Live, Retire, Do Business, And Invest In Panama
Three-and-a-half centuries ago, Spanish conquistadors in Panama threw their prisoners into dungeons that were part of the sea wall of the Spanish fort in Casco Viejo. It is said that, at high tide, the prisoners often drowned.
We didn’t let this rather grim history get in the way of our enjoying the venue we’d chosen for the final evening of this week’s Live & Invest in Panama Conference. Our 150 conference-goers wandered from the vaulted stone rooms of the former jailhouse-turned-restaurant out onto the Plaza Francia that now fronts it. Next-door today is the National Institute of Culture (where our son’s school puts on its annual Christmas pageant), and across the square is the French Embassy.
All around are swaying palm trees and, beyond them, last night, the Bay of Panama twinkling in the light of a full moon.
After two-and-a-half days in the meeting rooms of the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, our group ventured outside to soak up the charm of a typical tropical evening in Panama. I half-expected to see Graham Greene or Ernest Hemingway, both of whom spent time in this historic corner of Panama City, cross the square in front of us at any moment…
The members of our conference group are off now to see more of Panama for themselves. Some are traveling to the Azuero Sunset Coast to visit Los Islotes…some are driving, others flying inland to Boquete…others are staying on a few more days in Panama City to meet with banker, attorney, real estate, and other contacts they made at this week’s conference, to open bank accounts, to set up corporations, to shop for condos to rent or buy…
Meantime, our Live and Invest Overseas staff, following a whirlwind week, is enjoying a well-deserved day of rest. I’m off now to join them.
More tomorrow…
Kathleen Peddicord
