Making Friends in Panama

(Click on image to enlarge)

Even the horse in the picture shown above knows that sometimes having a good friend or two is a good idea. We all need friends on occasion. Getting to know new people in a new country might seem difficult, but in Panama it is really quite easy. Walk around for a bit in Panama City or Boquete or David and you will run into individuals who hail from Canada and the United States, and increasingly from Europe. They will be just as happy to see you as you are to see them. And the Panamanian people are friendly, open and hospitable.

Then there are the social networking groups that will help you meet new friends. Sign up at http://boquete.ning.com and check out the profiles of interesting individuals there. One new friend of mine on that network is Lynnie English. She took the photograph displayed at the top of this post and kindly gave me permission to use it here.

I love that photograph. Where but in Panama could see such a sight?

Thanks, Lynnie!

Counting down . . .

I'm sitting in my room at a Quality Inn Suites hotel near Lester Pearson Airport in Toronto. Tomorrow, I will meet up with the friends who are accompanying me to Panama, and by tomorrow evening we will be in Panama City. I travel quite a bit, but I always marvel at how small our world has become, and how quickly we can travel just about anywhere on our globe.

Earth is a tiny little place. With a circumference of only 25,000 miles, it is less than a speck in the universe. Yet, it is where we live. The earth supports us, if we help it along a little bit, and we can (or could, if there were fewer despots and politicians in the world) live a wonderful life. It takes some effort, some planning, some sacrifice, some patience, and sometimes even some heartache, but life can be good. One thing I have never been able to understand is the whining and complaining that I hear from people who should be happy to be alive during the most dynamic and interesting time in human history.

I remember listening to my parents describe the lives they lived in Poland, Siberia and Germany. Their lives were brutally difficult, but I never heard them complain about anything. Even after their arrival in Canada, life was hard, but they sucked it up and did what they had to do to raise their kids and prepare for their retirement. Their children, my sister and brother and I, learned from their example that when faced with life's problems, one took them by the horns and wrestled them to the ground.

Panama is starting its path towards better lives for all of its citizens. It has yet to make the mistakes that we see in so many of the 'developed' countries, namely punitive taxes, over regulation, and out of control deficit spending. The people in Panama seem content and appear to be enjoying the adventure. I have met a number of individuals who have left Canada or the United States to make a new life in Panama. They too seem happy. They enjoy the beauty of the country, the low cost of living, and being part of something wonderful. I have also met a couple of people in Panama who should have stayed home. Nothing is good enough for them, nothing meets their expectations, everything was better at home. Why didn't they stay home?

Whiners are polluters. They poison themselves and they affect everyone around them. I don't like complainers at home in Canada, and don't like them in Panama either.

Maybe I'll be lucky and won't meet any on this trip.

Why Panama?

I have met and spoken with many North American expats while in Panama. I'm a curious guy, and one of the questions I often asked was why they were there. The answers weren't all that surprising to me.

A guy waiting to get at his safety deposit box, in my Panamanian bank, told me he retired to Panama at age 58 because he could. He could never, he said, do that in the United States. Was he happy with his decision? Yes.

There are a lot of people like him, younger than 65, living on peanuts (actually oranges and bananas and mangoes and pineapple and great Panamanian beef) and having fun. They no longer have to pay exorbitant rents, extortive property taxes, and heating and other utility costs.

Some people are there because they like the ecology and the diversity of flora and fauna. Nowhere in the country are you ever more than a couple of hours from either the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean Sea, or both. Pristine jungle areas are available for exploration. Scuba diving and snorkelling is available everywhere. Got a boat? Anchors aweigh!

How about the political climate? Pretty darn stable, and the Panamanian government is probably much less likely to step on more of your rights than the bandits at home, wherever that might be. The economy? Booming along at 6% or 7% annual growth.

Is the economy likely to keep growing? According to a market research expert I met at breakfast at the Hotel El Panama, yes. He was in the country doing research for an international insurance company. His recommendation? Jump in. Above average growth is expected in Panama for at least five, and more likely ten, more years according to his research.

Worried about currency depreciation? You should be. It is increasingly an international world, and currencies fluctuate in value against each other all the time. What will happen if the Panamanian currency declines? After all, devaluation and hyperinflation are all too common in Central and South America. The Panamanian currency will indeed fall against the Euro and the Yen and the Deutschmark and other strong currencies, but only because it is pegged one-to-one with the American dollar which I think is doomed. That's what you carry in your jeans, in Panama -- greenbacks. What you get back in change is usually a combination of American coins and their Panamanian equivalents. They are interchangeable. The advantage of all this is that if you get an American pension or other American income, it is always going to get you by in Panama even if it is worthless against other currencies.

I am not planning on moving to Panama full time myself. I have too much going on in Canada and would have too many things to unwind. I will, however, invest there, have a second home there for when I visit, and have friends there.

Panama is worth a look and not only because you might buy a building lot from our Roca Milagro project. It's worth a look simply because it is beautiful, friendly, cheap and accessible, much like an ideal date or mate.