Real Estate

Join Cravings Editor-in-Chief Andrew Stern on his amazing journey into the wilds of Panama.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I am not a very worldly traveler. I have an interest in exploring new places, but don’t like going to the trouble of actually getting there. I don’t care for traveling by airplanes, trains, boats, cars, and am not a big fan of biking or hiking, either. Until they invent a transporter room à la Star Trek (and I probably won’t like that either), I do not intend to do any more traveling than I have to.

Much like Ann Tyler’s character Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist, I prefer the quiet order of home to the stress of dealing with airports, removing shoes and keys, packing sundries in plastic baggies, waiting in lines, sitting in planes and not using unapproved electronic devices while in transit.

So based on this confessed knowledge, how did I end up in the jungles of Central America, in a country where I don’t speak the language, traveling by various conveyances and dealing with all manner of wildlife? The answer in addition to many other unbelievable adventures will be revealed in the pages that follow.

What motivates one to travel to a third-world nation with a firstworld capital city that has attracted such illustrious developers as Donald Trump and most of the world’s major banks? Greed. There was a real estate boom down in Panama and we wanted a piece of the action.

Day 1
The evening plane ride to Panama City was (contrary to my expectations) totally uneventful. Panama City has a fairly modern airport and I was excited to see this new international metropolis. We were met at the airport by our driver Roberto, who spoke perfect English and apparently was well versed in dealing with gringos interested in real estate speculation. He knew a lot of the ins and outs and apparently dabbled in real estate himself. While I had assumed that we were getting in on the ground floor, it readily became apparent that Roberto had made this run many times before and that we were his fifth or sixth group from Miami looking for real estate that week.

The ride in to the city was actually quite pleasant. A relatively new, multi-laned toll road, Le Corridor de Sud, extends from the airport to Panama City. I was very impressed, until it came time to pay the toll which was almost $5 American. I asked Roberto who locally could afford it. Roberto explained that most locals could not afford the toll and that mostly foreigners like us used the road. He also told us that it wasn’t the government’s original intention to charge so much. Apparently, the government had contracted a Mexican construction firm to build the road. The Mexicans had completed three quarters of the road when the Panamanian government ran out of money. The matter was settled in typical Latin American fashion. The Mexicans agreed to finish the road on their own “dime,” and the Panamanian government allowed them to set up a toll booth and charge what they want until they were paid in full (with perhaps a little extra for their trouble). So that’s how you get a $5 toll in a country where the average citizen earns less than $6,000 per year.

Once you get off the toll road, however, traffic congestion takes over. It’s immediately apparent that the infrastructure has not come close to keeping up with the new development in the city. In the distance, we can see some of the many new high rises emerging from the waterfront. We can smell the diesel fumes emitted by the many cars, buses and trucks fighting for room on the narrow streets. As Dorothy was quick to point out in another faraway place, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Roberto weaved his way through traffic and we arrived at the Hotel De Ville, a fairly modern small hotel in the middle of the banking district. After checking in, we decided to take a walk, explore our surroundings and find something to eat. Crossing the street turned out to be an adventure in itself. I grew up in the big city and figured
I’d seen some of the most aggressive drivers in the world. None of my travels, however, prepared me for la chiva parrandera (rough translation: party bus). Barreling toward us at a speed far exceeding the flow of traffic was a cross between a psychedelic Partridge Family Bus and a speeding locomotive. Music blared from speakers ounted on the front and Christmas lights, strung along the sides, twinkled festively. These brightly painted buses double as public transportation during the day and party adventure thrill ride at night.

As la chiva rapidly approached us, the one thing I knew for certain was that it had the right of way and it wasn’t stopping for anything. Stepping back, I felt the whoosh of air rushing by and was barely able to glimpse the people hanging from the sides and dancing in the interior. Apparently, alcohol consumption is encouraged, and the driver seemed to be no exception.

