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VIA ARGENTINA

Hate to travel but miss the culinary goodies and ambiance from foreign destinations? Dig out a beret, some wooden shoes, chopsticks, and a DVD of Zorba the Greek and hit Via Argentina. Oh yeah, and practice your southern U.S.A. accent! This journey is worth taking, and considerably less expensive than boarding a plane to anywhere.

Begin at BLOCKBUSTER’S on Via Espana where you can snatch the Zorba fiic from their extensive classic DVD inventory, the best I’ve seen anywhere. Dance your way the few steps on Via Argentina to LIBRERIA ARGOSY, the eclectic book shop owned by Gerasinlos Kanelopulos. (No relative, truth be told I possess not one single drop of Greek blood!) This 83-years-young gentleman is fascinating to talk with. He fell in love with the works of Gertrude Stein when he was a seventeen year old in Greece, then traveled to New York and began collecting signed photographs of literary and artistic people. For the last 37 years in Panama, Gerasimos has operated his bookstore complete with wall space decorated by treasured memorabilia, and shelves stuffed with more books in English than exist elsewhere in The City. In the past, famous authors such as Graham Greene have dropped by, so you never know with whom you’ll be rubbing elbows. A book lover’s paradise made for browsing, when you can tear your eyes off the walls!

Next stop down Argentina Way might be THE ROCKIN’ GORILLA, brainchild of southerner Chad Brooks. His “everything” establishment boasts excellent barbeque, 24 hour pool room, karaoke nights, sports T.V., live bands, and the occasional expat party. He’s open for lunch and dinner. Look for the thatched roof hosting the guitar wielding hairy ape.

Keep moving until you arrive at PETIT PARIS, French bakery and coffee shop supreme. On my first visit I thought I’d died and gone to Paris! This place is the real deal with French owner, manager, pastry chef, and bakery chef. Look for petit fours, quiches, pies, pound cakes, croissants, baguettes, salads, and all manner of mouth watering treats including a climate controlled room of homemade and guilt-free dark chocolate, all containing healthy 75% cacao. Be still, my heart! Everything is made from scratch on the premises, so needless to say they do a brisk business.

Walk a bit further and cross the street to FRUTERIA MIMI’S, Chinese owned and famous for the huge selection of hard to find fruits and veggies, including Haas avocadoes if you get lucky. There are specialties such as pickled ginger in plastic tubs (my mouth waters as I write this) and just about anything else one covets between supermarket trips.

Reverse your flow and head in the opposite direction until you see CHEESE CHEESE. Proprietor, Luc Desrosiers, opened around the same time as PETIT PARIS, neither establishment aware of the other’s business intentions. Well, destiny had to have intervened on this one as French bread demands imported cheese, and Luc brings in everything your palate craves from international sources including limburger! He also has endless varieties of authentic sausages along with his own pates, roast beef, pork, veal, and even tabouleh. The shop is a visual treat for the eyes, artistically and aesthetically appointed in all nooks and crannies. There’s a beautiful conversation area with couch and coffee table as well as outdoor tables for those who can’t wait to gnaw into their purchases. Or transport your picnic across the street to the inviting little park with benches under shady trees. Book passage on this journey and... HAPPY SHOPPING!

Bellisimo! Italy and Panama’s treaty

By: Steven Rich, Marketing Manager for Panama Offshore Legal Services
www.pos-inc.com / (507) 227 - 6645

Saluti ("Hello" in Italian) is a word we may hear more often on the streets with all these new direct flights arriving from Europe to Panama. While there are no direct flights from Italy to Panama, many Italians will be on board from flights originating in Amsterdam, Paris, and London.

One reason is that Italians can visit Panama as tourists for 90 days by just showing their passports. Panamanians enjoy the same privileges when visiting Italy as tourists. The main reason is that Panama has a unique friendship and a Bilateral Cooperation Treaty with Italy.

Since 1966, Italian citizens enjoy exclusive permanent residency in Panama allowing Italians and their dependents to reside and work here indefinitely.

