Category: Panama

Dudes/Dudettes,

We have all heard stories about this mysterious place called Medellin in the mountains of Colombia. This name alone conjures up all kinds of frightful possibilities – Harrison Ford Movies; Pablo Escobar; FARC Rebels; secret CIA camps, …I could go on.

Well after speaking to people who personally went to Colombia and specifically Medellin we decided to give it a try. Flights were somewhat cheap and the dollar very strong to the Colombian Peso. With further research we found that general hostilities in the country subsided generally between 2000-2005. Yah, there are still places travelers should not go but that can be said for Miami, D.C., or many other areas of the USA.

Medellin is a very large city, 2.77M folks. It is known as the Milan of South America. It has a reputation for fashion and medical tourism. It is huge for plastic surgery drawing people worldwide due to the quality and price. No, that is not why we went! I am not sure where to start in describing Medellin except maybe to say we were very very impressed. It was nothing like what we expected. We of course didn’t go to the areas comparable to the ‘south side of Chicago’ and pretty much just roamed the one district, Poblado, but – wow.

We stayed in a boutique hotel in a neighborhood called La Florida. The neighborhood reminded us a lot of Belltown in Seattle but nicer/cleaner. There were a number of residences that were being transitioned to restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, and hostels. This area had and was in transition from a neighborhood to a more upscale mixed-use area.

Ok, enough background, what did we do and see? We flew on Viva Colombia which is the only airline that flies in/out of the old Howard Air Force Base. At the terminal we had to pay a $15/person Colombian tax – cash only. From there security and immigration was easy. It was there, in line, that I photographed the woman with the butt implant (see pic). Part of the famous plastic surgery in Medellin is a tremendous amount of breast and butt implants. Apparently Colombian, and possibly other Latin societies find large butts desirable, aka Kim Kardashian style.

The plane was a modern Airbus A320. No, not a twin engine Coke runner. To board the plane everyone gets an assigned group and walks out on the tarmac to the stairs. Some groups board from the front and some from the rear and there are no assigned seats. Maybe that helps balance the load. Approaching the terminal and taxi-ing the runway allowed us a view as to what things may have looked like during the USA Airforce days. The flight was great and we landed early evening in Medellin. We purchased some Colombian Pesos – 3 COP to the $1. The 45 minute cab ride was 60,000 pesos to town (around $21). We checked in to the hotel and then went to find dinner. I must comment here that people drive like bats-out-of-hell as they do in Panama but the cars mostly seem nice and well maintained and not all dented. Roads were very good and even the small streets seemed to have signs. A big difference from Panama.

Just outside the hotel door were some plastic patio tables and chairs and about 10 folks sitting having cocktails. It was a little café / garage / storage unit that operated as ‘Donde Juan’ – pic shown. Our travel companion, Buzz, struck up conversation as some spoke English. We ended up sitting for a while for cocktails and met some fun folks. This place became our evening neighborhood-gathering place each day.

We walked up the street looking for food and I engaged a nice man who invited us into his very nice, classy restaurant, Sal e Brasa. He said it was a Brazilian type steak house. We sat on a second level patio overlooking the sidewalk, very pleasant. A picture on the menu caught our eye so we asked about it and then ordered it – Bife Chorizo. Buzz and I ordered ‘glazed mushrooms’ and Denise ordered Yucca Fritas (Yucca Fries) as our sides. All 3 of us have had a lot of steak in our lives but we all agreed that this meal was near the top of the list of all steaks. It was an excellent cut, aged on site, and cooked just right. The glazed mushrooms were also to die for. The service was impeccable. Our meals ended up being just under $7 each plus a few bucks for drinks. WOW! This place set the standard we would compare to all others. It was so good that we went back on our 3^rd night.

During the day(s) we either walked around or took cabs for $2-3. We went to some shopping malls and to Hard Rock Café. At Hard Rock we bought some souvenirs and had lunch and drinks. Buzz had Hurricanes and Denise and I had some ‘Sex on the Beach’. Drinks! I said drinks! Geesh. Later, I got a haircut at a salon ($4). It was a nice place and a good cut. Denise and I stopped for Gelato. We also stopped for some micro-brews at the Bogata Brewing Company that had an excellent Porter. Medellin is known for its microbreweries. In general we just had a relaxing good time. More to follow below these pictures.