Realizing that we were a little out of our element, we sought the most familiar looking restaurant we could find. Luckily, there was a Panamanian Hooters a block down the street and we were able to make it there without further incident. Hooters proved to be a safe choice. If you’ve seen one Hooters, you’ve seen them all.

Day 2
Scheduled for an early start, we met our guides at 5:30 a.m. By the time we got everyone together, it was 6 a.m. We piled into two Toyota 4Runners. Our guides suggested we stop for breakfast in preparation for our journey ahead.

We followed the lead truck to a gas station several blocks away and were told we would be dining at the convenience store attached thereto. The store was very well stocked with the Panamanian version of various American snacks.

As delightful as the delicacies appeared, I decided to pass. The trip north to Colon to view our first property was, according to our guides, scheduled to take approximately 45 minutes … more on this later.

It took us about 20 minutes to escape the congestion of Panama City, which had traffic jams even at this hour of the morning. We soon were driving on a relatively new two-lane highway north. Most tourists on the road were traveling to Colon to shop at the duty-free stores there and to view the north end of the canal.

All along the road, every 100 feet or so, were billboards advertising items that could be purchased duty free in Colon. The brands looked somewhat familiar, yet something was off. There were advertisements for Yazuki motorcycles and Toyoda trucks. There were billboards showing shiny new Whirljet washers and Raytag dryers.

Our guide told us that these were all Chinese knock-offs of Japanese and American brands, and that this was very common in Central America. Sure enough, as we continued driving, we saw these Chinese cars driving past us on the road. They looked a lot like popular Japanese cars, but had these odd Chinese names on the rear. Apparently copyrights and patents did not carry the same force in Panama as in the United States.

As we drove further, I realized that we had been on the road for over an hour and a half. Every time I asked the guide, he said it would be another 10 minutes to get there. It was only after two hours into the trip that I realized that I had failed to make the time conversions necessary when traveling in Panama. The formula is actually quite simple: one hour in Panama translates to three of our hours in the United States. So when someone in Panama tells you that it will be 10 minutes, they really mean 30 minutes. It’s kind of like the conversion from miles to kilometers. Little did I know that the Panamanians also had a conversion factor of their own for distances, as well.

At last we were able to turn on to a road/obstacle course that led east to Portobello. The road was paved but riddled with craters every 25 feet. The four-by-fours handled the roadway with ease. The property we would be viewing was just outside the town. Portobello was actually a beautiful little harbor village with sailboats floating off in the distance. The area was totally undeveloped and showed no evidence of U.S. brands or fast-food restaurants.

Three hours into our “45-minute” journey, we arrived at the first property. The land was totally unmarked except for a set of tire tracks leading up a hill slightly out from the main road. We followed the first truck and headed up the hill trying to stay in the tire tracks. We soon came to a clearing where we were able to stop our truck on level ground. There was a shack to our left and pasture to our right sloping down toward a line of trees.
In the pasture were a few cows, a lot of vegetation and no discernable path leading down or anywhere else. Reportedly this was a working Panamanian ranch.

At first I was thinking maybe this was the wrong place. We were looking for beachfront property and I didn’t see any beach anywhere. Our guides were quick to point out that there was a beach somewhere down there beyond the tree line, but that they never clear the trees away. Why? Because the trees keep the cattle from venturing to the ocean and getting lost – of course! In a country where you have nothing but coastline, they really have no interest in ocean views, but they do like their cattle. This was great. We had just traveled for three hours to see a beachfront property and the Panamanians didn’t see out to clearing a path to the beach. Of course, this was no problem for our guides. They had already anticipated the problem and had arranged for a boat to take us to see the beach by ocean. I was slightly skeptical at this point and did not recall seeing a harbor other than Portobello, which was close to an hour behind us.

Our guides assured us that we could meet the boat a few miles up the road and that it would be just a 20- minute ride from there. I did some quick conversions to Panamanian time and asked if we were working on American time. They assured me it would be a short time and so we set out in search of the boat. The only problem was that we were still stuck up on this hill and our tire went over the edge and somehow got down to the road without tipping over.

