Panama City is about 91km (56mi) from where we are staying right now. The trip took us about 90 minutes to get into the city. Robert drove there instead of doing what we normally do, which is to hire a driver. This was done for numerous reasons, including the fact that we figured traffic would lighter and the office was not too far into the city.
The traffic seemed surprisingly "light" going into the city and the building was relatively easy to find despite not really having an address. When I asked about where the office was, I was told what street the office is at and what it looked like. Thank goodness for a good GPS app on our phone! We got there a little early which was nice as we got to relax for a bit while waiting in line.
See the picture below? The wall the right is the ramp to the first floor of a parking garage. This line extended onto the second floor of the garage. Amazingly enough, we were in the building within 45 minutes. During our wait we saw multiple cars driving into the parking garage. A simple honk clears the way from people who stand by the parked buses to stand in the shade.
Once we were in the building we waited roughly 15 minutes before our number was posted on the screen indicating it was time to take our pictures for our temporary visa. We can now legally stay in the country without having to leave every month and will be receiving our permanent visas in the coming months when everything is finalized through the government.
The lawyer's assistant asked us to make some copies of our documents for her in order for her to finish the process. In order to do that we needed to go outside and make copies. There are a few Panamanians that have small booths, or simple work out of the back of vans, that bring along copy machines to ease the demand of all of the immigrants needing to make copies of passports, visas, etc. Copies were $0.15 each.
After the copies were done we gave the lawyer's assistant our passports and the copies we were asked to make. The Panamanian government requires that we give our passports to them for a given amount of time. We will have our passports available to us in two business days. I am not exactly sure what is done with them, but this is something that everyone who moves down here goes through. Every expat I have talked to has described how naked you feel with leaving your passport with somebody. I am not sure anyone can prepare for that feeling, but I know understand.
The drive back was less stressful compared to coming into the city. All of the traffic is from people coming into the city. Rush hour traffic was over and we were going the opposite direction. As you can see, traffic is nice and light!
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| Centennial Bridge |
The picture below is a view of part of the Canal. There are no big cargo ships going through.
Tonight will probably consist of us networking with people in the area at a local restaurant and then tomorrow we will be looking at houses. We are looking to live in or near where we are currently staying. Prices in this area tend to be a bit more expensive, but I am also certain Robert and I can manage living in a casita (which is a small one or two bedroom house) since we rarely used the spare bedroom while we lived in Arizona. Things really seem to be coming together right now as our visa application is now more or less out of our hands. Once we are able to find a place to live, even just to rent temporarily, this crazy place might start feeling like home.
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