Dinner on night 2 was right next door to our hotel. It was called Mu Fukin Good Ribs. How can you not try a place like that! It was only open Thursday-Saturday and lines formed early and if you were late they could run out. If you wanted something other than ribs they said to leave – only ribs and drinks are served. They were large meaty pork ribs and were excellent. Full meals for the 3 of us came to about $18. Thumbs up!

In the evenings we ended up at our neighborhood sidewalk café for a nightcap. Lots of people were out and about walking into the evening. We felt safer than walking around Seattle in the evening. On our last afternoon Denise and I came across this multi-block area that was a park with the surrounding streets full of restaurants, bars, and nice shops. Some of the streets were pedestrian only. Wish we knew this was there sooner! We stopped into Partick’s Irish Pub for a pint and spent at least an hour with Patrick himself. There was also a Hooters though we didn’t get a chance to go in, just for comparison sake. This area looked like the nightlife place to be.

Comparing to Panama, one thing we found in Panama is that the city is quite metropolitan and where we stay in Coronado is quite nice but the area along the highway and to/from the airports can look pretty poor, dirty, sketchy. What was so impressive about Colombia was that even the 45 minute ride to/from the airport, over the hills and down to the valley, was clean, neat, and did not appear poor with a run down poverty look. In a lot a ways it really showed up Panama, much more mature and sophisticated. The only thing Medellin is missing is the wonderful beach that we live on J. Maybe a trip to Cartagena on the Caribbean is due?

The trip back was non-eventful and it is nice to get back to the beach where we saw the lunar eclipse, which was spectacular. We would go back to Medellin in a heartbeat BUT we have other places we want to also see. It was great paying so little for so much. It was nice to finally get a break for being from the USA.

Below are a bunch of misc pictures from our adventures. I hope you enjoy them. Comments are welcome. These blogs actually take quite a bit of time to put together. So let me know if they are stupid and I will stop or let me know if there is anything you would like to know about.

RB

One big area of research we conducted before we choose to take off somewhere was Quality of medical care. Panama rated very high with well trained doctors, most speaking english and trained in the USA, and good hospitals especially near the larger cities. Think Oklahoma, If you are out in the boonies you may see a veterinarian but in Oklahoma City you will find good hospitals and doctors. So we knew we had good medical care in the area we were settling.  There is a pretty new medical center about 1.5 miles away with direct affiliation to a top notch hospital in Panama CIty.

Big big differences though are in cost. Cost of medical care in Panama is ridiculously cheap compared to the USA. One large reason is that Panama limits the ability to file frivolous suits. A doctor visit can cost as much as a co-pay in the US – $15/$25 and maybe $35/50 for a specialist.

We are very conditioned to have medical insurance so we finally investigated our options. Since medical care is so cheap the real protection we wanted was more catastrophic. Checking around it seemed there were 3 options. 1) USA type insurance that would cover us in Panama or a Panama based US plan from someone like Blue Cross/Shield. This was quite expensive. 2) An international insurance plan. This is mostly for people traveling and living in various countries. The coverage was good and the cost wasn’t bad that is unless you included the USA in the plan. In that case the cost went quite high. Again the litigation issue. 3) Local Panama base insurance. This had pretty good coverage and was recommended by a number of other ex-pats here.

So we went with MS-Panama Plan. It is actually provided by a US based company. To apply we needed to have tests done and we needed to pay for them up front. All this was done at our local clinic. We had full blood test, Urinalysis test, chest x-rays, EKG and then a review with a doctor of the results – basically a full physical.

At the clinic they took booth of us in within minutes. Within 1.5 hours we not only had all tests complete but the x-rays and EKG results were handed to us. In a couple days the other test results were emailed to us. Within a week we were at the local doctor – Dr. Levy for review. We had heard many good things about Dr. Levy. He is a young guy with great English. We were told to show up sometime after 3PM, no appointment. We were in with the doctor within 15 minutes. He not only went over the test results, which were all quite good, but he also took all the time we wanted to answer all and any questions we might have had about other health concerns.

Well not only did we pass with flying colors but the total cost for a full physical for 2 people– not just deductible – was just over $300. This includes clinic costs EKG, x-ray, lab results, and doctors time. Our monthly cost for full medical coverage for 2 people is $133 per month. Now full disclosure, this does not cover cancer. There is a $100/year rider for any cancer. It also does not include Chiro or acupuncture but if you want these you can pay the $10-15 per visit out of your pocket. Over all this was a pretty good experience. Left us impressed. Well we hope we never need to use it. We feel quite good here. We have lost some weight possibly because of the daily beach walks, floating in the pool, and eating foods not laced with GMO and round-up.