Panamanians enjoy the same privileges in Italy! A citizen of Panama can reside and work in Italy indefinitely as well.

Upon approval of an Italian’s application, immigration issues an Indefinite Residence Permit. This Treaty does not allow citizenship, only permanent residency with work permits.

Dependants are included. This includes the spouse, dependant parents of the nucleus family, children under legal age, and single students under the age of 25.

This unique indefinite residency visa is similar to a Pensionado Visa, but with fewer requirements processed much faster.

Qualification for this indefinite residency is solely based upon Italian citizenship and (since a law passed in 2003) a minimum income of $500 per month (that is Dollars not Euros) and an additional $75 income per month for each dependant. A typically large Italian family of eight can live and work in Panama by proving a monthly income of only $1,025. The same rules apply for a Panamanian family wishing to reside and work in Italy!

The procedures for applying for this unique residency are:

• Immigration application form
• Two visits to immigration here
• Two passport sized photos
• Original passport valid for at least 6 months (with photocopy) returned immediately upon registration of it
• Certificate of good health issued by a licensed doctor in Panama
• Clean Italian police report record; and
• Proof of economic solvency (monthly income of $500 + $75 per dependent)

All documents presented to immigration officials must be original, official (issued directly by respective company or agency), updated (not more than 6 months old), and authenticated (notarized and authenticated by nearest Panama consulate or by Apostil). Official translation from Italian to Spanish is also required of all documents by an official certified translator in Panama.

The law firm handling the immigration application will provide a Power of Attorney authorizing the law firm to act on behalf of the applicant, an immigration personal back-ground sworn declaration, and a letter of responsibility signed by the applicant taking responsibility for his/her dependents.

A Multi Entry & Exit Permit applied for allowing entrance and exiting Panama as a permanent resident rather than as a tourist.

With a strong Euro over the Dollar, wealthy Italians may take advantage of the low real estate prices, low rents, low wages, and the canal to start businesses here and make other invest-ments.

Italian shoes, clothing, jewelry, chocolate, espresso machines, biscottis, and bellismo Italian men and women may soon adorn the streets of Panama.

I solve the mystery of Volcanos
fabled magnetic hill

It was three years ago when a local realtor introduced me to Volcan’s most enduring and fascinating mystery – its mag-netic hill. The realtor drove to the spot just east of town on the Cerro Punta road. As we drove down a sharp incline she stopped the car, turned the engine off and very much to my surprise the car started to roll backwards - uphill. I watched the speedometer climb to nearly 20 kilometers an hour.

Pulling his leg
I have showed this phenomena to several visiting friends. One man, an ex-engineer from Vancouver Canada, was skeptical at first. Colin Barrington has had a knee replacement and he could feel the magnetic hill pulling on the metal joint in his knee."I can definitely feel my leg being pulled." He exclaimed excitedly. Mr. Barrington’s ex-perience is not unique, many other visitors to this idyllic part of Panama have also had their legs pulled.

Along came a herd
of bulls.

The Volcan Triangle?
A new phenomena in the area is people reporting epi-sodes of time loss. I spoke to two local people about such an incident. 57-year-old, Wilbur Gomez, was driving up the magnetic hill some weeks ago when according to him there was a period of about four hours that he couldn’t account for. On the same day, his 18-year-old, neighbor, Dolores Goodbody also had a similar period of time loss. Mr. Gomez’s wife feels sure that aliens abducted them. When asked about this Senor Gomez said. "Uh, um, yes, yes, I suppose that could be the reason." Miraculously no harm came to either person, and as mysteriously as they vanished, they both reappeared outside the entrance to a local push button, the Noches De Amor.

Archeologists have long suspected that there is some-thing buried deep underground near the Magnetic Hill. Strange odors waft across the mist-shrouded volcanic soil at night. Oscar Mendoza, a retired proctologist, who lives nearby refutes all such claims. "Idiots, that’s’ just the fumes from the garbage dump," he said.