Phew! Back on crater road, we traveled an actual 20 minutes and reached an opening in the terrain. Through the clearing, we were able to see water – an excellent sign. On the inland side of the road there seemed to be a road crew at work, or at least standing around. We had arrived.

We walked toward the water but I didn’t see any boat. Nor did I see any dock. There was a concrete and rock outcropping, but little else. The water was at least 12 feet below. Our guides told us that the boat would be there shortly and that there was nothing to worry about. I figured this must be a pretty big boat if we were to board it from this height. We waited about 40 minutes. By now the sun was high in the sky and the temperature had risen into the mid- 80s. In the distance I was able to make out a vessel. It appeared to be a sherman in a rowboat with an outboard on the back.

At last, our ship had arrived! The skipper pulled up to the rocks and I looked down at the boat – all 15 feet of it with three wood planks (each about 18 inches wide) strung across the gun whales. Those were our seats, of course. Cushions, life vests and any other safety devices are strictly forbidden by Panamanian Maritime Regulations, or so I surmised. Our guides showed us how we could shimmy down the rocks and then jump the remaining four or five feet down to the boat. With seating for five, we figured another two or three people wouldn’t matter much at
this point. We climbed, jumped and amazingly none of us tipped the boat or fell into the water.

The ocean was relatively calm, but even so, it seemed that our overloaded boat was ready to capsize as we sped over each wave. As we made our way further and further from shore, I judged the distance and calculated our chances of survival. I made a passing joke (in poor taste) that if we happened to sink, I would end up just like Elian Gonzalez’s mother (i.e., dead).

In the middle of all this, one of my associates, Jay, can’t find his cell phone and believes that he may have dropped it back at the ranch. We weren’t turning back at this point, so we gave it up for lost.

In a few minutes, we were able to fi nd our beach. It was a beautiful area, totally undisturbed, protected by a jetty of rocks and covered with vegetation. Our erstwhile captain (I never caught his name and I don’t believe he spoke a word of English) maneuvered our craft in between the rocks and was able to get us to about 100 feet from shore. The water was shallow and we proceeded to roll up our pants. One of our party, Renzo, stepped out of the boat and
immediately sunk knee-deep into the mud beneath us. He suggested we step on the rocks to avoid sinking deeper into the muck/ quicksand. We trudged through the mud and water, holding our shoes, and reached shore without incident. The shoreline was totally overrun with vegetation and there are few places to step that are not covered with reeds, bamboo or some species of vine.

We made our way toward the interior to see if we could gain a better vantage point by which we could survey the land. Another associate, Todd, pointed out an unusual species of snake hanging from the branch of a tree, approximately eye level with us. He looked friendly enough, until we noticed the animal bones on the ground beneath his perch. I could not identify what the animal was, but it was certainly bigger than a cat and smaller than a dinosaur. Walking through our island jungle, I suddenly reconsidered whether Jurassic Park was real or not.

A few minutes later we came to a rock formation and were able to climb up to gain a vantage point. We could see the ocean to one side and the hill up to the road on the other. Our guides explained how easy it would be for us to build a road to the top and then rent dredging equipment to pump white sand onto the beach.

At that point, I had heard enough. It was getting late in the day, and we had still seen only one property. We trekked back through the jungle, waded out to the boat, negotiated our way out and hit the open seas. We returned to the “dock,” climbed the rocks to dry land and piled back into the trucks. The workers across the road were still standing around. I understand that the road will be wonderful once they finish it and that it will cut the time to get to Columbia down by a considerable amount. Unfortunately, by the time it’s finished, it’s highly likely that we will be using flying cars.

Our next stop was only an hour or so down the road by car and then another 30 minutes or so by boat. This time they assured me we would be taking a big boat with nicer amenities. I actually believed them. One of our guides was also a developer and was now taking us to his property, where he was building a resort. From there we would take a boat to view our next property. By now, the road had turned from paved and cratered to dirt, gravel and cratered. We negotiated the hazards and arrived there pretty much on time.

