Great First Choice!!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

We are now 4 days into our stay in Boquete and it feels like we've been here so much longer!! That's a very good thing!! We feel so at home and comfortable here!! And, accomplished so much already. It's a BIG WOW!!!

Yesterday we woke to fierce rain that had hammered us all night along with high winds. It seems that where we are staying gets higher winds than down in town. That's because we're up about 500' above town and its micro climate gets these from the way the wind swirls around the mountains.

But it was a-ok with us since we needed to spend the morning regrouping and taking care of some lingering items. We needed to go through all the items we collected our first couple of days and discuss what we really wanted to do and how we were going to accomplish it all while here.

At 1pm we loaded into our hosts truck and off we went to David to spend the afternoon.  We were dropped off at a shopping area that had several large stores. We first went into Novey, which is a large hardware store, then over to a huge Do It Center.  We found prices to be the same or up to half the price we would pay for named brand items in the States. Great news!!

We then hooked back up with our hosts to go to their dentist's office.  Jim was in the process of finishing up his implant (which only cost $1,400 vs. $3,000+ per tooth in the States).  Upon walking into the office, they asked Mike and I if we had any dental needs.  We told them we would like to have our teeth cleaned. No Problem!!  They quoted us $45 each and whisked me away.

Frank was my hygienist along with his assistant and they proceeded to take very good care of me and then Mike - WITHOUT an appointment!!  While there, we inquired about Porcelain Veneers. My daughter was quoted $10,000 for 4 teeth. We were told it was $700/tooth for the most expensive porcelain veneers !!! I then proceeded to email our daughter as to when she was coming to visit us! LOL

When was all said and done, Jim got his appointment done, Mike and I each got our teeth cleaned and Lesia had a new temporary crown put on her tooth - also without an appointment. We walked out of there after 2.5 hours.  We were VERY impressed!!

To celebrate, we all went to a terrific Chinese restaurant that was a terrific value. Dinner for 3 with beer and wine for only $32!!!  Gotta love it!!

And, today was no slouch!

After spending a leisure morning doing more due diligence including cancelling our health insurance - yup, you heard me correctly, we set off to town for our much needed massages!!

We had gotten information on Isla Verde (Mark is from Australia but has been here for 8 yrs.) and he has years of pain management experience.  Since leaving Colville, we have missed my dear friend, Linda, who is also a fabulous pain management massage specialist. Miss you Linda!! But, I do believe we've found a good alternative since Linda's not with us.

Mike and I had our massages at the same time.  I had Mark and Mike had Dari. We were both extremely pleased and vowed to have another before we leave this beautiful part of the world!!  Our shoulders and lower backs are in much better condition than they were this morning.

From there, we decided to just walk the neighborhoods of town. Oh, what a pleasure!! We definitely know that if we decide to live here it will have to be in the lower town valley so that we have better walkability.

Along the way, we met another expat, Ted, with his beautiful 7 month old boxer, Toro. He stopped when passing us on the street to ask if we needed help. Our conversation lasted at least a half hour and we made friends with Toro, as well.  Ted was a wealth of information and only too willing to answer our questions.

Our next stop was back at the Bistro for happy hour where this time, a beer was $.50 and my glass of wine was $1.50!!!  We ran into a couple of expats that we had met on Tuesday at the Market and while sitting on the balcony, a horn honked below us (they love their horns here!) and low and behold, it was our massage therapist - Mark - waving at us!!  We felt like we belonged!

Upon our leaving the bar, we met up with a couple more expats, Gary and Larry, from the States and ended up staying another hour talking and talking and talking!!  Listening to their stories as to how they decided to move to Panama and ultimately, Boquete, is validating and fabulous!

What's amazing to us is that no one has told us we should just stop looking and stay.  They all have embraced our process of discovery but have said they look forward to our being a part of their community when we decide to move here.  The energy and warmth is incredible!!

Tomorrow we are off early to go Bird Watching along with other expats for a couple of hours. A great way to meet others and get to know the area better! 

Ahhhh, we are happy to be on this journey!