In summary, this is our experience base on real events and our own research. Questions are welcome and enjoy the random pictures below.

Here is a list of random things that bug me about being here:

1. Whenever I need to wear shoes which is rare. We are barefootin and flip-flopin.
2. To much litter. Remember the USA before the crying Indian commercials. Ya it was pretty bad and I think it is a little worse here.
3. Some people.
4. Boredom, yes you do get bored living like you are on vacation everyday but I will get over it.
5. When the sand gets so hot you think your feet burned.
6. Near impossible to get replacement parts for appliances.
7. Not enough Tiki Bars in this area. It ain’t St. Pete’s.
8. Can’t find Double Stuffed Oreos, not that I really ate them before I got here either.
9. No Corona Light beer. Lots of regular but not Light.
10. Need patio umbrella’s for the roof top pool area and beach chairs and beach umbrellas for the sand.

RB

Well the Ocean seems to have been a bit more active lately but Denise and I did get out the other day with our foam floaty tubes and floated in the salt water for a good hour. I don’t have pictures since my camera is not water proof. We saw some ‘flying fish’ near by. It was neat. Floating out there on calm waters is really relaxing that is unless something bumps your feet.

Last week I finally was able to check off one of the items on my list of things to do but it was just a start. I went SUP (Stand Up Paddle) boarding. There is a group that meets weekly now and the leader has boards he rents for the 2 hour block. The water was a good bit more choppy than I was comfortable with so much so that there were people surfing just about 100 yards away. I spent most of the time on my knees paddling but did manage to get up on my feet 2x for very short times. I do admit, the choppiness made me fearful since I am not a strong swimmer at all. I plan to go back but i needed to take a break as I was very sore. It is a great workout. My thighs, abs, shoulders, and back were barking at me for days. The pictures aren’t great but Denise could only get so close. Oh and we saw ‘Camp David’. I wondered where they put it. It is a very high end place right the beach. See the pics.

Just about every day we see the local fisherman go up and down the coast casting their nets. It is very interesting to watch and we really like going to the local fish market to get fresh giant prawns, red snapper, and corvina. Oh and it is real inexpensive getting it right from the fisherman.

Tonight we are watching the Seahawks game. We are set up to watch most any game we want via the internet but tonight it is also on regular cable.

There was a couple earthquakes about a week ago that some say they felt. They were in the area of the Panama/Columbia border a good distance from here. They were about 6.1 on the scale. Talking about scales…Denise and I had not been on a scale for a few months We had been eating more carbs than before and drinking (ok I was doing the drinking) a lot more than before. We were kind of wondering and maybe worried about where we might be. A neighbor of ours allowed us to borrow an extra one they had. It was non-digital and each of us had to get down on the floor for the other to read the numbers. It was pretty funny, until we saw the numbers. It appeared we both put on 10-15lbs since we left Seattle – OUCH! I cut out the alcohol and we were more careful with what we were eating. Well about a week later, on our anniversary, we went to spend a few days in Panama City. The 4 star hotel had a digital scale in the room. We were afraid to go near it but Denise finally tried it out and found that it said she actually lost a few pounds compared to where she was when we arrived here. I tried and had the same results. Now we were confused. We had hoped our daily beach walks, pool time, and floating in the ocean time was keeping things in check even with our additional food and alcohol bad habits. When we got back to our condo Denise bought a new digital scale. We needed a third opinion to validate which scale was right. We were relived to find our numbers were very positive. I had never previously spent time at the beach and not lost weight so now it makes sense. Now I can attend daily happy hours with much less guilt especially those that include pizza!

Last week we bought a large Papaya from the roadside farmer. We never had one yet. You cut it and clean it somewhat like a cantaloupe. OMG was it delicious and they are very inexpensive especially directly from the farmer. Some use them in morning fruit shakes.

Another new item for us are Liche Nuts. These are very funny looking fruits/nuts. They look like a red walnut with hair. They grow in bunches from trees. The way you eat them is by squeezing one end and they split open and expose the fruit and nut. Squeeze and grab with your teeth. Very refreshing.

