The Wild, Wild West, Panama Style

The last major project on our Must Do List. is DONE! We now have our Panamanian Drivers Licence and can legally drive here; not that we weren't driving anyway but we were quite overdue to get our local licences. We have done many things on our own but decided that it was worth paying a concierge service to help us with the four step process. One of the reasons is just finding ones way in Panama City. The "ciudad" has many one way streets and driving is complicated by a lack of street signs and no numbering system for buildings. Addresses are more like written out directions.... the white building across from the HSBC Bank on the corner of Avenida Balboa and Calle 50, next to the McDonalds Restaurante. You also have to contend with insane drivers coming at you from god knows where. Shiver, shiver.
Last time we took a taxi there we nearly got bashed twice in one short drive of 6 blocks.

The first step in the licence process was to visit a lab and get our blood tested for type. This info is shown on the actual licence. The clinic also tests your glucose but Sertracen, the private company that issues licences, doesn't want this info. Nobody told the lab.
Once you have this documentation in hand, you go to step two.

Our concierge was Tyrone, recommended to us by friends. Last Wednesday Tyrone drove us to Los Torres de las Americas, a very modern complex in the Punta Pacifica area of Panama City, where sparkling office towers sprout up by the day. This complex of two towers houses many companies, including the Canadian Embassy office we had to visit. After parking underground, we had to lineup at the reception desk, where we were photographed and then given a paper like a movie receipt with a barcode. We then went through turnstiles where your barcode is read and you gain access to the elevator area. Here you preprogram your floor selection and arrive at the designated floor in 10 secs. (I read the website)

From there, you pass another checkpoint before arriving at the embassy office. We presented our Ontario licences, which were photocopied and paid $50 bucks each. For this price the embassy authenticates your licence and produces a letter saying it is what it seems to be. When leaving, you pay $1.20 at the central reception and they give you a token to get out of the parking garage

The third step we left to Tyrone. He had to return to the embassy the next day to retrieve the letter and take it to The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Here the Canadian letter is verified as legal, stamped multiple times and this costs you $8.00 for the required stamps that are purchased at a bank. This step takes another day and then he picks up the paper and brings it to you.

Yesterday, we drove the 30 km.to Penonome, to do the final step. Here you present your papers and passport, answer some personal questions...height weight,address etc. and do eye and hearing tests. You pay $40 each to the cashier and in a few minutes you have a licence card with your picture and holographic symbols on it. Your licence is good for four years. All in all the process was painless and I'm glad we had Tyrone to do the running back and forth to P.C. That was a bargain at $75 and he is a personable and well spoken man. We will definely use his services again when we move our car licence from P.C. to Anton in January.

We were happy to hear from Tyrone that new drivers will now have to complete a private driving school course before they are eligible to take the written and road tests for their first licence. Hopefully, enforcement of the rules of the road will improve with time also.
If coming to Panama, be sure to pack your defensive driving skills. Don't let the skycrapers fool you. It's the wild west on wheels! Woo Hoo!

The Wild West

P.S. My avocado tree is growing! It's a foot tall and currently growing in a yogourt container. Avocados are grown in abundance here but it will be cool to have my own avocado tree in my own garden.

This Old House

A view of the kitchen

Ah, to be a home owner again. We're longing for the day we have our own place again.It will soon be a year that we left Shaws Creek and it seems longer. Waiting for what you dream about is never easy but the little house on the River Road was a fun interlude in a gorgeous setting. It had its draw backs,(the furnace was broken and would have killed us with fumes had we used it)but all in all we both enjoyed our time there.It was cozy and cute.
This old casita we are renting now has quite a checkered past. Because it's been a rental property for so long, things that we would fix immediately have been patched together as cheaply as possible,tolerated or just neglected. There have been a litany of problems to address and that's where being at renter is a drag. The toilets have overflowed, the kitchen faucet broke and the roof leaked. Oh yes I forgot about the collapsing shelves that caused all the crockery to smash on the flagstone floor. Particle board is not a tropics friendly material!It just absorbs too much moisture, softens and collapses.Being supported on a tiny screw isn't useful either. Luckily the wine bottlw didn't break.
Our neighbour, Justin has taken over fairly recently as the super and he has really been working hard to get things repaired and up to par, as much as is feasible. He has had to deal with a broken gate, bees under our roof, a leaky, noisy broken water pump for the watertank, an overflowing septic tank and a broken drainage pipe that secumbed to powerful old tree roots right behind our house. While he was busy fixing that, the water company showed up to say that the water bill hadn't been paid since 2007 and they were going to cut off the water. The owners rep thought we were on a well so didn't worry that there were no water bills!