We saw that there was indeed something being built. There appeared to be several tiki huts, a hole for a swimming pool and the beginnings of a dock. One guy with a hammer seemed to be working on the property and was making excellent progress on the tiki hut he was working on. If this was the competition, we should be in pretty good shape, I thought. I was feeling extremely lucky when I saw a boat waiting at the dock. It wasn’t anything great, but it did conform to Panamanian Maritime code and did not contain any life vests, cushions or other safety equipment. There were more wooden planks for seats and it appeared to have an anchor – woohoo!

I walked toward the boat, only to find out that this would not be our boat and that our guides would take it to find the boat and captain who actually knew how to get where we were going. The new boat was touted to be much bigger and would be more suited to the voyage ahead. Our guides set off while we waited back at the “resort.” Forty-five minutes later, the guides returned in the same boat. Apparently the other boat would not come back with them without a deposit. We gave the guides $100 and sure enough they returned in yet another 45 minutes with another boat that was identical to the one they had set off in. I stood there with my mouth wide open and was about to say something, when I thought better of it and decided that when in Panama, you must do as the Panamanians do.

Because there wasn’t enough room to dock both boats, we had to climb into boat one, walk across it and then board boat two, which was on its port side (by now I was becoming pretty adept with all those fancy nautical terms). We settled into our luxurious wood plank seats and set out for the open seas – literally.

The water started getting rough. Our tiny ship was tossed. No, we weren’t marooned on Gilligan’s Island. But that may have been preferable. Instead we bounced up on the waves and landed over each crest with a thud. The sun was beating down and we had no water aboard. After a half hour had passed, I asked, “How much longer?”

“Ten more minutes,” was the reply. I had apparently forgotten to make the necessary conversions to Panamanian time before we had left. My head was pounding with each new wave and several of our group were turning red as lobsters from the sun. Thirty minutes later we had yet to arrive and I noticed a conference in the back between the captain and our guides. It was all in Spanish, but you did not need to be a U.N. interpreter to figure out that we were lost.

I had given the “reverse all engines and return home” order, when they begged me to continue on for another 10 minutes. We passed a small town on the shore, but other than that, there was no civilization to be found. Once again I calculated our chances of survival should the inevitable occur.

Finally we reached an inlet that looked like all the others we had passed previously and headed toward it. We had made it in about 25 feet when the trees and vines around us began to close in on our boat. Soon we had to duck below branches as we entered the heart of darkness. Eventually, the vines became too thick and we were unable to pass. The captain reversed the boat and our guides told us that there was an easier way to get to the land from the other side and that we were just 10 minutes away. As we backed out, ducking the trees, branches whipped over our heads, this time from behind. When we emerged into the open sea again, I made an executive decision to turn back and not explore any further. We had been out on the water for two hours, and I definitely wanted to get back before dark. I directed our guides to stop at the nearest beach and that we would rest before the journey back.

We rested at a beach and one of the guides suggested we might be best off getting some fresh water before we attempted the ride home to the hotel. The captain was aware of a fishing village, not too far off. So we headed back to sea in search of the fishing village.

Twenty minutes later we pulled into an inlet and sure enough we saw straw huts and people a short distance away. Civilization! We dock our boat and step ashore. Roosters and turkeys, as well as some dogs and cats, ran around at our feet. The citizens (natives?) of the village seemed friendly enough and may have known our captain. Some men were moving mattresses and furniture somewhere for no apparent purpose. They directed us to the center of the village where we came upon a hut that contained an old woman selling beer and soft drinks.

The bottles were labeled with no recognizable brand of which I was familiar, but when you are dying of thirst, you can not afford to be choosy. As we downed our semicool drinks in the shade of the hut, we hardly noticed the flies buzzing fancifully around our heads. Refreshed, we headed back to the boat. Along the way, I offered $20 to anyone in our group who would catch one of the wild roosters with their bare hands. No takers.

