The View From Up Here

After only a week of searching Eric and I found our new home. It is a two bedroom, two bathroom, two balcony apartment with a pool on the roof! Lucky us! It is kind of noisy – we live above a main avenue - but we have managed to drown out the noise through sun bathing and swimming in the pool.

We are living in an area called Bella Vista on Via España. Bella Vista sits between El Cangrejo and Calidonia – it is almost like living in between two worlds. Cangrejo has a lot of North Americans and students - it has bars, restaurants, and a young/busy vibe. Calidonia is much more…gritty. The buildings are more run down, not many stores – many look closed down, there are “projects” and the streets just feel empty. I think that it is a happy medium – we are close to the action and are close to “the people”. We can take a cab to a cool restaurant or get some criollo food a few blocks away for $2.50 (a full plate – no joke!).

We have an amazing view of the city from our back balcony, including the view of the ships waiting to cross the canal. And we have a great view of the skyline (which actually resembles Manhattan). The odd thing is that the skyline is eerily dark at night. The culprit is all of the empty apartment buildings. As the story goes (and people here love to tell this story), Colombian cartel members come to Panama to launder their drug money through real estate. They invest in large apartment buildings/condos, to legitimize their dirty money, but many let the work drag out or just leave the buildings unfinished. One of the first things that you notice when you arrive in Panama City is that there is construction everywhere! There is a new condo being built on every block. The skyline during the day is impressive – which apparently is one of the reasons that the government allows for these corrupt investments (the other being that they don’t mind pocketing some of the money themselves – or so we are told). At night, the skyline changes – it is dark and empty looking.

So that’s that. Here we stay, in our little Bella Vista home. You are all welcomed to visit and check out the view (but not at the same time, in fact, January is booking up…but we are free in March) – we have a bedroom and a pool towel waiting for you.