House-hunting in Panama City

Ever wondered what the view looks like from a 67th floor apartment?  This is one such view, looking to the right off the balcony:

Or what the view looking straight down to the road below looks like?

Well I got to see this and dream of living there, but having fallen in love with the apartment the landlord decided he didn't like the contract my organisation uses.  I cried myself to sleep that night, exhausted and stressed from fitting days of house-hunting around a full-time job (and it turns out somewhat of a poisoned chalice left to me by my predecessor) and wondering what on earth I was doing here.  Didn't help that the rains have started, and won't stop for another eight months so everything is dull and grey.

Knowing where to live is difficult.  I've already described the area around the office in my first post - but it does have its attractions.  A colleague told me about the armadilloes that sometimes come into his garden, and I wavered.  But this is a tropical climate and with a job that involves so much travel I really don't want to face the task of turning a jungle back into a garden every time I return from a trip.  Not to mention the safety concern of living at ground level as there have been a number of break-ins this year in that area.  I've not heard of armadilloes climbing up to apartment balconies, so if I can't be in a house there doesn't seem to be much of an advantage to living there.  Except for the proximity to the office.  I tried out the trip from town to the office in Monday evening's rush-hour - 1 hour and 45 minutes door to door.  Although I know my life has moved on I do find it hard to forget the easy five minute walk I had in Dakar.

A single female colleague has tried hard to convince me that if I live near work I condemn myself to a life of boredom; she is succeeding although I know she has a vested interest in getting me to live downtown - near her.  In many ways it is a lifestyle choice.  Am I still young enough, energetic enough, to want to live downtown amongst the skyscrapers, shops and nightlife of a big city?  Or have I become middle-aged, the type who would be happier living quietly in the leafy suburbs?  If I'm honest I'm not sure of the answer, but I tell myself I have to make the most of living in this city and so have to be where the action is.  & the decision was helped by the fact that there are currently no vacant apartments in the area around the office.

So I've been visiting one apartment after another, mostly along Avenida Balboa where the majority of the residential skyscrapers are.  The lower ones are dusty and noisy from the six-lane highway below, but the higher ones are quieter, some with amazing views.  Most have swimming pools (although not necessarily big enough to swim in) and gyms, a couple even had a 'games room' with a pool table and table-tennis table for residents.  But the nicer ones - newer, with modern kitchens and bathrooms - are all so small and I've been lying awake at night wondering where on earth I am going to store all my books, CDs, photo albums, African masks...

However I have to live somewhere, I've seen just about all of the apartments that are available and have no further time available to wait for others to come onto the market.  So a decision had to be made and a contract was signed on Friday.  On 1 June I will move into a 40th floor apartment on Avenida Balboa.  It's in the same building as the one I had fallen for, and so you can just make out its swimming pool right at the bottom of the picture above, and it has a gym although it's not well equipped.  I'm hoping that once the landlord has removed his pictures, rugs and other personal stuff it will start to look rather more spacious.  If only he had the same taste in furniture as the landlord of the 67th floor apartment but I guess I will eventually get used to the hard black cubist settee and the artificial stone cladding on the walls.  I certainly will have plenty of time looking at them as it seems the best way to manage the awful journey to work will be to avoid it two days a week by working from home.

I hope this doesn't all sound too negative.  I know that many in London (and elsewhere) have small apartments and long journeys to work in the rain, of course.  It's just been a tough week - and I admit that I got very spoilt with my comfortable life in Senegal.