007 – Bond, James Bond. There is someone here on the beach that has a 4 wheeler/boat. When they drive into the water the wheels fold up and they then function like speed boat. They can then steer toward the beach, put the wheels down and drive onto the sand. Who said Panama is 3rd world? One thing that is a bit aggravating on the weekends is the few folks who do have 4 wheelers and dirt bikes and race them up and down the beach. They are very loud and seem to be accidents waiting to happen. At least it is almost always just on the weekends, weekdays we pretty much have the beach to ourselves.

Oh and finally a reminder, On Aug 27th about 12:30AM, in the night sky, you are able to see the Moon and Mars very close together. This will not happen again until the year 2287and no one alive today has ever seen it. Look it up and yes there is an App for that.

Well enough for now. As always pass any questions back. All opinions are my own.

RB

Remember back before you were born?

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . …… . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof… Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive… So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

We enjoyed this, hope you did to.

RB

Anytime someone makes it through another year with me they should get a medal. When I was a kid I thought folks that were married (to the same person) for even 20-25 years – well that was a long time. I never imagined, at that time, that I would surpass that milestone. I tried to get out of all the anniversary hoopla by saying that we know live on the beach, in the tropics so lets just go floating at high tide. Well needless to say ‘we’ decided to celebrate a little more special. After 2+ months in Panama we have not spent time in the capital city so we decided to go in town for 2 days and see/do a few things.

While in Panama we have chosen to live without a car. The driving is quite hazardous to your health, so we take the bus or taxi’s everywhere. Using public transport the city is about 1:45-2 hours away. First we take a small bus/van from our neighborhood up to the highway (Pan-American Hwy). At the Hwy you can get on another small bus generally called a Coaster or wait for the big bus. Going towards town to the central terminal at Albrook we chose to take the big bus. These are big modern buses that are usually on their way from one of the other major cities in the country heading to Panama City (Albrook Central Terminal). Both the Coaster and big buses usually have air-conditioning. The big buses are mostly quite comfy and some even have ‘el bano’ on board. They all have LOUD music. The big buses most always have a fairly large TV screen with either a movie or some kind of music video. I repeat, it is played loudly. Below is a picture of the front of our large KIA bus on this trip.

We made a few stops on the way to the city to pick up some other passengers. Sometimes at these stops someone will get on the bus and try to shake down the passengers to get them to buy or donate to something. ‘No comprende’ comes in handy sometime. This trip we had a girl come on board and ask if anyone wanted to buy some Churros. She was on and off in a matter of a minute or so as the stops are extremely short.

We have taken the bus to Albrook before but have not gone into the city. When we arrived at Albrook we were told to take the Metro or a taxi to the city. The taxi should have been $5 since we only needed to go a few miles but if they see you are a Gringo it goes higher and you either have to bargain them down or walk away. They said $10 we said $5. Another said $12 we said good-bye. It was a busy time of the day so they could easily wait for the next Gringo to make their money. Next we looked for the Metro. We saw big city buses that said Metro-Bus but we couldn’t tell which bus from which zone, etc..to take. It was hot and we were getting tired. We tried asking some people and they would point back into the terminal while rattling off some Spanish. We went to a ticket window and they pointed to an area where we would catch the buses back to where we just came so we knew that was wrong. Patience, patience, patience…we finally found what looked to be an information center with a girl who spoke ‘muy poco’ English but enough to make sense of things. She looked up our destination on her smart phone and then also pointed, like the others, towards the return buses, except she also said Metro-Train. We questioned, Train? She again pointed and said ‘Si, Train, Metro’. Ah ha!! To the side of this bus area was an escalator that led to a bridge we needed to cross to get to the Metro-Train-Subway. Whatever you want to call it. It is all three, as it is Panama’s 1st subway called ‘The Metro’ not to be confused with the Metro-Bus, which we did. The girl even told us which stop, #4 Inglesia de Carmen. From there it was easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy.

We made it on/off the subway and knew our hotel was within walking distance of the station – The BlueBay City, a 4 star hotel. No I did’t spring for the Trump Towers even if he might be our next president. Our Metro stop was called Inglesia de Carmen probably because there was a beautiful church called Our Lady of Mt Carmel at the major intersection – pictures below. There are many old and beautiful churches with stations, stops, major roads, etc…named after them. More on the churches to come. I finally mapped the hotel on google and walked to it from there. It was a nice place with an Asian theme including the Shushi restaurant/bar on the main floor. The folks there were real helpful and some spoke pretty good English. One thing we found ‘unique’ was that the bathroom had a giant shower the full width of the bathroom and was separated from the rest of the room by a glass wall and no door. It was a good 1/3 of the whole room. A whole family could have fit in that shower. I did hear the Asians are family oriented and multigenerational but I think that was stretching the whole Feng Shui thing a bit much.

