Merry Christmas Everyone!
Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy 2025!
With Love, Dory and Pete
Year: 2024
We’ve acquired a pet bird?
So, we had a rather exciting afternoon.
We often have our front door open on the casita. The little house tends to get dark and keeping the door open brightens it up. Obviously, we close and lock it at night or when we’re away.
I was sitting at my computer this afternoon with my back to the door, which was open. Pete was down at the driveway power washing years of sludge off the driveway. Suddenly, I hear a noise. I wasn’t sure what it was or where it was coming from…. But not a normal inside the house noise. I get up and start to turn around and I realize we have a bird in the house.
A little side story…. We have these giant birds that we call the “bloods” (as in LA gangs) because they always travel in groups of 7-8. They are big, gangly bird and are actually called a chachalaca (which is fun to say). They are about the size of a small, north American pheasant. They take about an entire runway to lift off the ground and they are very loud and tend to talk in groups. Often, their vocals will alert you to someone approaching. If you want to hear this ruckus, watch this video: Sounds of the forest: Gray-headed Chachalaca in Panama
And now back to my story. One of these giant birds was in our casita. Pete had been looking at the Casita when he saw one crash into the outer open door and fly away and he thought he saw one enter the house. (The rest of the gang was outside squawking). Anyhow… he comes running in asking if a bird flew into the house. Meanwhile… I’m having a holy shit moment as this giant bird is crashing around, panicked and unable to find its way out. We grabbed 2 brooms, and we must have chased it around inside the house for about 10 minutes, although it seemed an eternity. It was yelling, the rest of the flock was yelling from outside and I was screaming as it would take flight and try to get away from us. It wouldn’t go to the door but kept trying to get out by the window…. So we finally opened the window up and were able to get it to a place where it flew out.
I spent the next 2 hours cleaning up the mess it made…bird poop and bits of grass everywhere. The house got a good cleaning.
Moral of the story…. The outside door will need to be closed in the future.
Update: NO, I don’t have a video of this!
It’s time to build an arc
Rainy season in Panama starts in April and ends the beginning of December. During this time, it rains almost every day. But not all day. For instance, many days, the sun will shine from early morning until about noon…. at which time the clouds come in and the rains will start, lasting the rest of the day. So while we’re in rainy season, it’s rare we get days on end where it’s only rain. However, that was to change November 2024.
Downtown Boquete development flooded
Main road into Boquete blocked with mudslide
Road up to Palmira washed away
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Our average rainfall in November, as averaged over the last 18 years is approximately 13.70″ during the month. During the month of November, we received OVER 41″ of rain. To put this into perspective:
Phoenix averages less than 41″ of rain over the course of 6 years
Seattle gets an average of 39.3″ of rain per year.
Philadelphia gets an average of 44″ of rain per year
Nashville gets an average of 51″ of rain per year.
There was flooding in downtown Boquete and mudslides in many locations (including the main road into town) We went for over 2 weeks without the sun. In town, holiday parades were cancelled, and many were displaced from their homes. And yet, there was also a heightened sense of community as we all helped those that had been affected.
Traveling back to the USA
It seems we were just settling into our new life with our new house. BUT, part of our plan had been to spend the better part of our first year in Panama (ok… that didn’t exactly work out as planned) and then head back to TN to get my condo ready to sell. There were many reasons we chose to do it this way.
- We still had a lot of “stuff” in our home or storage area in TN. We had paired down about 80% of our “stuff”, but the last 20% (aside from Pete’s tools which he knew he wanted to bring to Panama) were items which were the hardest to go through. Some sentimental stuff. Some loved and well used items. Some just general household goods. We knew we needed a plan and in October of 2023, we had no plan. We just knew we wanted to get to Panama and start our retirement life. Now, almost a year later, we were ready to tackle the remainder of “stuff”.
- We now had a better idea on our life in Panama and what we wanted/needed to ship. For instance, when we bought our home, it came unfurnished. We had to buy furniture, bathroom towels/mats, ALL the kitchen stuff (pots/pans, dishes, silverware, glasses etc). However, ultimately, we’re going to need more stuff (wait…. didn’t I just tell you we got rid of most of our stuff and now we’re buying more???) to furnish the main house. This affected some decisions on what we’d bring.
- We needed to put my condo up for sale. For various reasons, we needed to wait until November 2024 to sell my condo. Heading back in August gave us time to clean up and prep the condo for sale, while also getting us ready to ship our stuff down to Panama.
The trip wasn’t all work. We were able to see a lot of friends and family during the 2+ months we were stateside. We flew from David, Panama (our closest airport, about 45 minutes from our home) into Panama City, where we caught our next flight to Miami. From Miami, we flew to Raleigh and spent a few days visiting our oldest son, Ryan, along with his girlfriend Roshel. Oh…. and our granddog Echo.
From Raleigh, we flew to Fort Worth, and spent a week with Pete’s family. Then up to Philadelphia, where I was able to crash the birthday party of my best friend Heather. (she knew I was going to be in the area but wasn’t sure exactly when. Her husband Bill reached out and we were able to surprise her). From Heather’s house in Chambersburg, we drove back to the Philadelphia area to spend a few days with my Mom. We also got to see some of my favorite relatives, aunts, uncles and cousins. And then finally it was time to head to Tennessee and get to work.
