Panama Wins: Living off the Grid

By Pam Bates

I thought maybe I should share some of these experiences for those individuals who might want to try the off the grid living scene and what it means to build a future in Panama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503528574

Pam Bates

I was born in Killeen, Texas, where my parents met, and currently reside in Ohio. My father retired from the Air Force after twenty-three years and worked for Delco Kettering until he retired from there. Mom worked various jobs depending where we were stationed. One station was San Pablo, AFB, Sevilla Spain for three years. My first husband spent twenty-three years in the Air Force as well and died of a diabetic coma in 1999. In 2002, I met Pete and we married with the promise to live life. My employment ranges from secretary for a trucking company, a high school business educator, an administrative assistant for a banker and later a casino manger or vice president with my final job for twenty years as a contract negotiator for the DoD Air Force. I have lived in a variety of places with my parents and my first husband, but it wasn’t until Pete and I found Panama that we truly fell in love with one sight and wanted to make it our vacation home. Living Off the Grid was not our first thought when we started looking for a vacation home, but when we found Panama, it became a passion to meet the challenges.

Book preview

Panama Wins

Living Off the Grid

Pam Bates

Copyright © 2015 by Pam Bates.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014922549

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-2855-0

                Softcover        978-1-5035-2856-7

                eBook             978-1-5035-2857-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/22/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One: The Beginning

Chapter Two: Meeting Our Friend Jair

Chapter Three: Discovering Bocas del Toro (Mouth of the Bull)

Chapter Four: The Hunt for Property

Chapter Five: We Found It!

Chapter Six: Negotiating and Building Casa Armarilla

Chapter Seven: The Christening

Chapter Eight: Irreconcilable Differences

Chapter Nine: Diamond on the Grid

Chapter Ten: Finding David and Changuinola

Chapter Eleven: Mari—The Emerald of Aquacate

Chapter Twelve: Pulpo—the Great Sapo (Toad) Hunter

Chapter Thirteen: Our Finca and Otro Trabajadores

Chapter Fourteen: Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral

Chapter Fifteen: Transportation

Chapter Sixteen: Panama—not Just the Canal

Chapter Seventeen: Friends

Chapter Eighteen: Learning from Experience—Funny and True

Chapter Nineteen: Surviving Nicely

About the Author

This book is dedicated to Jair Rojas—

a true businessman, family man, and above all, our true friend.

Without meeting him on our first trip to Panama, we seriously doubt we would be vacationing here.

So, Jair, es tu fallo!

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To Shwartz Jewelry Gang,

for without you, we would not get to spend our vacation in Panama.

Prologue

As I sit here on our deck in Aquacate, overlooking the Laguna de Chiriquí, with our manager’s dog sleeping on our deck, a newly purchased male goat for the herd under the deck, listening to birds singing, monkeys howling, toads croaking, canoe motors running, chain saws buzzing, generators humming, and voices carried over the Laguna, I am thinking of how it all started in 2003. I’m thinking of all the friends we have made—both Panamanian and gringo—purchasing property, building our vacation home, learning about solar and water tanks, the process of becoming pensionados, the funny characters we have encountered, learning to raise goats and chickens for private consumption, mistakes made, and most of all, our accomplishments.

I thought maybe I should share some of these experiences for those individuals who might want to try the off-the-grid living scene and what it means to build a future in Panama.

Chapter One

The Beginning

When my first husband passed away from a diabetic coma in 1999, I vowed then that I would live my life to the fullest. When I married Pete in 2002, I made it clear that it was important to live life; and if we had the means to travel or do things we wanted, we would. Our first stops were Italy and Germany and other places in the United States.

But then we decided we wanted to really look for a vacation home. We wanted someplace warm with water and not so populated. We had both traveled a lot in our pre-marriage lives and decided none of those places would do. The Christmas of 2002, I gave us a trip to Panama. Neither of us had been there, and we wanted to see the Panama Canal. So February 2003, we set foot in the Republic of Panama.

It’s an all-day trip. We bounced around three US airports before we arrived at Tocumen International Airport late at night. Getting through customs and immigration was a nightmare in 2003. You had to pay a five-dollar-per-person entry tax, so as three planes pulled in at the same time, the line was long. Besides providing the five dollars, you had to fill out a piece of paper before you got to immigration, and the individuals taking the money didn’t have change—took about fifteen minutes before we got through. Then you picked up your luggage, had it screened, and off