When Wimberley, Texas restuaranteur and general good life conosiuer David Lewis responded to our Panama stories with a question about Panama being a good retirement spot, we could not answer. We have a little more information now. Like most places that are written up in the press as great places to live and retire, the stories usually come at a time when the secret is out, and consequently, they may no longer be the best. This has apparently what has happened to
Costa Rica, and Panama may follow but who knows how soon. Real Estate deals might still be found here, but probably not. House prices we glanced at looked comparable to Austin but we did not do any serious research so take this with a grain of salt.
While doing internet research on traveling to the Boquete/David area in Chiriqui province we learned of the very large expatriate and retiree population in this part of the country.
Chiriqui Chatter is a blog operated by Don Ray, who used to live in Dallas and has family in central Texas. His blog shares his daily life and impressions living in David, the second largest city in Panama complete with its on TGI Fridays etc. He shares his experiences of travels to towns in the Chiriqui province, and it makes for enjoyable reading even if you are not interested in the area.
Discovered another blog when reading Don's called Boquete Guide, which is linked from Don's site and edited and operated by Lee Zeltzer. Lee and his wife moved here to Boquete from Tuscon six months ago after researching other places to retire, The Netherlands among them. I had already posted inquiries to both his and Don's blogs,.
While on the subject of blogs, I would like to mention several other bloggers based in Panama City that are also operated in english, all of which are great reading and share travel and other areas af life in Panama. These bloggers are probably all in their twenties. Heidibella, Oh bla di ob la da, The Panama Report are all full of vignettes worth reading by us as we wanted to learn recent info on life in Panama. Thanks to all you bloggers!
But back to Lee. Lee is the editor of the online Boquete Guide blog, invited us to lunch after answering an online post we had made related to another city to visit in Panama. We met today at a local Mexican resturant that had just moved to a new location across the street from the Boquete Country Inn direction David from the parque. We enjoyed the food and getting to know Lee and seeing the mostly retiree crowd and learning something of their lives in Panama. Lee is a very pleasant fellow who taught/worked infomation technology in Tuscon where he and his wife raised their four children and lived until six months ago when they bought property here. Lee introduced us to several others who had done the same. While it appears that the days of the good deal are gone, still seems a desirable place to live that is somewhat easier to navigate than other countries might be due to the decades long US influence and economic domination.
Check out his Boquete Guide for good writing and interesting info on Panama.
By the way, the food was ok, priced around $5, and the setting was quite pleasant at this mexican food resturant. Forgot the name, but ask around. The operator is a apparently from Guadalajara.
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