Day 6—Exploring Coronado and the Westland Mall

I finally got up before sunrise.  It was lovely.  I snapped a few pictures of the sunrise.  We are facing South because of the way Panama curves, so from our condo, we will never get those spectacular sunrises or sunsets you will get in Hawaii.  But the fact that I can open our front door and jump into a pool to cool off whenever I want is worth the trade-off.  We ate scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, took a morning swim, and then got showered. 

First, we decided to explore Coronado. Coronado is a wealthy expat community on the beach. (Gorgona is considered a sleepy fishing village).  I have been following a blog by an expat who retired to Panama.  She and her husband chose to buy a house in a Panamanian neighborhood.  Terry,  the writer,  often talks about how some expats prefer to wall themselves off from the people of Panama.  So far, I don’t see how they can do that.  While our condo has a gate, it is set alongside Panamanian homes.  And on the beach, all I have seen are Panamanians (we have seen other gringos, but they are few and far between, supposedly because this is the “low” season).  So I was puzzled…until we drove down toward the Coronado Beach area.  Immediately, it was as if we were in a different country.  Beautifully paved roads, perfect landscaping, everything looking very...well American.  Then we came to a gate with a guard.  As we were approaching the gate I said to Sean, “Do you remember what we are supposed to say at the gate?” (because we both remember reading something about this).  Sean shook his head and we drove up to the gate nervously.  Sean rolled down the window and prepared to say something about going to the beach.  The guard took one look at Sean “The King of the Gringos” and just waved us through.  No talking, just entry based on being white.  Wow, that was weird.  So we drove around these amazing, expensive, huge estates.  But here is the thing, the roads were horrible.  Like so horrible, we almost got stuck a couple of times. These were deeply pitted dirt roads, with huge rocks, and in some places, deep mud.  There were not many people around, only a few Panamanian’s working on the estates.  Even though you have to drive through a gate to get into the community, each house was also fully fenced in, often with barbed wire on top. It was sort of surreal. Now I understand what Terry was talking about when she referred to living in a gated community, cut off from the real Panama.  

I stole this picture of the mall from the internet.

After our little tour of Coronado we decided to explore the new Westland Mall. (Yeah, yeah, we will eventually get around to swimming under waterfalls in the jungle, but for now we need stuff for the kitchen…i.e. a good non-stick pan, a sharp knife, and a tub to wash dishes in). The landlord claimed the mall was only 20 minutes up the road, which turned out to be 45 minutes up the road, but it was worth the trip. This is a beautiful country, with lush green mountains that absolutely rival Kauai’s lush mountains, and (to be perfectly honest) it was nice riding in an air-conditioned car.  There is so much construction going on.  This country is growing fast.  As we approached the mall, we began to see tons of suburban housing tracks being built. 

This picture of the ground breaking for the Westland Mall, clearly shows the 'burb spread. 

It is an amazing sight, and while some might think that all these houses, that look exactly the same and are so close together, are sad, if you saw some of the living conditions in the city, you would be happy for the people that can make their lives better by moving a little ways outside of the city.   The Westland Mall (and suburban housing) are about 40 minutes outside of Panama. 

When we arrived, the parking lot was fairly empty.  The mall and about half the stores were open as it is still under construction.  It is a beautiful mall.  Clean, large, air conditioned.  This mall, compared to the Metro Mall that we saw our second day here, seems more “of the people.”  I have no idea what some of the stores are, but they are mixed in with Ralph Lauren, and Sketchers among many others.  We were ready for lunch,  so we headed for the food court.  Egads, every single American fast food restaurant was represented…Really, you name it, they had it.  There were also about five Panamanian fast food places.  Their take on fast food seems to be meat (fried or roasted chicken, steak, or fried fish) with either french fries, or rice& beans, and plantains. Emma wanted McDonalds, and I went for Taco Bell.  At this Taco Bell there were Fries!!!

Sean decided to go Panamanian, but couldn’t communicate with the server well enough, so he ended up with a dry, roasted quarter of a chicken, and some French fries.  I think the prices are slightly less expensive at all these fast food than places than in the the U.S. 

Since we were almost out of cash, we decided to find an ATM machine. We found one behind a glass door (with two very large, scary looking men in uniforms carrying AK 47’s standing in front).  We self-consciously went into the ATM booth and proceeded to fail at getting any money.  We tried the Debit card from checking, then tried the debit card from saving, and then we tried the MasterCard, still, the damn thing refused to spit out any money.  I could tell the guards were watching us surreptitiously.  It was really embarrassing, and then I got worried they would think we were trying to pull something, so I gave the universal, sheepish, “Aren’t we dumb gringos?” smile and shrug.  I guess it worked because they didn’t shoot. 

Finally we went into a store called Saks.  I would compare it to a Kmart.  There were many items of clothing and shoes for $1.00, $1.99, up to $5.99.  Some were just cheap stuff you might get at a dollar store, and some were seconds from the US.  We stuck to the house wares section where we found a small tub for the sink ($2.99) a decent 10” non-stick pan ($8.99) and a bright, lime green, Japanese ceramic, Santuko knife (30 year warranty)  for ($8.99).  Not bad. 

 Emma also insisted on sunglasses ($1.99) and nail polish ($.99).  I think it all was a bargain.

We drove home, and took yet another swim. I had marinated steak in some garlic, lime juice, salt, and  olive oil for two days, but alas the grill still was not fixed, so we had to pan fried the steaks.  I also made some yucca and garlic (turned out perfectly), avocado (the size of a baby’s head), and sweet, ripe, fried plantains.  It was an amazing dinner.

My first attempt at cooking yucca--basically parboil, then fry in garlic oil.  

The steak was really tender and flavorful.

We went for a quick swim after dinner, in the dark, under the stars.

Vida es muy bien en Panama!