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Home Retirement/Living

I’d Been So Long Warned Away That, Finally, I Just Had To Visit…

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
May 31, 2009
in Retirement/Living
0
The city of Colon, in Panama, should be one your list of visits if you are planning to come.
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Colon And Portobelo, Panama

As long as I’ve been spending time in Panama, people have been telling me to avoid the place and, if I must visit, to watch out.

How could I resist such an un-endorsement? I’ve wanted to see Colon for years.

Yesterday morning, therefore, with two bodyguards (my husband Lief and my Marketing Manager Harry) along for protection against whatever we might encounter, we made a day of it.

Colon town is what South Beach, Miami, might look like in the wake of a great disaster. Once upon a time, this place may have held great appeal. Avenida Central travels alongside a series of central plazas and parks, with monuments and statues, ending at a malecon and the sea. On either side are interesting three- and four-story buildings, some colonial, most barely habitable, and all wildly painted.

“I like the pink and yellow building,” remarked Jackson as we passed.

I don’t have any trouble romanticizing potential when I see it, and this strip through the center of Colon has potential. Right now, it’s utterly abandoned…except that thousands of people are living here.

However, one block off the central thoroughfare in any direction, things get worse fast. Buildings are burned out, tumbling down.

Some are beginning to speak of development in and around this town. It’s an ambitious notion…

Meantime, here’s a reason to make the trip to Colon Province: El Caballo Loco, Restaurante Frances.

I thought it was a joke when I first noticed the hand-painted wooden sign along the side of the road. We were on our way to Portobello. I’ll tell you about the best French restaurant in Panama in a minute…first, Portobelo.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, this tiny port town was as important and as known worldwide as, say, London or New York City today. During the heyday of the Spanish colonizers, and the battles they fought with the British and the pirates, Portobello was home to the primary counting house for the treasure being gathered throughout the New World…and the launch point for its journey back to Spain. It’s estimated that, at the time, one-third of the world’s gold and silver passed through Portobello’s customs house.

Today it’s hard to imagine a poorer place (except maybe Colon town a little ways down the coast). But great effort is being made to preserve the customs house, standing impressively just outside the remains of the fort the Spanish built and rebuilt and rebuilt to try to protect their key shipping route. Seven times was Portobello attacked.

In between battles, Portobello hosted annual trade fairs that were the biggest in the world at the time and attended by tens of thousands who filled the inns to overflowing and camped out in the streets and the plaza…and offshore on their sailing vessels.

Pay the US$1 admission fee to go inside the small museum and watch the video. You’ll wonder how you managed to get this far in life without knowing a little about what went on in this spot 400 and 500 years ago.

Then, for lunch, travel the dirt road farther in the direction of Isla Grande. Pull in to the right where you see the “crazy horse” head painted on the wooden sign. Take the footbridge across the creek and find a seat in the open-air dining room.

Yes, the menu is French, down to the pate a la maison and the pomme de terre gratinee.

The proprietors are French, too. From the island of Reunion. This wandering French family has been in Panama for a dozen years.

“This makes me think of Paris,” remarked young Jackson, enjoying his steak au poivre.

For dessert, we all had crepes au chocolat.

We considered, when we’d finished our two-hour meal, just hanging around until dinnertime…

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: 'living in panama'
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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