to do with Panama's President Ricardo Martinelli wanting to sell public land to private companies. They say that he promised some of the companies that backed him during his campaign, that he would sell some of the land in the Colon "free zone" area, which has always been public land and rented to these companies. When the people found out about it they flipped out. They demanded he repeal the decision. He was out of the country in Japan and Vietnam during most of the riots. When he returned he stopped the deal and all of the rioting ended. Unfortunately 3 people were killed during the riots, mostly due to police trying to break up the riots.
Don't worry though. Panamanians are just passionate people. They love their land and they fought so long and hard to become a sovereign nation. So now that the U.S. has left the canal zone and Panama completely belongs to Panama, they don't want to give up anything unnecessarily. President Martinelli has done so many good things for the country in his short stint in office, but he's also been accused of being very corrupt and doing a lot for personal gain along the way. So the government has been a little less stable, but it's no big concern. It's all party vs. party crap just like in the States. Either way, it's good to know that expats are appreciated, they want us here, and no matter who the president is, we'll be fine.
Chris
Thanks for the info Chris, you certainly are well informed and seem like you have your finger on the pulse of what to do in Panama. I hope to be there next year around this time frame and would love to meet you and your Panamanian wife. I am not sure how many of us will be heading that way, so far there are three to four of us that are contemplating the visit. That could change overnight though, I am excited to check out the area. My thing would probably be away from the city, someplace in the mountains where the weather would be cooler, but very close to the beach. I am 55 years old, and have a girlfriend who I've been with for 20 years now, so I'm not looking to party or nightlife of any sort. The reason I would want to be close to the beach is because a long time ago I learned to sail. Really a long time ago, so long ago in fact, I doubt I can remember much, except for the fact that I loved it!!! So finding a big sailboat, some dive gear, and of course a lot of fishing gear would be optimum, oh yes and a safe place to keep it in some kind of marina on the water is what I would be looking for.
I have a vision of playing in my garden in the mountains for my own veggies, and sailing and fishing, or spearing my seafood. Cars to me do not matter, I love motorcycles, or anything with two wheels over a car. I will be living on Social Security and whatever measly pittance I get from working twenty years for the state of Washington. I figure around $3,000 a month total is what I'll have to live on, I know that is more than possible to do in Panama. I follow your writings on this forum and so far, I like your writings, you are very informative and sound like you really like your life. I want that too, and it might be around ten more years for me to do this move, but I am gathering all the info way before I have to move so it becomes seamless when I do this move.
Kurt.....
Hey Kurt,
Thanks, man. I appreciate that you're reading my posts and getting something out of it. Yeah, I'd love to get together with you guys when you get here. Let me know when you'll be in town. I'll send you a friend request or whatever they call it on this blog.
I just replied on one of the other posts, about some of the places close to the city that are worth checking out. I was just in Coronado yesterday (actually just got back about fifteen minutes ago) and me, my wife, and her best friend and husband were discussing moving out to that area. Like you, I want to live in the mountains. I met a couple, maybe two weeks ago, who just moved from South Florida to Panama, and they bought a place in Altos del Maria. That's only about...maybe 20 minutes from the expat-friendly Coronado beach area. They love it up there. It's a mountain/hilltop community. The guy's name is Gary, and he's a surfer, so that tells you how close this mountain area is to the beach. I think the area might be a bit pricey though. I've never been up there, but I'm planning to stop by next week on my way out to El Valle (which is another mountain area that's supposed to be stunning). If you want to be near the beach, but also in the mountains, you'll probably want to be somewhere near the Coronado area. That seems to be the only place that kind of has both within very close proximity. Oh, also across from Coronado is a town called Las Lajas. I think those homes are a little less expensive than in Coronado itself.
Go to this site: http://www.compreoalquile.com/
It's the real estate site I use all the time. Plug some of those towns I mentioned into the search field at the top. Try Coronado, Gorgona, Chame, Las Lajas, and Altos del Maria. El Valle is the other beautiful mountain area I always hear about, but I don't think it's very close to the beach.
The site I just mentioned is in Spanish. Most pages can be translated though. Alquiler is rent and venta is for sale.
$3,000 per month should be more than enough to live on, especially if you're going to rent, or if you're planning to buy right off the bat and not have a cheap or no mortgage payment. The Pan-American Highway is a fairly smooth road. Motorcycles cruise up and down it all the time. It's some of the side roads that can be bumpy, like heading into the smaller towns. I've heard the road leading to El Valle is a mess.
Oh, you mentioned your age and not needing a crazy nightlife. Again, the Coronado area could be for you. Most of the gringos living there are in your age group or older. It's a retirement community. So in any of those towns I told you to use in your search field, you'd be in that general area. Gary and Rhonda, the couple I mentioned living in Altos del Maria, told me all about their gardening plans and the hummingbirds that visit their feeders every day. That place sounds like the place to settle down...if it's affordable (I'll be checking into that soon).
Hope this helped.
Thanks again for your kind words.
Chris
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