Days 3 & 4

I'll start with Day 4 which was primarily uneventful. I think we've settled on a neighborhood,well one of two anyways- they are gated communities- either Versailles or Costa Sur. Cute little homes (~2500 squ. ft. or so) with a nice yard, plus common areas including pool, tennis courts, park, and gym. Bonus-- the mayor lives there, which gives us additional private security. Jackpot. Will update on the progress.

The new agent we've been using has what it takes to be an agent. Although he is American, he has entrenched himself int learning the Panamanian real estate market inside and out, both from a personal, living perspective, and from a financial, investment perspective. He was found simply through doing a search on the real estate market, upon which M found a long, indepth manifesto, if you will, talking about the market, what to expect, past trends... the works. Everything a smart buyer would need in one place. That alone convinced him that this was the agent we needed to contact.

Panama is a little different in the way agents work. Everyone and their dog seems to be an agent, so needless to say, there is some lack of professionalism, and needless to say, massive chaos. There are no lockboxes for keys, and many of the owners are foreign investors who have never lived in the country and for all we know, have never even seen the unit. So the key is either with a friend, neighbor, uncle, long lost sibling... who knows. The average (or from what we saw before present day agent) process was to sit around and wait till said friend, neighbor, etc. finally show and proceed to take us to see a place which does not meet one need that we expressed. It's great.

After finding our new agent, a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders. We now have an agent who spent the time understanding our needs, and would rather take time to show us 3 places that meet those needs than just cram a whole bunch of useless homes (to us at least) into a day to feel accomplished. Beyond that, he tells it straights- the goods, the bads, the uglies. No rushing us out just to get a quick sale. I will continue to post on our progress, but till then if anyone wants his contact, leave a message.

Now the fun part, yesterday. Our first real drive somewhere- we were going to Albrook mall, which is about 15 minutes North- West of where we are staying in Costa Del Este. At one point the road forks off, and you can end up going the wrong way, or going to the mall. The wrong way is Chorillo. You don't want to go to Chorillo, or so we have been told. As we were driving and the surroundings became a bit sketchy, and we felt perhaps we were going the wrong way. Before waiting to find out, M decided, "hey let's just pull a U and get out of here". Right in front of the cops. Great. So now we have 2 cops running after us as we pull to the side of the road. Luckily we have been schooled in the fact that Panamanian cops don't want to give a ticket, considering they don't really get anything out of it. Observation: on the bright side, isn't it nice that they don't get satisfaction out of making us suffer through the hassle of a ticket, unlike NA cops. Anyways, so we played the "we're Canadian, tourists, no habla espanol, please don't ticket us, por favor". After about 15 minutes of the cop telling us we made an "infraction" which is "very bad", we pleaded with him to make some sort of arrangement. He then looked at the fact that there were "witnesses" around us, and spent some time telling us how to get into a side street to meet him there. He heavily stressed that "in Panama at a red light, you must stop. Don't go till it's green". That made me laugh.

Anyways... we met him on the side street, where he spent some more time questioning whether I actually speak Spanish. I don't, although I don't think he was convinced of the fact. After, M counted in his wallet. We truly, honestly, had only $15 on us. We told the cop the same. After mishearing, and thinking we said $50, he relented, handed us his traffic book and said put it in here. We exchanged his book for our license/passports, and went on our way. Easy peasy.

Well, if nothing else, this move will be an experience of the differences from country to country. Despite the chaos, I think I'm going to like this.