Wisdom Pays - May 18, 2023 - Panama City
Hello from Panama City and day three of our excursion to get more government paperwork done! We had another adventure of a productive day, though we got up way too early, and by noon, we wondered why the rest of the world was still looking like the day was but half done.
I am sending this blog post out as an email today because of yesterday's technical issue - but I will also post it to the blog site and add a photo or two that won't fit in the email. I tried to send yesterday's out as an email when I had the problem, but it was too fat. I got used to adding as many photos as I liked, and my patience got a bit short at the idea that I would have to strip some out to fit into a standard email.
Sightseeing: We finished our government work early and headed out to do a bit of sightseeing on the Amador Causeway since we hadn't been to the world's only Biodiversity Museum designed by Frank Gehry. You will recognize his work from the Experience Music Project in Seattle. The museum is theatrical, and at 11:00 in the morning, it was evident that this is the low tourism season - there were very few cars around. As we had our Uber drop us off, we ventured up to view the activities near what appeared to be an entrance and discovered that people were setting up for a wedding. Flowers and vases, chairs and tables were sure to be a beautiful betrothal in a dramatic setting. However, the museum was closed. Low season. No wonder they were setting up for a wedding mid-day on a weekday! Our Uber was still in the lot, hoping for another call, so we booked him again and got a ride back into town. I thought you might like a photo of the museum; it will look like Panama is a piece of home to Seattlites!
Wisdom Pays: One of the side benefits of getting our permanent residency (accomplished in April) and our official Panama ID (cedulas) is that we will officially qualify for the Jubilado program. In Panama, the Jubilado program is what we call "senior discounts" in the USA, but here, the discounts are more official and start younger. For men, the discounts start at age 60, and for women, at age 55. You can be required to prove that you qualify for the discounts, and that is where the residency status and the Panama ID cards come in - you may need to be a Panama resident AND old enough to get the discount. Some places around Boquete have offered us the discount before the proper ID was in place because private businesses are not required to document proof for their discounted services; one restaurant said, "You look wise enough for the Jubinado discount to me - I will take 20% off your bill'. We, of course, frequent her restaurant more than any of the 75 others in town!
How does wisdom pay off for us? Here are some examples we have experienced just in the past few weeks:
- 50% off the cost of our cedula application at the Tribunal Electoral ($50 each instead of $100), and $50 off our driver's license credentials at the US Embassy ($50 each instead of $100)
- 20% off at the doctor's office and the lab
- 15% off property taxes, electricity, and water. Granted, we don't own property right now, but this is no small amount!
- 25% off at the pharmacy on non-prescription items, and 20% off on prescriptions
- 15% - 25% off of restaurant meals; as they are privately owned, this will change from place to place with the more expensive eateries usually offering steeper discounts. Our discount for dinner tonight was 20%.
- 20% off Copa Airline fares originating in Panama (including round trips). Copa is a national airline that flies to 110 countries and is the most prominent airline in Latin America.
Miguel is so excited to be able to whip out his card and get a significant discount on almost everything that we buy that he crows! It was never so great to be wise looking until now - perhaps he should emphasize the grey hairs even more since he looks too healthy for some people to believe that he will be 69 next month! This "old enough to be wise" thing is really paying! Now you know why it is called the Jubilado program - jubilation!
Favorite Things - the Balcony: My favorite room in the house is not actually a room; it is the large balcony that sits above the front entrance and looks to the north and the afternoon rainbows and to the hills to the east and the west of the Boquete valley. On the balcony are a table and chairs for morning coffee or afternoon tea, a couple of lounge chairs, and a pool table. Miguel has installed a speaker that will play music from our phones or computers, and the birds visit and watch the world go by below with us. The airflow is good, the light is excellent, it is out of the rain, so suitable for all weather, and just a delightful location. Both Miguel and I sit there and read in the morning and often return in the afternoon, I like to go out and watch for rainbows in the later afternoon, and I check there first if I hear the sound of firecrackers or a celebration, as the view is long enough to get a sense of the what and where things are going on around town. I have given you lots of rainbow photos from the balcony, but I thought you might like my favorite view to the west, up into the hills - surrounded by green and the trees that the shy birds like to hide in when they tease me with their interesting calls.
Flower of the Day: Bouganvillia comes in a much greater variety of colors and types than I had ever guessed. Some have heavy stalks like bushes that grow to 8 and ten feet tall and sprawl all over the place. There are viney types that do well in hanging planters. There are white, light pink, bright pink, dark pink, orange/red, red, lavender, purple, yellow, and shades between. There is a version that doesn't like to be on its own; it only wants to grow intertwined with other bushes or trees. Some of them bloom like crazy, shed their blossoms, recoup for a couple weeks, then bloom like crazy again, year-round. Others just bloom year-round, and I don't know how they keep up the pace without burning out. Some bloom twice a year, but so intensely you think they will never stop. No two bougainvilleas seem on the same schedule, even within the same type and/or color. There is a wide variety, and they all come under the same name - no one differentiates, perhaps because they are so ubiquitous - everywhere you turn, there are bougainvilleas here. So, today's flower is bougainvillea, and these two brilliantly colored examples are right across the street, waving like beauty queens at every passerby.
Tomorrow afternoon we head back to Boquete and out of the heat of Panama City. Missing the heat will be a relief, but we really enjoy this hotel and "our" neighborhood in Panama City, as well as playing tourist, even when we visit sites we have already seen, like our constant favorite of Casco Viejo, the Old Town (old meaning 1678 after the Pirate Captain Morgain (of rum fame) burned down the older town). It is always a pleasure to come here, and it is always a pleasure to return to Boquete!
I will post this to the blog site, and you can access it (and all of the previous posts back to January 2022) via this link https://seattletopanama.digitalpress.blog/ghost/#/site also listed below. If you get pushback when you try the link ( same as I sent you yesterday), let me know, and I can send you an email from the site that should get you right in.
Thank you for being out there! We look forward to seeing you in Panama!
MaryBea y Miguel
How to find us:
Replies to blog postings via email: If you hit "reply" to this 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 extinct volcanos around, and the added interference of lightning and thunderstorms in the afternoons, so there are periods where transmissions will not get through. Find WhatsApp for your phone or computer at your favorite App Store.
Phone calls: In theory, our phones can connect, but the reality is that usually, it rings once, and then a voicemail transcription shows up, and sometimes it never rings, and a voicemail transcription shows up days later. Don't trust it. If you try and we don't pick up, we probably aren't seeing or hearing it ring. If you don't use WhatsApp, stick to email as more likely to get through. We are in the outback and reliant on many factors that may not all align.
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