Category: Travel

Visit to USA (2019) and Our New Rental

No, we did not fall of the face of the earth! We have been away!

Just came back from a month in the states visiting family and friends. In early September, we flew to Florida visiting Craig’s family, then drove up to eastern Pennsylvania to spend time with our daughters and grandchildren. Visiting with family and meeting our newest granddaughter, Stella, was very special. After almost 2 weeks there, we drove back down to Florida for more fun in the sun before leaving the US once again.

I forgot how much I missed American beef. Also the many conveniences available at your fingertips. But after 4 weeks we were ready to get back “home” to Panamá and move into our new rental. We feel very blessed to have found a great open concept house with two bedrooms and on suite bathrooms. The “pieza de resistencia” is the great terrace and canyon view. What great outdoor living space! We really love it here. Although a bit further away from Boquete town, we are a little closer to the large city of David. There is a temperature difference from where we were living in Lower Volcancito, where the altitude is 1190 meters above sea level. The altitude at our new place 10 minutes farther south is 830 meters. We are finding the weather to be still very comfortable without having air conditioning.

The month of October is the rainiest month here. Today was mostly cloudy with a little bit of rain, but yesterday we had quite the “aguacero” (downpour). There is a lot of drainage ditches here for good reason. It comes down in buckets. I watched our drainage ditch become a creek as it journeyed through a revine in our backyard down over the canyon. The rain sounded like a waterfall!

In the coming weeks our time will be spent on making our new rental homey, trips to David to price shop another TV and find other items to outfit the new house. Life is pretty simple with no rushing. If it doesn’t get done today it will be done tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. Such a dilemma! Love the people and beauty of our little stretch of heaven.

Panamá City Visit

An architectural wonder
in Panama City

This week we spent a few days in Panamá City. We flew from David to Panamá City to complete our e-cédulas. David, the 3rd largest city in Panamá, is a 35 minute drive from Boquete. The flight is approximately 45 minutes, a real time saver and relatively inexpensive with a 20% jubilado discount. The drive would take you around 7 hours.

The e-cédula is an optional form of identification that provides an unique ID number which becomes the official proof of identity in Panamá. Permanent residents are not required to obtain the e-cédula; however, it is highly recommended. This is because the e-cédula card is an accepted proof of identity anywhere in Panamá, while the permanent residency card requires foreigners to carry their passport as a proof of ID. All Panamanians over the age of 18 are issued a cédula. The only difference between the cédula issued to those who are born in Panamá and those who become permanent residents, is the “e” on the card’s ID number, which stands for extranjero – foreigner in Spanish.

When you have an e-cédula card, you can do your day-to-day tasks more easily – whether it be cashing your checks or paying for public transport. When in Panamá, an e-cédula card is all you need to carry. See full article about important Panamá IDs (from our attorneys website), at https://kraemerlaw.com/en/articles/important-panama-ids-residency-card-e-cedula-drivers-license/

It’s not necessary for an attorney to accompany you, however we did have our bilingual driver/tour guide extraordinaire, Marc Vargas, drive us to the Tribunal Electoral in Albrook, Panamá City, and he helped us with any translation issues. After our files were reviewed, we paid the fee of $32.50 each (normally $65.00 but we get a 50% jubilado discount), then got our photos taken and also fingerprinted. In a week our e-cédulas will be mailed to us. Everything was done in less than 3 hours, which left us some time to explore which is always very enjoyable. This completes our process!

We are back home in Boquete, until our next adventure.

Today is Independence Day in the US, home of the free because of the brave. I remain grateful for our many freedoms in both my mother land and my newly adopted home of Panamá. Happy Independence Day!