Boquete - Oct. 11, 2022 - New Home and Hurricane Julia
It has been 5 days since my last post.
Much has happened.
We toured around the neighborhoods of Boquete on Friday with Maury, looking for the elusive rental properties that might be available before October 31, as that is the start of High Season in Boquete. November is the month of national holidays in Panama, with independence days on November 3 (from Colombia in 1903) and November 28 (from Spain in 1821), flanking a month of 6 observed and national holidays that bring celebrants from all over the country to Boquete. Rentals are at a premium, including at our classy hotel, beloved by ex-pats and the well-to-do of Panama City looking for a getaway for the month. It is well known in Panama that if you want anything done, get it done before November or wait until mid-January - everyone is in a fiesta mood, if not an actual one.
So, we drove around. We discussed our short list of "wants" - well, a short list for Norteamericanos. Maury says many of her clients come with pages of "must-have" rental requirements. Our wants are:
- 1.5 bathrooms for no waiting
- Space for an office/library or a second bedroom to be used as such
- Garden space for some flowers to attract birds and butterflies
- Space for a home gym or a gym very close by
- Hot water in the showers
Most rentals are not advertised through agents; if they are promoted through agents, watch out! Agents direct their attention to the naive from the far north who do not realize what local property values are and work as intermediaries between non-local owners and the renters for the entirety of the contract - and add on a monthly fee that the renter pays without realizing it, and often without the owner knowing. If the owner says that they need $1000 per month and the agent can get a contract for $1800 per month, then the owner receives their $1000, and the renter may never realize that they have been an active part of raising the rents in a neighborhood to the sole benefit of the agent.
More usually, rentals are advertised by a sign outside the house or apartment and by word of mouth. If you know someone who works at the bank, coffee shop, or grocery store, you are in an excellent position to hear of new rentals available. So, Maury, who worked in the biggest bank in town for 20 years while her daughter was growing up, is a good contact - she knows everyone in the city.
We drove around to homes she had heard were going up for rent or had just vacated and went by a few places where she has friends who gather the most recent property gossip. We stopped by a house in Alto Boquete (on the hills above Boquete to the south, toward David), and she called the owner to see if/when someone could meet us to show us a beautiful house with views out over the valley north toward Boquete, with the mountains to the east and west.
While we waited for a response, we headed down the hill to check on a small build of three houses that a friend of Maury's from long ago is setting up as short-term or daily rentals or Casas de alquiler diario. The gentleman building the casas is Jorge, a psychology professor who has moved from teaching to property development, a business he has been building with his wife, Luly, and daughter, Kristen. One of their sons is a lawyer, and the other is an architectural engineer, so both sons also assist in the family business.
When Jorge saw Maury and met us, he said, "come!" and off we marched, through the driveway fence, past the casas in progress, past flower gardens, past a kitchen garden, through a workman's area where a worker dashed out with an umbrella to keep me dry, through a drive under a portico of a two-story home to a grey and white house, and whisked us in the kitchen door, dashing between raindrops.
We entered the back door with lowered heads to avoid the rain, and inside, the floor was blue tile, the kitchen large and tiled in a lighter blue, open to the dining room and living room. A beautiful staircase leads upstairs to three bedrooms with the kind of Julietta balconies with flower plantings from which padres in Mexican movies of the '60s used to take potshots at their daughter's suitors - so romantic!
At the front of the house on the second floor is a balcony that runs the width of the house and creates an entry portico for parking the car. On that balcony are chairs for watching the rainbows in the mountains, a table for playing cards and dining in the fresh air, and a pool table for brushing up on our geometry. Jorge told Miguel he would teach him to play pool.
The property is a corner lot. It has a stream channeled through a rock-lined bed with herb plantings - it goes under a small pavilion with hammocks and then under a bridge that is part of the driveway before going off under the roadway to the property across the street. The thing I will miss most about the El Oasis hotel is the garden and the sound of the river passing by - I will have my own little river.