We headed out to open sea again and saw some amazing flying fish following us back. I was thankful when we reached dry land again and were able to return to our trucks. We headed back the way we came and eventually reached the first property we had seen in the morning. We got out of the car and searched for Jay’s missing cell phone. It was nowhere to be found. Before we left, a little boy walked up to us with the phone and returned it. He had found it earlier that day. Jay rewarded him and we hopped back into the trucks. It was getting dark and we still had a long way to go.

No sooner than we started off again, the skies opened up and we were deluged with a torrential downpour. It could have been worse, I suppose. We could have been out on the open seas. We eventually reached the outskirts of Panama City in time to run into the typical evening traffic jam. We reached our hotel at 9 p.m. We quickly showered and hopped back in the truck in time to have our first real meal of the day at 10 p.m. We dined at the Pancas Restaurant, which is considered rather famous with a musical floor show no less. The waiters all wear these huge Panamanian cowboy hats. I wanted one to take home, but they wouldn’t sell us one. They did let Renzo wear one while we ate dinner, however. We retired at midnight and thus completed the easy day of our adventures in Panama.

Day 3
Once again we were up and out the door by 6 a.m. This time when we stopped at the convenience store for our Breakfast of Champions, I stocked up on supplies. Once again our guides told us to expect an hour ride to our first stop. I did a quick conversion and realized we would be on the road for approximately three hours.

The properties we were going to next were in the southwest region of Panama in the Chiriqui province. As we headed west down the highway, I had a good feeling about this trip. The sun was out, the road was clear and best of all, the guides had promised us that there would be no boat trips this time.

We passed signs advertising a number of other real estate projects and developments, but no matter how far we traveled, we failed to see even the beginnings of any construction.

My Panamanian time and distance conversions were proving to be quite accurate. Two and one-half hours into our journey, we turned down a beautiful wooded road and headed south toward a property that was supposedly one of the nicest on our list. We passed some beautiful areas. It wasn’t yet clear whether any of this was near the beach. Once again, the trees hadn’t been cleared, except to allow pastures for cattle.

We arrived at the property at the three-hour mark and I was actually impressed. We were on a real working ranch with modern buildings, real roads and everything. There were actual chicken coops, horses in corrals and barns and garages to house animals and equipment. This did not appear to be your typical Panamanian operation, but actually a well organized, serious business. Sure enough, we were met by the owner’s son, who offered to escort us down to the beach. They had cut a path through the trees and vegetation and you could actually reach the water by land. These were my kind of guys.

The path was basically two tire tracks winding through some recently cut back brush but I wasn’t complaining. My days on the Panamanian high seas were over. We wound down the path seeking lower elevations to eventually reach sea level. We passed cattle pastures on either side as we struggled to stay centered in the tire-rut path. Finally we reached a clearing and could actually see the ocean. Workers had cleared the area of trees and brush and you could see a pristine beach with islands in the distance. We surveyed the area from our vantage point and asked if there was a way to get down to the actual beach. It appeared to be a fairly steep drop-off from our plateau to the sand below. This did not seem to faze the owner’s son. He got back into the driver’s seat and proceeded to drive us over the edge and carefully down to the beach. We got out and saw literally 50 yards of sand to the ocean and miles of coastline on either side. It was still low tide and the water had receded revealing what looked to be symmetrical leaf imprints in the sand and what appeared to be tracks left by bird feet or some other animal also symmetrically placed, covering hundreds of feet of beach area.

This was just the sort of place we were looking for. We drove up and down the beach, careful to return to our path on the plateau, prior to high tide. When the tide comes in, you could be literally stranded in the ocean and swept out to sea. When we returned, we saw several workers clearing the brush with machetes and expanding the beach area. The owner’s son told us that this was the way they had cleared the land and that in another few weeks, they would have a half mile of trees and brush cut away. I was extremely impressed with this first property and was surprised to hear that the next one was even nicer. The views were rumored to be spectacular and the land was already cleared of trees. It was only a few minutes down the road. A light drizzle had begun as we headed that way.

