For those who don't know who LIO is, their website says:
Live and Invest Overseas showcases the best opportunities for international living, investing, and retiring overseas.
Basically, Live and Invest Overseas (LIO) is similar to International Living.
I am assuming, if you are here, you've most likely run across International Living in your search for information on living in Panama.
In fact, LIO's founder, Kathleen Peddicord, used to be with International Living.
I hold a soft spot in my heart for International Living.
Although, I think International Living is too often over-the-top and salesy, it started us thinking about moving to Panama. Something I am very happy we did.
While Live and Invest Oversea's can be a bit over the top too, it seems that they save most of their hyperbole for their sales pages and not their actual publications. Although, I have to admit I have never subscribed to International Living's paid publications.
Back in January, David Sexton and Denis Foynes, managing editors of Live and Invest Oversea's Panama Letter, came to Puerto Armuelles.
Their goal was to convey to the readers of the Panama Letter what Puerto Armuelles was like and if it was a good place to live and invest.
David and Denis are wonderful guys. David is from the DC area, as is my husband Reyn. Denis is from Ireland.
Reyn took them surfing in the morning. They are not really surfers, but they gave it a shot.
Reyn showed them the town and introduced them to all the folks he ran into. We wanted to give them a flavor of the people, ex-pat and natives, who lived here.
I really enjoyed when they came and had brunch with us. We invited our friend Frank, who is from Germany, and his family, to join us.
We talked about a zillion different things. I enjoyed hearing about how much they liked Panama. This was their first time to Puerto Armuelles.
So far they said they liked the feel of the town and the beaches very much.
My daughter 11 year old Skylar made a good impression on them.
I mentioned that Skylar had been hounding me about how she could earn money. She really wants an ipod touch. (The family rule is kids have to pay for their own electronic devises.)
Coincidently, I had recently run across International Living offer to pay for articles. She wanted money. I wanted her to improve her writing. It seemed a great combo.
When David and Denis heard this, they said she could write something for us. Which she has done.
Skylar was and is thrilled.
Her blurb appears in the recent Panama Letter. It is on being an expat kid in Panama.
David and Denis also included an interview with my husband, Reyn, in Live and Invest Oversea's The Panama Letter.
You can read the Panama Letter via Live & Invest Oversea's website, click here to go there.
We also interviewed one of the co-founders of Live & Invest Oversea's Lief Simon. We asked him his experience and thoughts on living in Panama.
Click here to hear our interview with Lief Simon
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Hi, this is Betsy at LivingInPanama.org. I was on the Puerto Armuelles Yahoo group the other day and found some great aerial photos of our town in Panama, Puerto Armuelles. The gentleman who took the photos graciously gave me permission to make a video using them, which you are seeing right now. The photos were taken from a two-person trike, like this one right here.
This is Norm. He's the person who took these photos, and he came down from Arizona to give a flying lesson to Paul. You can see Paul, or a little bit of Paul, sitting in front of Norm as they're taking off. You know Paul. He lives in David, or it could be in Boquete. I can't quite remember. I only see him when he's down here in Puerto Armuelles. He comes down here from time to time to fly his various aircraft at the airstrip.
Here they are going up in the air, gliding along the coastline right around Puerto Armuelles. What is unusual, you wouldn't think so in a country like Panama with so many coastlines, but it is really quite unusual to have a town right on the coast here in Panama.
Here you can see part of the town, the hills of Punta Burica in the background there. Here's a really nice bird's eye view of Puerto Armuelles. Here's the old Chiquita Banana pier. You can see it right there. It just comes right out of the downtown area. This is downtown.
There's Carmen neighborhood and beyond it San Vicente and, of course, the hills of Punta Burica there in the background. He must have turned north, because this is the neighborhood of Rio Mar in the northeastern part of town. You can see the ball field that Chiquita West uses.
You should know, in Panama, including Puerto Armuelles, they take baseball very seriously. There are actually quite a few baseball stadiums here in Puerto.
Here we are heading back over downtown Puerto Armuelles. This is the downtown area in the foreground and the bigger buildings. This is the waterfront park, and there's another park right across the street from it, and over here is the playground, which they just recently renovated, so it's looking pretty nice. You can see again that this is the banana pier, Carmen and San Vicente in the background, and there's the airfield here and other neighborhoods, like right here is Las Palmas, and that's where I am right now in my house making this recording.