This house is more Panamanian than built for NorteAmericanos. How can you tell? There are murals and paintings directly on the walls and the ceilings, not necessarily hanging framed on the walls. The clothes washer is outside the house, and you hook up the water specifically to do the wash - then cover the washer after the laundry is completed to try to reduce the effects of the weather and the humidity on the metal. Clothes are dried by hanging them in the sun - even in the rainy season. There is no hot water tank - the hot water for showers is an electrical switch you turn on at the shower head when you turn on the water, and it heats the water as it goes through the showerhead (we used these in Brazil, also). There are no screens - bugs are natural.
Most houses in Panama come furnished. This house has enough beds for sleeping a family of 7 or 8. The furniture is colorful and overstuffed. Our dining room table is glass, underpainted with parrots. Not your grandmother's farmhouse furniture, mid-century modern, or the chrome, glass, and black leather playboy-around-town standards. The casas de alquiler diario are better suited to travelers from the USA, Canada, or Europe who want to work from abroad or just get away for a few weeks. This is more Panamanian with money to choose.
Not my style? True - I wouldn't have guessed this house to be my choice. However, for my cultural adventure, this is the perfect rental. Miguel is totally bubbling. This is the fancy house of his young dreams. His favorite part of the inside is the staircase. His favorite part of the outside is the Julietta balconies. And for Miguel, this house has the security of cameras on the house's exterior and electronic fences for the driveway. Meanwhile, it is a tranquil neighborhood without the town center's loud weekend music and fiestas. Miguel has told his sister daily how excited he is, and he's already invited her to visit - he is looking forward to showing off those Julietta balconies something fierce!
PLUS! Across the street at the Haven Spa, gym, and hotel, is an under-utilized gym with all the equipment that Miguel wants to use to keep in shape without over-using the heavy weights he has a hard time avoiding if they are available. Better than maintaining a home gym and having a neighborhood gym for the serious stuff, the Haven's gym is right across the street!
So, in addition to our list of things we wanted, we also found the following:
- My own mini-river to provide calm background noise
- Julietta balconies – three!
- Gym across the street
- Barbeque set up – covered, with tiled floor and chairs
- Hammocks and a pavilion
- Electronic gates and a covered drive entry
- Pool table
- Kitchen garden, including herbs, plantains, bananas, avocados
- Flower gardens and balcony plantings
- Birds and butterflies who already like the place!
- Rainbows in the mountains – Boquete even has a rainbow season
- Mountain views on three sides!
So much was accomplished on one Friday - the fierce wind and rain started, and we were on the sidelines of Hurricane Julia.
With a massive cold! Ahhhhhhh--chooooo!
Have a peaceful Wednesday while we create our shipping lists and prepare to move to our own personal haven just across the street from The Haven.
See you soon!
MaryBea y Miguel
How to find us:
Replies to blog postings via email: If you hit “reply” to the email and get a “no reply” address, use the x to knock it out, type in MaryBeaGallagher@gmail.com, and I will get your response. Quirky.
Email: Use our Gmail accounts for email - for some reason, my Comcast/Xfinity doesn't work consistently in Central America.
WhatsApp is the best route for texts and voice calls, but it is uncertain for video calls. We are officially in the Outback of Panama now, in a valley with mountains and volcanos around, and the added interference of lightning and thunderstorms in the afternoons, so there are periods where transmissions will not get through immediately. Find WhatsApp for your phone or computer at your favorite App store.
Blog Post Subscription: Everyone receiving this as an initial mailing is subscribed by me - so you are already signed up. If there is anyone who wants to get on the list for the future, you can send me their name and favored email address, and I will add them. Let me know if you want to be taken OFF the list or if you prefer I send to a different email address. Otherwise, you will get all future posts as you have received this.
Past Blog Posts: Go to this site and poke around to find past posts, some as old as January 2022. https://seattletopanama.digitalpress.blog/page/2/