On our first evening we had hired a driver to take us to one of the malls where they have a ‘Cinepolis VIP’ theater. A few words on Panama City. It is a very large, very sophisticated, and very modern city. It has more buildings over 21 floors than NYC. This mall would rival anything found in the USA except it was newer and maybe cleaner. Everything glittered and shined. We wish we would have gone earlier in the day as there was a Tony Roma’s and a nice good old fashioned plate of ribs sounded great. When we walked up to the ticket desks for the theater we said we wanted the VIP showing. They pointed behind us and smiled. We turned and saw special elevators marked as VIP to take us to another floor. Once at the right place we bought our tickets for the recently released Mission Impossible movie. Seats are assigned. We entered our specific theater and there were rows of very large ‘lazy boy’ type seats that go almost all the way back. Very very cushy. There was a little switch where, once flipped, a waiter comes to you and takes your food/drink order from the menus by your chair. They take your order on their iPad as well as run your payment. They then bring your food as the movie is proceeding. For us, who do not go to movies often, this was pretty fun.

The next morning, after our complementry breakfast – Denise choose the Mexican plate – we went for a walk around the area.

We were in the business district. There was a lot of old plaza shops, a grocery, casinos, banks, more hotels and oh, more churchs. At 3PM we had a hired car take us to Old Town – Casco Antiguo. This is in the area where the presidential palace is except the president doesn’t live there, the red-tape of the government takes place there. The area in this district had gotten very very bad, gangs, poor, etc….There has been an ongoing effort to revitalize the area. We saw may buildings that had been stripped out and were being refurbished. The architecture is quite beautiful, very French. It has a very New Orleans look and feel to it. There were many tourist shops selling much the same items from shop to shop just like any other tourist area you might have been to. The area seamed quite peaceful and beautiful. It is all located on the waterfront across the bay from the now current modern city. Some pics are below. An item of note is the church of San Jose that has a historic all gold alter – yes solid gold. It is said that during the pilfering of Panama during the pirate days of Captain Morgan that a priest had the alter covered in tar to disguise the gold from the pirates – or something like that – what am I Wikipedia?

We also found a very comfortable outdoor bar that had swinging chairs. We spent a bit of time there before heading to dinner at a small Italian restaurant for the special of the night, spaghetti, and we added a pitcher of wonderful Sangria.

Next morning we headed back to Albrook. Albrook was an old US military base from what I understand. There you will find the central Subway station, the central bus station AND a giant mall The Albrook mall is giant and we are told it is larger than the Mall of the Americas in MN. They have large animals at the main entrances so you know where you came in/out so you don’t get lost. Obviously we were at the dinosaur entrance.

A unique thing I saw at the mall, and am kicking myself for not getting a picture, is the bathroom. Let me explain, in the mall if you want to use the bathroom you better have .25. There are people whose livelihood is to stand there and make sure you put a quarter in the turnstile to get into the bathrooms. I suppose they also are responsible for keeping it somewhat clean. So skipping forward, I am in the bathroom mending my mascara and I go to wash my hands. There were about 6 sinks across a counter – pretty typical right? BUT each faucet had a 6 inch LCD screen as part of the faucet mount. These screens played advertisements. Bizarre I thought, until I found that a survey taken by RONMADETHISSURVEYUP.COM showed that those that wash their hands after going to the bathroom spend more money then those that don’t. Ah, now that makes sense. Talk about targeted advertising.

We finally got a Coaster bus ride back to Playa Coronado – 1.5 hours from the station. After quickly getting a few groceries we made it back to the condo and within 30 minutes we were on the rooftop and in the pool. It was nice to get away for a few days but very nice to get back home. We finished our 2 day celebration with dinner at the local watering hole called Picasso’s with a few friends. Denise says it was fitting that we spent our 25th anniversary in Maui and our 30th in Panama City. Not sure how we top that for #35 and 40???? All in all we both had a great anniversary.