We arrived in TN at the beginning of September. For the next 6 weeks, we worked on the condo, both inside and outside. This was our last chance to get rid of items we wouldn’t need, repair a few things in the house and pack up and itemize all that was going to be shipped. We also had many dinners with my youngest son, Liam as well as quite a few lunches and dinners with close friends. We were busy, but it was manageable.
We picked up our rental truck on a Wednesday, packed up the truck Wednesday and Thursday, handed over the keys to the Condo to our real estate agent on Thursday and headed out of TN on Friday. We spent Friday night outside of Macon, Georgia and Saturday, we rolled into The Villages, Florida to spend a few days with our friends Carol and Jon. This was such a welcome diversion after a week of working hard. We left their house early Tuesday morning for the last leg of our trip, heading to Miami. Along the way south, we passed many areas that had been devastated by hurricane Helene 2 weeks prior.
We arrived in Miami Tuesday evening and discovered we were staying at a hotel we had been at before, with a wonderful bar/grill just off premises…so dinner was easy. Wednesday morning was the last stressful day. We drove to our shipper and after waiting for about an hour to get to their dock, we were able to unload our household goods being shipped to Panama. And then…. we were home free! We had a leisurely lunch, returned the rental truck and headed to the airport for our flight back to Panama.
On October 23, 2024, we returned to Panama from the states, EXACTLY one year to the day from when we had first arrived! Pete felt it was a bad omen. I likened it to a complete do over, as the country wide protests in 2023 had been very hard. At any rate, returning to Panama felt like we were finally home!
Heading to the border for a coffee run!
Coffee. You can probably smell the scent of coffee just by my typing the word. Coffee is grown all over our part of Panama. In fact, the most expensive coffee in the world is grown in Boquete. It’s called Geisha coffee. Last August, one Japanese company purchased Geisha coffee at auction for a record US$4,541.83 /pound (about $10,013 /kilogram). The coffee is very mild in flavor and if you come visit, we’ll be able to take you on a coffee tour where you’ll be able to taste many varieties of coffee, including Geisha.
We were almost out of coffee and so we did what we needed to do and drove to Costa Rica to get more. Ok, Costa Rica is also known for coffee and it’s only about 1 hour and 30 minutes from our house. It’s a nice day trip and on this particular day, our friend Sylvia joined us. When we finished getting coffee, we drove about 30 minutes south and had lunch in the small coastal town of Puerto Armuelles.
But the best part of the day? THIS VIEW!
We Purchased Property!
Main house to the right, Casita to the left
Another picture of the main house
Casita
Main house gardens
Looking down our long driveway
Main house at doorway
Main house living room
Casita kitchen
Casita bedroom
Our view on a clear day
Throughout much of the past 1.5 years, I’ve been actively looking at real estate in Boquete. While Panama is generally much cheaper to live in then the US, the price of real estate in our small mountain town is very high in comparison to the rest of the country (aside from Panama City). This is generally due to the large number of ex-pats living here.
Towards the end of April, I was scrolling on Facebook when I came across someone selling a home that was in our price range. In fact, I thought the price was so good that even though she had posted is less than a week prior, I was sure it was already sold. I showed the pictures and write up to Pete and not getting much encouragement from him, decided I’d just let it go. A few days later, I was still thinking about this house for sale and decided to reach out to the owner. She told me it wasn’t sold, and we made plans to meet and look at the property that Friday. She also sent me the exact location; told me no one was currently living on the property and gave us permission to go take a look ahead of the Friday meeting. We went to look on Thursday and it was love at first sight. I mean, we spent about 1.5 hours looking at the outside of the property which consisted of a main house, a smaller separate casita and about 1/3 of an acre of land. It’s located about 10 minutes outside of Boquete in a quiet Panamanian neighborhood. After we met with her on Friday, we started the purchase process and exactly 4 weeks later…we owned the property! It needs work. (those that know us well, will laugh and say we got exactly the type of home we always purchase). We’re currently living in the casita while we look for an architect and builder to help us rehab the main house. Building in Panama is VERY different than stateside, and Pete and I just don’t have the skills. Our intent with the casita is to have a place for friends and family to stay when they come to visit. We’re not planning on renting it out on Airbnb or any other home share platform.
Finally, returning to Panama
Our hasty trip to the US to be with Pete’s mother, was expected to last for 1-2 weeks. After her passing, we spent the month of December thinking we’d stay stateside for the immediate future and attempt to update her home (in order to sell it and settle her estate). In late December, we drove from TX back to TN with the intent to get as many tools as possible in order to start working on her home in January. All went to plan until demo started. We soon discovered the “mud ant trails” were actually a huge termite infestation.
We sought the help of professionals and were told by multiple companies that our infestation was one of the worst they’d seen. (yeah for us…. said very sarcastically). After much discussion, we decided selling the house “as is” was our best plan of action. We just didn’t know how much damage we were going to find or how it would affect the sale price. February was spent tying up loose ends, meeting with the real estate broker, cleaning out the house and spending time with Pete’s siblings. By March, we were looking forward to finally getting “home” to Panama.
Our arrival in Panama was low key: no protests, no gas shortages and no food shortages. It was lovely! Back at our rental, we were finally able to get our car (purchased back in September), which had been stuck in Panama City during the protests. Within a week of our arrival, we also both had our Panamanian driver’s license, and life was getting back to normal.