Lief and I spent last week on the ground at Los Islotes, the Pacific beachfront community we’re developing on Panama’s western Azuero coast. I wish I could say we were walking the beach, hiking the hills, and enjoying the views at sunset…
Alas, we were in construction and planning meetings, reviewing and inspecting progress with roads, drainage, and underground utilities.
Oh, the romantic life of the property developer.
Meantime, Lief leaves tomorrow for three weeks on the road, including an extended visit to Santo Domingo where he’ll host this month’s Live and Invest in the Dominican Republic Conference.
I’ll join Lief in the DR for a few days of property scouting and appointments with our attorney and other contacts in that country.
Today, though, May Day, Lief, our son Jackson, and I are all home, altogether, enjoying a collective day of rest.
What will we do with an entirely free afternoon?
We’re looking forward to a long walk along Panama City’s Cinta Costera to soak up the glorious sunshine and convivial atmosphere of this pedestrian-only stretch of parkland, gardens, fountains, and benches that separates this city and its bay. The Panamanians have worked in stages over the past decade to create this impressively landscaped green space that has remade the center of their city.
Sundays the Cinta Costera is crowded with city-dwellers like us putting the area to good use. After a week of fighting Panama City traffic, it’s nice to leave the car in the garage and enjoy the best of this city close-up from the vantage point of the seat of a bicycle, a skateboard (if you’re my 16-year-old son), or your own two feet.
When we took up full-time residence in Panama City nearly nine years ago, the options for occupying a Sunday afternoon were more limited. The Cinta Costera was just getting under way, and little else that qualified as Sunday afternoon-friendly existed back then.
There were no boutique shopping malls, cafés, or rooftop bars along Avenida Balboa, Panama City’s main drag, back then, for example.
Today we can enjoy a leisurely Sunday afternoon constitutional along the Cinta Costera, then head over to Avenida Balboa for a Happy Hour glass of prosecco alfresco at a terrace bar with a view of the Bay of Panama and the entrance to the Panama Canal. I like to count the ships waiting in line for their turn to transit. Some afternoons I’ve counted as many as 70 and more.
Reminds me where all the cash flow comes from to continue funding all the infrastructure and amenity improvements that this country continues to invest in so aggressively.
Living, investing, and doing business around the world as we have been for decades now… on the move so much of the time… that lifestyle sometimes catches up with us.
Sometimes it’s nice to hit the pause button. Treasured are the days when Lief, Jackson, and I can do that at once.
Days like today, when we three can sit back to breathe in the bougainvillea and feel the Panamanian sun on our faces, remind me what this living and investing overseas thing is really all about.
Happy Sunday.
Kathleen Peddicord
