Journey to Panama & Beyond

Once we left the Carretera Interamericana to start the drive south on the west side of the Azuero Peninsula, the road quality became …. scary.   Big potholes large enough to consume an entire tire and bend rims were scattered about.   Shade puddles became the enemy efficiently hiding the potholes from view.   I reduced our speed to about 35 miles an hour so I could successfully slalom around the potholes I could see and be slow enough to not destroy a rim on the ones that I couldn’t.   The views from the road along the coast were magnificent! Beautiful coastline, blue sky and green water.   Tropical vegetation, rolling grassy hills in the foreground and jagged peaks in the distance.   I looked as much as I could but needed diligence for the potholes, caballeros and carts that traveled along side the road.   Small villages, commercial districts and escuelas (schools) dotted the area.   Bryant took the pictures and provided a narrative of the landscape interspersed with exple

Packed and ready to roll! Playa Corona is about 1.5 hours drive west of Panama City along the Pan-American highway called Carretera Interamericana . It is popular with gringo retirees due to the proximity to the city. The road from Panama City past Playa Corona to Santiago was built many years ago but is in decent repair.   It is truly a highway, not a freeway as we know it, because every few miles there is a Reduzco Velocidad sign (reduce speed) as you pass through a small town or commercial district.   It reminds me more of the old California Highway 99 vs the 5 or 405. If all of the Reduzco Velocidad zones didn’t exist and the top speed limit was 70 vs 52 mph one could drive from Panama City to Boquete in under 4.5 hours…   295 miles.   BUT, and it is a BIG but, the highway isn’t engineered to support those speeds and you will incur a ticket or jail time if you are caught speeding over the posted limit which is typically 80 kmh or about 52 mph.   Often times the post

While we waited for our passport to be returned, we tackled the second errand…obtaining our Panamanian driver’s licenses.   We considered that we had 90 days before this would be an absolute requirement.   However,   a small problem that Marianna told us about could have been a very BIG problem had we not asked about the process.   Seems that as a tourist our U.S. driver’s license would have been fine to drive with for 90 days.   However, now that we started our visa process and the papers filed we were no longer considered a ‘tourist’ which immediately rendered our U.S. driver’s license null and void.   If we should be stopped by the Policia, we could be dragged off to jail for driving without a valid license.   Not happenin’! Obtaining a Panama DL is very different than doing so in the U.S.   We first had to visit the U.S. Embassy to have our U.S. DL’s authenticated and to fill out the request form for a Panama DL.    So we set off from Bella Vista with me driving un

Our days are filled with scheduled meetings with our attorney for the visa process, appearances at the Immigration Office to pay fees and obtain official stamps and walking the neighborhood of Bella Vista.   A visit to the U.S. Embassy as a start to obtain Panamanian driver’s licenses is to come later. After a first meeting with Mayra Lamboglia de Ruzzi (of Italian descent and born in Panama), our immigration attorney, we received the schedule… or at least what the schedule could be providing the interim steps took place as hoped for. She instructed us to fill in our immigration forms guiding us as to the correct information that would pass scrutiny of the officials.   Her assistant then took the forms to a notary, located downstairs in the building, for authentication.   Once that was done, the forms would be delivered to immigration and we would appear 2-3 business days later to pay the fees and provide fingerprints, answer a few questions and then wait for the next step.