As always, with these postings, your comments are welcome. All thoughts are my own except for those attained through hearsay or gossip. Do not feel a need to correct me on any factual items because where I did not know for sure I may have just as well made something up. If there is something you want to know about our experiences or Panama just ask and I will do my best.

RB

Well it happened. Today was a boring day. Of course there is a good reason though. Today is the first day since we have been in Panama where it has stormed most of the day. We were shopping and looked out the window about noon time and it was coming down in buckets. It stopped for a short while so we could finish our stops and soon after getting in a taxi it came down again and then again. So we are hold up in the condo watching the storm as well as Netflix. Good thing the Internet is still up – fingers crossed.

You may have been wondering – or maybe you haven’t – what have we been doing lately. Well it took a while to get settled in the new condo. We needed to take numerous trips to the stores for some items that were not ‘furnished’. We have been pretty busy. We are normally up in the morning to see the sunrise from our place. There are great views with both the mountains/land and ocean.

We normally take a brisk hour walk on the beach each day then come in for coffee and breakfast. Sometimes after that we will head to the pool. We enjoy the roof top pool and usually have it to our selves prior to lunch. After lunch, depending on the tides, we sometimes go back to the beach and take a casual walk ‘beach combing’ for shells, sea glass, colored tile that has washed up, sand dollars, etc… I did have a slight accident the other day and broke my toe. For such a little thing it hurt like hell. I slammed it into a rock on the beach.

We at times hit the stores for groceries and some household items. Denise just picked up an air popcorn popper. She has been having withdrawals in the evenings. Other than a small local 7-eleven type of shop the stores are 2 miles away at the Pan-American Highway. Since we don’t have a car we either get a small local van (.35 each), a taxi ($3), or often someone stops and asks if we want a ride up to the shopping area. These shopping trips have been a real source of frustration for us as we struggle to find things, can’t read the labels, have had to carry a lot as we were getting our initial ‘stock’ of things we needed. But today we seemed to quickly and easily get on the bus (van), get to the store, get our stuff at a couple places, have lunch,  and grab a taxi back and we were done in just a couple hours vs an all day event. WooHoo, we are starting to get the hang of this, I hope. No we didn’t find everything we wanted but it did seem way less stressful.

Other things that occupy our time are church on Sunday. A short walk away is a Catholic church that has a bilingual service at 11:30. There is a small group in attendance but they say in the busy season it quadruples. Many Wednesday evenings we walk to a nearby bar/restaurant called Picasos. Wednesday is basically a happy hour for expats but all are welcome. Sometimes we find ourselves back their Friday evening for 2 for 1 pizza and even some Saturday nights for live music.

This last week we started ‘noodling’ in the ocean. We go out at high tide with our noodles and 2-3 other couples and float and bob for 1.5 hours. It is really relaxing as well as good exercise. We get pretty far out at times but no one has yet floated over to Asia.

We attended a birthday party at a Tiki Bar on the beach at the next community over. This was lots of fun and again allowed us to meet more folks. We were in the local hardware store and I saw some guy wearing a Seahawks hat. Long story short, we now have new friends that have just moved down from Seattle as caretakers for a property with some villas that are rented out. We had them over to our place the other day and had a nice party on the roof with other friends.

Our fall back activity which happens 4-5 times a week is meeting with others from our building ‘up on the roof’ in the evening for a BYOB happy hour. We have had a few pot lucks where up to 30 some people have appeared. I like it the best though when there are just 4-6 of us sitting into the evening under the stars with a wonderful breeze.

Well that is what has been keeping us busy for now. We are planning a few excursions later this week and next and I am still trying to find a source to borrow/rent a stand-up paddle board so I can try it out before investing. So don’t feel sorry for today’s boredom as I assure you the sun will shine and we will soon see you again ‘up on the roof’!

As always feel free to reply with comments. You can also follow me on Twitter @rbillock

Time slows way down on a warm sunny beach! – RB

I have been asked a couple of times now, ‘what does it take to ‘retire’? Well I am not a retirement guru but I do have a few thoughts about this topic now that I am living through it. BTW – I prefer the term of being ‘on recess’ vs retired.