Here they came in for a closer view along the waterfront. That's the waterfront park I was telling you about. Here's a little place that we often go have laquatos, sort of smoothies. This is the bus station right there, and if you continue along, you can go to a sports bar called Tisa Mar, which is, as the name implies, a very nice place to watch sporting events on TV. It also has great views on either side here. Sometimes from this area you can see the volcano, Baru, the one that's between Volcan and Boquete from here.
Now they're coming back toward the airstrip, and this is the neighborhood of Carmen. If you were on the ground, you would see that there are colorful row houses up on stilts. It's right along the ocean on this side, and on the other side of it is the great, big open space that people use for myriad of uses right along the airstrip.
Here you are approaching the airfield, and we see the old Chiquita Banana warehouses here. These are the hills, not on Punta Burica, but right outside of Puerto right beyond there. I believe this is the warehouse that a friend of ours, Rex, makes sports boats out of.
Here's the first approach of the runway for a visual check. A visual check is a very important thing as you're coming in to this runway because one never knows, there could be horses or bicyclists. Lots of people exercise here or a soccer game or baseball game, and there's even a 9-hole golf course that's played in the area around and including the airfield. You can see an old banana pier downtown. It's just out of site there.
Now they're going down into the final approach on the trike, and now we have touchdown. Here the firemen, bombeiros, from the firehouse right here are coming. There are a number of firehouses. This is the one right next to the air strip. They came out to check out this pretty cool deal. Both my husband, Ren, and I really want to go up on, so we're going to try contact Paul to make sure that can happen.
If you want to learn how to fly a trike, give Norm a shout at iflytrikes.com. If you want to find out about living in Panama, Puerto Armuelles, or real estate listings here, please visit us at LivingInPanama.org. Thanks for watching.
To find out more about Puerto Armuelles, start here.
This Affordable Lot May Be What You Are Looking For.
We are happy to answer your questions about this and other real estate in Panama.
You can also find out about how to safely buy Panama real estate, by clicking here.
February 16, 2013
A Magical Morning Of KayakingI was so happy Robin invited me to go kayaking on Saturday.
It was a beautiful day.
We started at Robin and Diana's house in the Cucuy neighborhood of Puerto Armuelles, Panama
Robin has an old shipping container filled with his sporting gear. It is crowded with kayaks for every occasion.
We took out two of his single sea kayaks and walked them to the beach.
It was a short walk.
There must have been a sardine run. I have never seen so many Pelicans in one place.
I wasn't able to take a photo of the "islands" of pelicans on the ocean. It is hard to juggle a camera while kayaking in the Ocean. It is too bad, Pelicans are my favorite bird.
I did get a shot of Pelicans roosting in a tree by the river (see below).
The ocean portion of our paddle was short.
We soon turned and entered the river mouth of Rio Palo Blanco. (I have a map showing the location of the river in the photos at the bottom of the page)
The transition from the ocean to the river was tricky. It had been awhile since I had kayaked.
It is embarrassing to admit, I capsized. Thankfully, it happened in shallow water and I easily recovered.
The river crosses the highway not far outside of Puerto Armuelles. We didn't make it all the way to the highway. The water level is too low this time of year.
The light and the peace and quiet on the river was magical. There were so many different kinds of shore birds to exclaim over and discuss. Some of what we saw are in the photos below.
I came back resolved to buy myself a sea kayak of some sort so I can enjoy these outings more often. If only I could get my kids excited about it too.
I returned to my house just 3 hours after I left.
It was hard to believe. It felt like I had visited another world.
Robin writes about a much more recent kayaking adventure in Boca Chica Panama here
Jordan Gives His Perspective In The Video Below
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In the video, Jordan describes "what he likes about Puerto Armuelles"
Monthly Living Expenses Of A $300 A Month.
All around, Jordan say that he enjoys working and living in Puerto Armuelles
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Robin organized the trip.
A couple he knows, Annie & Danny, own a finca (farm/ranch) in the hills behind Puerto Armuelles. They live on the ranch some of the year, but live in town during the school year. They have caretakers and other workers take care of the ranch during the school year.
We gathered at Annie and Danny's house in San Vicente, where they also have a horse stable. From there we rode down the street a short way to the beach.
Then we veerred onto a wooded trail, for another short jaunt.
We headed up the river, up and down paths, we crossed streams a few times. Heading up and to the west/northwest.
I'd been that way on horseback before, but not for awhile.
Before we knew it we had arrived at Annie's finca. I think it only took us about an hour to get there, maybe less.
Already, I knew I would be sore the next day. I don't do much horseback riding these days.
A snack and then a hike.
The first hill was the steepest. We lost a couple of people who had expected to do a hike. It was a pretty steep hill to do in Converse All-stars.