We reached the entrance to the property in just 15-20 minutes as advertised. By now the rain had begun to fall in earnest and the visibility was poor. To get to the property and see the beach, you had to scale a huge hill with two tire ruts running to the top. The ruts had begun to fill with water and two streams poured down to the bottom of the hill. In this weather, it was impossible to get the trucks up the hill. The guides suggested we turn back.

We had come this far, so I wasn’t about to miss seeing what was supposed to be the nicest property in the area and of our entire trip. I had brought a rain poncho and figured, how bad could it be?

The rest of our party were less prepared and ventured out with windbreakers and towels over their heads. The guides wisely stayed behind in the warm dry trucks. We began to scale the hill and realized this could be a bigger challenge than originally anticipated. The dirt had turned to pure red mud and clay and the tire ruts became rapid streams of water. We attempted to traverse the higher ground, but would often slip down into ankle deep mud or water.

Eventually, we reached the top and came out into a clearing. The rain was really driving down at this point and the winds had picked up substantially. In the distance we were able to vaguely make out a barbed wire fence and some cattle within. I was told that our destination was beyond the fence and that we still had a ways to go.

I looked behind us and could barely make out the headlights of our trucks below. Some of the valley areas had already flooded and began to form a pattern of small lakes. I figured we had already come this far …

We approached the barbed wire fence and looked for a gate or opening. The gate was down a ways and it appeared that a group of menacing looking steer was blocking the access.

We decided to sneak through the fence. One guy would hold the bottom barbed wire down with his shoe, while a second person would hold the top wire up, thus creating an opening where someone could theoretically shimmy through.

We wiggled through the fence without incident and emerged into a hilly pasture covered in cow patties and mud. At this point it was nearly impossible to tell which was which. Meanwhile, the rain continued its onslaught and the steer down the fence had taken notice of us and were inching toward us to investigate.

Out of the sky shot a bolt of lightning with the crash of thunder. The steer got spooked and suddenly hoofs and horns came rushing toward us in a stampede straight out of the movies. With our backs to the fence we froze motionless as a dozen or so cattle kicked up mud and rushed by less than a few feet from our noses.

With the path clear of cattle, but riddled with their droppings, we trekked forward over hills and across small rivers that had formed in the terrain. By now the rain was coming down like Niagara Falls and visibility was only a few feet.

Poncho or not, I am soaked through and through, as everyone else is in the party. Some continued to hold soaking wet towels over their heads, resembling waterlogged nuns, as we persisted forward. As we approached a peak ahead, we could barely make out the ocean in the distance. Looking back, I saw small islands of land surrounded by huge lakes of water.

The rain had now reached tropical storm proportions and the wind roared so loudly, we could no longer hear each other speak. We were unable to determine whether this was caused by the water pounding into our eardrums or just the loudness of the storm. Todd dropped his cell phone into my poncho pocket thinking it would stay dry. Unfortunately the rain had filled my pockets to the brim and the phone quickly became submerged in water.

Only Hollywood could approximate the severity of the storm. Think about the scene in Caddyshack where the minister attempts to finish his perfect round of golf in the storm. Or maybe The Perfect Storm where George Clooney and his crew battle the onslaught of three typhoons as they all converge on his small fishing vessel.

We finally reached the top of the peak and were able to view the beach below. What was once beach is now an inlet to the mainland with waves splashing against the side of our mountain. Unable to communicate, we used hand signals to come to a consensus that it’s time to turn back. We turned around to discover our path was almost totally blocked by water and that small rivers must be crossed to reach bottom.

We slid down through the mud, no longer caring if what we had stepped on was actually mud or fertilizer left by our cattle friends. There was no inch of our bodies that could be called dry and the wind and rain actually hurt as the weather continued to harass us.

We came to the barbed wire fence and sadly learned that this was not the spot where we entered. The cattle were nowhere to be seen and the terrain was totally unfamiliar. We decided to follow the fence in a direction that seemed to be sloping downward and searched for some sort of familiar land mark that could guide us back.