Fixing the electrical issues just isn't possible.That's a nightmare that can only be solved by tearing down both houses and starting fresh.
Luckily for the Canadian owners,the property itself is worth a ton of money. It was a very smart buy from that perspective and it's location near the beach can't be beat.The property is in the middle of the Jewish enclave and the houses around us,as previously mentioned ,are worth millons apiece. So again the old adage remains.....location, location, location.

We still have a few months to go before we can move into our own house so we will be thankful the roof doesn't leak (for now) and focus on the positive. We are relaxed, healthy, and enjoying setting our own schedule. The sun is shining so we're off to the beach!

p.s. We are finally going to Panama City this week to get our Panamanian drivers licences. More on that later.
The bedroom closet

The garden and bohio

Follow up to Creatures-- Sharks Fin Soup

Just wanted to follow up with a little more information about the last post. Bob had mentioned the event we witnessed on Facebook where he got a lots of comment. Erin Fritz, Karens daughter,talked today about a recent article in the Toronto Star. It discussed the practice of finning and efforts to eradicate the horrid act. If the demand for the fins to make the traditional chinese recipe of Sharks Fin Soup were eliminated, so would the market and thus the practice. I learned that my hometown of Brantford is the first North American city to ban the use of sharks fin. Go Brantford! Now we just have to make that world wide. Yesterdays June 13, Star article www.thestar.com/news/article/1007701
I'm not surprised that finning is practiced here in Panama as the independent fishermen eke out a subsistence income and it would be very tempting to go after the fins that fetch a handsome price. Hoperfully the new co-operatives will help these workers to bring in a better income. The government has built a new modern fishmarket very close to us and I think it will be open soon. The building is on the highway next to the site of the new international airport. More on that next time.

Creature of the Deep

It's been a while since I posted a blog. I apologize to those who have been following us regularly. I haven't had anything to write that I thought you would find very interesting. I think what we saw today qualifies as "muy" interesting.
This morning we went over to Playa Blanca planning to use the Laguna Pool. I wanted to practice my Aquafit exercises and Bob wanted to sit under an umbrella and read his Kindle book. As it happens, the Laguna Pool is closed Mondays for cleaning. We headed for the beach where the bohio and chairs were ready and waiting for us. I had completed my walk down the beach and was settling in to read my book. The vultures that had been feeding on a small fish over by the entrance to Rio Hato * suddenly became interested in something that had come in with the surf. I spied a large body, about 5 feet long. It had an unusual head and I guessed that it was a hammerhead shark. Bob and I headed out to the outer beach as the tide had gone out and the shark was at the far side of the beach next to the surf line. The shark was quite dead and had really been through it. It's top fin and half of the tail fin was missing. The big shocker was that she had been giving birth to her young and a baby shark was half way out of her. Though it is a very scary looking creature, it was fascinating to see such a creature up close. The teeth were truly awesome and I can't imagine what it would be like to have them coming at you.
The shark soon drew a crowd and a local man came along. I could tell he was a local by the pintada** he was wearing and by his long pants. The fish had only died a short while before and I think his plan was to take it home and carve it up for the freezer. He sent a little boy to get some family and friends, I think. Several of the horsemen, who sell rides on the beach, were coming to the scene as we were leaving. I don't know what became of the sharks body but since it was already dead, I hope it was put to good use. I resolve to always take my camera when going to the beach!
We have realized form information that we read on the internet that this poor unfortunate creature was the victim of a vicious harvesting of its fins for what is considered a delicacy and thought to have medicinal properties by some. There is a lot of information about "finning" on the web and we were shocked that it is so prevalent today, apparently still brisk activity in Costa Rica. The shark actually suffocates and drowns as it is no longer able to get oxygen from the water by rapidly swimming through it. What a waste and how cruel. I'll try to give you a link to more information. If this doesn't work, just type in Hammerhead Shark or Finning. The Panama Guide has good info if you interested in this subject.



*The river, Rio Hato, flows into the ocean, right where we sit under the bohios. It runs around our house site to the ocean. The nearby town by the same name is part of our future address. At low tide you can cross the river where it joins the beach and walk down the beach toward the town of Farallon and the Decameron Resort.
**I bought a pintada yesterday to display the earrings I am selling at the Farmers market on Saturday. It’s a straw hat in a traditional style I have only seen here. It has a flat crown and mature men wear them with the front brim turned up. I think they are common in the farm areas of Panama.