Most folks seem to be looking for some magical minimum $ number they need to have to step away from work life. Hello, there is none! Retiring is largely not about money. I suggest that before you get any ‘older’ you should be asking yourself some questions. What do you want from life? What do you want from retirement? What, Where, How, with whom…. These are big picture questions that you can then drill down to more specifics. If you don’t know what you want or where you are going, before you know it you end up at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

I now believe that anyone/everyone can ‘retire’. Yes that is an overly general statement but if you really want to you CAN retire on just Social Security (SS), maybe not just where and how you want. I know of people who retired and are living on SS with a decent standard of living and as good or even better healthcare than they had before. These folks may not be living in Miami but are living in places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc… Wonderful places but maybe not just what you may have had in mind. Maybe you need to broaden your view of life?

Being in a position to retire really comes down to deciding what you realistically want and working towards it. There are many options for living well and affordably all over the USA as well as many other places in the world. How much money you need to retire comes into play only after you decide what you want and then you put in a plan to reach those desires. Yes you need to be realistic but it doesn’t hurt to push your dreams. Do you know what it cost to fund that lifestyle you decided on? Are you willing to do what you need to do or go where you need to go to attain and afford your desired lifestyle? Sure $5M in IRAs/Pension will set you up in a nice condo in Miami but this is not realistic for many and also may not be what you want. If the beach is what you want, a condo on the beach in Mexico can be had for much less. Some folks want to golf 365 days/yr. Yes that will take a much larger nest egg and generally a lot more work to attain. Some want a small cabin in Arkansas or Pennsylvania or villa in Ecuador. These can be had for a much smaller pot of gold. What is important to you? You need to know what retirement means to you and adjust your plans accordingly.

How soon do you want to retire? I will tell anyone that they should save all and any they can. Save until it hurts and then save more. The sooner you can finance your dreams and desires the sooner you will reach your goal but first you need to know what those dream and desires are. Also remember, more $$ isn’t always better if in the process of getting more money you trade your health, family, etc…you lost, not gained

Maybe if I walk through my own personal thought process you can see better what I mean. Over the years I have found that I really love a warm sunny beach. We had our best vacation times at beaches. I have always wanted to live at/on a very warm sunny beach. Walking on the beach has always refreshed my spirit, renewed my drive, strengthened my faith, and made me feel healthier and happier. So living at or near a warm sunny beach was high on the list.

We had many friends migrating to Arizona, Palm Desert, Eastern Washington but none of those places fit the three keys of Beach (a real one-not a lake or pond), tons of sun, and never cold. Those other places were just not on our radar. We both also want to do some traveling.

Another thing I looked at over the years was work-life. Though I have had a number of great experiences, leadership/management in the Information Technology world, like some other fields, beats the hell out of ya. Lots of hours and some tremendous stress, believe me it takes its toll. As time went on this influenced one of my other goals. I wanted to stop working as early as possible as long as I was able to meet my other objectives. I wanted to still have time to enjoy life while still having my health and sanity to enjoy it. I know way to many people who worked, worked, worked only to die a year or three after retiring or retiring because they now needed hip and knee replacements or the stress possibly impacted an even more severe illness. I myself never understood those that said they ‘love’ their work and want to do it as long as they can. I am not saying they are not genuine but I myself never knew or felt that. In general, I wasn’t having fun working and I wanted to have time to have years of adventures while still able to enjoy them.

Summary of dreams/desires:

Live on/near a sunny and warm beach.

Reach the point of not having to work as early as possible.

Travel and have some fun

Do all this while still healthy and sane.

So where did that bring me? Through a lot of planning, sacrifice, and time we believed we were on track to meet these goals by the retirement age of 60-62-ish. This was our magic age. Most of our finances were locked up in IRA’s, Social Security, and even later some pension that we couldn’t begin tapping until then. Well at age 56 I found myself in a transition from one job and looking to find another. I had some great prospects and possibly the easiest thing would have been to continue with the ‘devil that I knew’ – a job. As we looked at the doors that just closed and those possibly opening we considered our goals and desires that we had been discussing and said we can and will do what we need to do to make retirement happen now vs 4-5 years later. What allowed us to make a change sooner was a number of years of extra savings over and above the regular ’stuff’. We built up a cash savings of first emergency funds and then grew that to a larger safety net. I know some cannot do that and you may need to rely on just a normal retirement age and your 401K/IRA/SS but that is OK. Just maximize your contributions all you can. Have a plan and work it.