After that, althougth we keept going up and up, it wasn't quite as steep. We went through cow pastures and enjoyed the views.
It was even better when we went as high as we could. .
This Photo Shows Only A Section Of Our ViewWe could even see Puerto Armuelles. We could pick out our friend Liz and Ron's house in Las palmas neighborhood.
We headed back down after drinking in the sight.
At the farm house we ate lunch and were asked if we wanted to milk a cow.
Como no. Why not!
I had never milked one before. It is much harder than it looks. I barely got out a stream.
But Annie could make the milk bucket sing with the streaming jets of milk.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSMK9ecoN70[/youtube]
Then came by daughter's favorite part of the trip.
She really wanted to gallop. Her, my, and Robin's horse obliged.
We had a blast. When we could we encouraged our steeds to go as fast as they could.
We had streams to cross, a few patches of mud and varying terrain. So were always able to go a speed, but when we could we did.
It really was very fun. My daughter was thrilled.
The gallop down the beach was particularly wonderful.
Next time, I think we will organize a trip with more time on the beach.
For more on Puerto Armuelles Panama, click here.
January 23, 2013
Activity Is Bubbling in Puerto Armuelles, Despite Its Relaxed Lifestyle
He was primarily interested in looking at beach properties, or something within easy walk of the beach.
While we focused our investigations on the beachfront neighborhoods, I drove him through a number of other neighborhoods, so that he could get a better idea of the whole range of lifestyle possibilities available in Puerto Armuelles in order to understand a little better what makes this unique town “click”.
It’s always fun to watch people’s jaws drop when they discover that this place, which they had heard so little about, is actually a bustling (for Panama) urban village of 20,000 or so residents.
It’s situated right on the ocean, has a cohesive downtown, and boasts literally dozens of unique neighborhoods, each with its own social class, style, and housing density. These range from smallish downtown houses, right up to hacienda style ranches at the fringes of town.
When our tour arrived at the beach, I realized that in the short time since my last tour, there were already more new developments.
This was just in the beach neighborhoods to the north of Puerto Armuelles. Specifically, between the Corazon de Jesus and the Cucuy neighborhoods; a ten minute walk down the beach apart.
The quality of these projects was quite high. By far the most exhilarating construction to date in Puerto is in its final finish phase in the Coronado neighborhood. Don and his wife Sandy are putting the finishing touches on a huge volume, barrel-vaulted beach house that truly inspires the visitor. I won’t even try to describe it here. I’ll go back with my camera and get some photos to post.
Tsunami Inn Has A Great Location On The Water In PuertoAlso, at long last, there are nice places for folks to stay overnight when they are checking out Puerto Armuelles.
The Hotel Tsunami Inn is finishing the first of their second phase of construction. They are adding four new brightly painted guest cabanas to the existing three built last year. Folks who stay at Tsunami Inn especially appreciate the great location right off the beach, and the pool only steps outside the private cabanas (Be careful not to fall in, before you’ve had your morning coffee).
For more about the Tsunami Inn, visit this post.
The owners of the Tsunami Inn, Bob and Scott, continue to host a casual get together for horse shoes by the pool every Sunday afternoon.
Plus, they recently inaugurated a pickup softball game every Thursday afernoon at 3:30.
I missed the first game, but I heard that Tsunami Inn provided all the baseball gloves, bats, and balls, and that twenty folks showed up for the very first game. I will definitely be there this coming Thursday to join in the fun.
We Have A Growing List Of Places To Stay In Puerto Armuelles
Our list has expanded to include more than hotels.
Our list includes
If you have questions, ask them below or on our contact us page.
Click here to learn what to do while you are in Puerto Armuelles, go here for activities.
January 11, 2013
This "Welcome To Puerto Armuelles" Sign Is By Coco's Place (a hotel)No matter how much you search the Internet.
Only 1 of the 3 hotels has a website.
Lack of information is why I get so many emails and calls from people trying to find a place to stay in Puerto Armuelles.
To help us all, I have gathered the contact info for all the hotels.
Personally I like to see what a plaee looks like before I fork over money to stay there.
For those who feel the same, I will post photos of the hotels without websites. Reyn took photos of Coco's Place already.
As I have mentioned before, I will post information on other accommodations and rentals in Puerto Armuelles as well.
For instance, there is a very good bed and breakfast in town. There are also a number of short term and long term rental options.
It is taking an amazingly long time to gather information on all the rentals. Therefore, I will be posting information on these as I get them.
Full information is very hard to get in Panama - even on rentals in your own town!
We always recommend that you rent before you buy.