The valley below was almost one big lake with small patches of land sticking up here and there. In the distance, I can make out what looks to be the headlights of our trucks shining in the distance below.

We shimmied through the barbedwire fence and headed toward the light. As we approached the final hill, the tire ruts were no longer visible. The water streams flowing down them had merged together to form one large river. We waded in ankle deep and attempted to find our footing. Somehow we reached the bottom in one piece and approached our vehicles. At this point we were at a loss as to what to do. We were covered in mud (and who knows what else) and completely waterlogged. The trucks were dry and clean on the inside.The only solution was to strip off our clothes, throw them in the back and climb into the trucks.The towels had been used as rain protection and were now totally useless. We climbed in and used whatever we could for dry clothes. Unfortunately, our shoes were destroyed and we hadn’t brought any spares with us.We headed back through the storm crossing carefully over streams and arguing about whether we could turn down the air conditioner which was required to be kept running so that we could see out the front window. Apparently, this type of storm is the norm 10 months out of
the year. It’s sort of like Florida times a magnitude of 100.Somehow we made our way back to Panama City. By the time we returned, it was dark and we once again had eaten little since the previous day. We left our trucks and shoes with the valet at the hotel. He promised to clean everything and have it ready for us in the morning.

Exhausted we headed for the showers and I begged for a half-hour nap before dinner. When I hit the lobby, I realized I couldn’t make it much further. We settled for the restaurant in the hotel, which turned out to be excellent.Unfortunately, the day was not yet done. That evening, we had a meeting scheduled with another Panamanian real estate expert/promoter, Javier. Javier was an older gentleman with more fingers than teeth, who had taken pictures of several properties and was looking to be “our man” in Panama. This of course would cost us some money.

The properties looked nice, but I knew better than to assume that there would be roads or access or even dry land. Javier swore he had taken the pictures himself and that it was easy to get there. We hired Javier on a temporary basis to be our Panamanian scout.

Day 4
On our last day in Panama, we awoke at a reasonable hour and had a real breakfast. Sure enough, our shoes had been cleaned and the vehicles were spotless. The cost was something like $5 and we gave the guy $20 because we felt guilty.

We decided to pass on visiting any further properties and explored Panama City instead. We also knew if we were to do any actual business in Panama that we would require banking. So we set off in search of a bank to open an account.

Like everything in Panama, this proved to be more difficult than one would assume. Apparently the rule was that you needed to be a Panamanian citizen or property owner to open an account. But of course, you could not buy a anamanian property without a bank account. It was a Catch-22 scenario that was so very typical in this region of the world. I guess the Panamanians were huge fans of Joseph Heller.

After trying several banks and getting nowhere, we gave up and headed back to the hotel. We had a couple of hours until our plane left and I was more than ready to head back. Roberto picked us up at the agreed-upon hour and carted us back on the toll road to the airport.

Epilogue
We returned to Miami none the worse for wear and made a bid on the property owned by the organized rancher. We eventually were able to open banking accounts with the help of a local Panamanian lawyer (?) with a series of fees/bribes. Javier continued to be our man on the ground for a while and oversaw the negotiations for the property.Nothing in Panama is ever as simple as it seems and our bid was rejected, supposedly for a higher offer. Javier kept trying to convince us that property was being snapped up overnight and that our window was
closing. I proposed a meeting with the owner of the ranch to discuss a possible venture, but Javier was unable to arrange this.We eventually found out that the property never really sold and ended up firing Javier. Also, we learned that most of the projects in Panama City were way behind schedule and that there simply wasn’t enough equipment and manpower to keep up with demand. We quickly realized that even if we found a location, it was unlikely that we would be able to lure a construction firm into the jungle to build on our property – unless we were willing to settle for a couple of guys with hammers and machetes.If you decide to go to Panama, you’ll find it’s truly a beautiful place and most of the country is untouched by development. But if you would like to stay at a resort, you’ll have to find one on your own, because ours was no more than a Panamanian dream.