After the sale of our house on March 28th, we needed extra time to get our things in order before making our move to Panamá. We stayed an Airbnb for a month. During that time, we sold both our cars and secured a rental that we could drive down to Florida to visit my brothers. After 5 fantastic days in Fort Pierce and Lake Park, we were off.
Early on Sunday April 27 we left my brother’s house and drove to Miami International Airport where we caught our Copa flight to Tocumen which was fairly uneventful other than the challenge of trying to get all of Nancy’s luggage through the airport and then again out of Tocumen to the taxi. Needless to say, she was not (and generally never) traveling light. I thought the handle on her large suitcase would never survive the trip – I was mistaken about that, but another one of her suitcases lost a wheel which made thigs REALLY challenging. We checked into the Executive Hotel which is now our go to place when we’re in Panamá City.
The next day we went to see our lawyer Marcos Kraemer where we left our passports and temporary residency cards to get sent back to immigration. We followed them to immigration about an hour and a half later (immigration was just as charming as we remembered it to be) and three hours after that we walked out with our passports back in our pockets and our brand-new permanent residency cards in our wallets. It felt like quite an accomplishment after all the effort spent getting fingerprinted, getting FBI background checks, gathering paperwork, and spending a day in immigration back in December. Time for a cerveza or two.
Before leaving for the western part of Panama, we also started the process of getting a Panamanian drivers license, which I will get into more detail in another post.
Saludos, Craig