With the buffer of our extra savings we were able to leave the job market sooner than planned. These were our goals/dreams. You need to know your goals/dreams. So far our ‘recess’ has brought us to living on a tropical beach where it is sunny and hot 365 days/yr. It truly is an adventure, some exciting and some frustrating. Long term we plan on living in Southern Florida but we also have more travels on our horizon.

Timing of events in your life is important. If I had to I would have stayed with our original plan and worked 3-5 more years but things came together nicely for us the last couple of years. Not only did we find ourselves faced with an opportunity for change but also both our children became established and independent. We decided on a travel adventure starting with Panama. How long will we be here? Well we think probably from a year to 3 but as one of our friends here says “every week I sit on my balcony overlooking the ocean and ask myself where do I want to be. For the life of me, at this time, there is nowhere else I can think I would rather be. When there is, then I will go”.

Long story short – just about anyone can ‘retire’ it just depends on what you want. You need to know and own what you want in your life, at least the big picture, and then do all you can to get there while you navigate the bumps, bruises, and adventures of life. Once you know that picture you will figure out what you need and when you can retire including the finances.

We make no bones about it, we have been truly blessed as well as having some good luck but luck is 99% preparation and it took some sacrifice and hard work. But you can make your dreams come true also if you just know what they are.

As always, comments are welcome

RB

As of July 1st we move into our new condo. It is on what they call the Penthouse Level. It is the top floor (23rd) just below the rooftop pool, fitness center, helipad, and the social area that we have our 5-6PM happy hour pretty much each day. All this is a stairway away :). From our Condo the view is great. We see directly down a long stretch of beach that runs west to east, we can see south out to the ocean, and also northeast to the mountains. The north of Panama borders the Caribbean, but no we can not see that from here.

Most people don’t realize that Panama stretches East to West and not North to South. Most think, WAH! how can that be? You have N. America and S. America and Panama connects them so it must be North to South. Well, North America is actually a good bit further West then South America.

Panama does stretch between them to connect but it is ‘left to right’ for the connection and not ‘up and down’. Panama City is almost directly south of Buffalo, NY which shows how far East the country really is. Panama is about the land mass size of S. Carolina. Many of us have thought that if you went directly south from the USA and through Mexico and kept going due south you would run into South America. Actually due south of Mexico is Ocean and then next stop Antartica. Also Brazil and Argentina are further East then the east coast of the USA.

OK, Geography lesson is over. It is still a little weird getting our head around the directions but we will learn. For now I thought I would share some pictures of the humble abode.

As always comments are welcome and I will choose or not to publish them. Let me know if there is any topic you would like to hear about regarding our adventure. Well time to get ready for Happy Hour. It takes lots of time and energy to relax!

Adios

RB

Well we found our home for the next year. We sign the lease this week. Details on the new digs will be in the next story but the big news is that our place sits right on a nude beach. I think I may need to purchase some binoculars just to verify. It seems that in this area of Panama the times our beach is nude varies. Generally it is nude Monday through Thursday especially during the off-season. Enjoy the censored pictures below but for now read on.

OK a little clarification…. when I say nude I mean devoid of not clothes but people – empty – nada. It has been pretty amazing being here. For the most part we have had the beach all to ourselves and I mean a couple miles of beach in both directions. Monday-Thursday no one is around. Friday a few people start showing up for the weekend. Saturday and Sunday generally bring out more people including families from the city.

Most mornings, preferably low tide, Denise and I hit the beach for our walk. We first decide if we go right or left and then we walk for at least 30 minutes out and back. Anyone who has ever walked with Denise knows that it is a brisk stride. In that hour plus of time we may see anywhere from 2-8 folks out. The water feels nice and warm on the feet and an occasional wave will get us a little wet. Denise has gotten real good at spotting the sea glass and special shells. Though a brisk pace, the walk is also relaxing and meditative. After the walk we generally take a dip in one of the pools and do some aqua exercises and then lay out to dry off.

Everyday is different. Each tide changes the beach. The only constants seem to be the ever rolling waves and the ultra soft sand. The local fishermen are usually out by the time of our walk and we can see them moving about. Yes it is morning and the world is just waking up but for the most part the beach is empty like this all day long. We have been told that during the dry season (Dec-April) there are more folks out and about but for now we enjoy our own private ‘nude’ beach just steps outside of our new home. If you do show up you will want to be sure to wear your suit and lots of SPF as you can be sure you don’t want to get a burn where the sun don’t normally shine!