Conscious Choice: Imagine Panama

September 2001

Imagine Panama

by Deb Olin Unferth

George Mobley, a retired photographer for National Geographic, and Marilyn, his wife, talk to me at Café Mozart. We sit on the patio and look out over the valley to the town of Boquete, Panama.

"I feel so much freer here," says Marilyn. "I don’t know why."

"I know what you mean," says George. "Boquete has a certain ambience."

The temperature is seventy-five. We are listening to Beethoven sonatas, eating fruit salad, and drinking frothy cappuccinos made from local coffee. The town and the surrounding countryside are bursting with flowers — they dot the roadside and riverbank, hang in the trees, climb the walls. Yes, Boquete has ambience.

George and Marilyn are among growing numbers of foreigners coming to Boquete to retire. It is set in the Chiriquí highlands, an hour from Costa Rica. I myself planned to spend only a night or two in the town but I am snagged for three weeks, walking the countryside, talking in cafes, hiking the extinct volcano.

There’s no end to the natural wonder around Boquete. Bird-watching in the nearby cloud forest is a favorite activity. Look for the long-tailed quetzal and other exotic birds. Twenty kilometers down the road are soothing natural hot springs. For swimming and snorkeling, Bocas del Toro, an Atlantic-side island, is only a few hours away, perfect for a weekend trip when the grandkids come to visit. On breathtaking Las Lajas beach, two hours away, a friendly English-speaking family rents cabins for five dollars a night.

But everyone in Boquete knows the best thing to do is go visiting. The town has an international flavor and is friendlier than a Southern hostess with a fresh pie. Any long term stay must include a visit to Toni, the transplanted New Yorker now in her eighties. She tells me stories of her days as a dancer and serves me cake, scolds me when I don’t want a second helping. I visit Lorenza, the German artist who solders silver jewelry and makes meals as lovely as her paintings, exhibited throughout Central America. The Boquete community includes people from England, Canada, Colombia, Sweden, Holland, Germany, and, of course, Panama. Everyone is learning either English or Spanish or both. Conversation drifts between languages and, more often than not, collapses into the international idiom: broken English. "There’s a nice network," Marilyn observes. The retirees, or pensionados, trade books, drive into the city to see a movie, plan afternoon adventures. The town is also home to the shy Guaymí Indians who sit in the square in brilliant colorful dresses and watch their children romp about.

Have you heard? Costa Rica is out. It’s too expensive, people say, and the bureaucracy is atrocious. Panama has a high literacy rate: 92 percent of Panama’s children attend elementary school. And because of the long-term U.S. presence in Panama, hospitals are said to be the best in Central America.

George Schmitt of Colorado is president of the Retirement Association in Boquete. He drives me through the outskirts of town, ticking off the residents of the houses we pass. "An American living there, a Canadian couple there, an American and his Panamanian wife there..." He has a large house with a pretty yard and porch. His parrot whistles away while we chat. "I’m training him," Mr. Schmitt says, "sort of." Then I discover Mr. Schmitt is a numbers man. For the next twenty minutes, I sit glaze-eyed as he reels off equations designed to demonstrate how inexpensive Boquete is. "There are no restrictions on buying residential property. You can buy a house or you can build your own for as little as $28 per square foot. You’re going to pay seven to nine thousand for your lot. Of course, it’s electric and phone ready. So if a three bedroom house is 1,100 square feet..."

I stop him. "Tell me something I understand," I say.

He considers. "I pay $250 a month to rent this house."

I look around, think of my $650 cramped flat in Chicago. "That, I understand."

Other advantages to retiring in Boquete? It’s very safe, for one. "I feel perfectly comfortable walking around Boquete any time of day or night," he tells me. For another, there’s pensionado status. Panamanians and foreigners alike can qualify as official retirees in Panama and receive all sorts of benefits such as access to inexpensive health insurance, 25 percent off international airfare, 50 percent off entertainment. Mr. Schmitt offers a Retirement Association Packet for $30 that includes forms and instructions to apply for pensionado status, information about health insurance, property-ownership, and much more. "The next time I’m in the States," he tells me, "I’m going to make a list of prices of household items and compile a comparison chart based on percentages."

"Good idea, Mr. Schmitt," I say.

George and Marilyn Mobley are renting for now while they apply for pensionado status and decide whether they want to build or buy.

"Are you here for good?" I ask.

"We’re here," George says carefully, "long-term. We’re checking it out, getting to know it, seeing if we fit. So far, it looks great."

Resources

www.retirepanama.com

www.cometoboquete.com

www.escapeartist.com/panama/Boquete.html

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