Mysterious lights
One local man reported that as he was leaving a bar late one night a stranger stepped on his fingers. The pain caused him to raise his head so sharply that it struck the underneath of a barstool. He recalls seeing stars and bright swirling lights. Local tour guides frequently take visitors for a ride on the magnetic hill. "People are being taken for a ride here all the time," he said.

This week I went with local historian Ivan Flores to see if we could make sense of this enduring enigma. We disembarked from the car near the bus stop that marks the start of the hill. A small group of bulls sidled up to us inquisitively. Then one of them did – what bears do all the time in the woods – right on top of my boots. I turned to Ivan and said. "Oh dear this whole hill is covered in . . ." Ivan cut in quickly and said. "Yes David, that’s exactly what it is."

Alan Barnes of Rio Mar Surf Camp

Portrait of a passionate surfer

By: Andrew O’ Reilly

The sky is still black at 5:30 in the morning as Alan Barnes leaves his room at Rio Mar Surf camp near San Carlos and crosses the campgrounds where his fellow surfers doze in hammocks strung around the camp.

Barnes grabs his longboard and walks the stretch of sand that separates the camp from the Pacific. He checks the waves and then paddles out for his ritual early morning surf session.

This is Barnes’ favorite time to surf; the line-up is empty, the only sounds are the crash of the waves and the singing of birds in the nearby forest. It’s the one time of the day that he can truly be at peace.

He does not need to worry about the camp or his job as a tugboat captain of 18 years on the Canal or his new political career as a candidate for the local diputado.

"Surfing is my soul. It puts me back to my roots and humbles my spirit," Barnes said. His passion for surfing has bled into everything Barnes does; from the creation of the camp in 1997, to his support of young, local surfers and his ideas in the political realm.

The camp is a different world from the concrete jungle of Panama City, which is only a 50 minute car ride away. A collection of vivid, orange cabins surround a thatched roof common area that has hammocks lining each of its sides.

The camp also features Panama’s first skate/swimming pool, a half-pipe, kitchen and board rental. The design of the camp is a mixture of ideas from surf camps Barnes has visited around the world and the local architecture of the Panamanian interior, he said.

Along with hosting guests from Panama and other foreign countries such as the Unite States and New Zealand, the camp functions as the stomping ground for young, local surfers. Barnes has become a mentor to many local youths and he stresses that a need for education is more important than a need for a good wave.

"The only reason I have this place is because I worked my butt off," said the graduate of the California Maritime Academy, " I come from a working class family, I used to come to Rio Mar with a bottle of water, a loaf of bread and I would sleep in the caves to get up early and surf."

The kitchen and main house at
Rio Mar Surf Camp.

Most of the young people in the area will end up working dead-end, odd jobs if they don’t get an education. Discipline is something they lack and they need to be pushed to succeed, he said.

"I want them to succeed, both in surfing and in life, for themselves," Barnes added.

Barnes holds parties for the local surfers, where he’ll have a barbeque and even give surfboards away for free to young surfers who can’t afford them."I hold a New Years party, with food, drinks and free boards.

It’s become a tradition," he said. Helping the community is just one of the things that Barnes hopes to do if he is elected as a deputy. His main goal is nature preservation and bringing a higher- level ecological con-science to Panama.

The problem Barnes faces while running on the Cambio Democractico ticket is his bluntness."I’m an honest and direct person. People say I’m too pushy but the people that know me know that I’m only trying to help," Barnes said.

An idyllic surf scene.

He says that he tries to tone himself down when he’s doing his political work but at the camp, even on only a few hours sleep every night, Barnes has the energy of a teenager at a rock concert. His passion for everything he does, especially surfing, seems to bubble over when he is at the camp surrounded by his friends.

Sitting at the surf camp late at night, enjoying a cold Balboa, laughing with his friends and knowing that he’ll be up early to surf his home break, seems to be the perfect escape for Barnes.

"You come here and it’s like it recharges all of your energy," Barnes said, "Now I just need to keep my horizons wide open."

For more information on the Rio Mar Surf Camp, call 507-6516-5031 or visit www.riomarsurf.com