Panama Vacation - Bocas del Toro

Morro Negrito and Boquete down, Bocas and Panama City to go.

I took an early morning bus from Boquete back to David on Monday morning.  Unfortunately there were no direct buses to Bocas because of the terrain (see the map for details).  I was the only gringo on the 5 hour bus ride from David to Bocas which left me to zone out with my music and watch the countryside slowly change from coffee plantations and higher altitude forests to beach shacks and palm trees.  When the ride ended taxi drivers yelled and herded everyone on the bus to get the fare to the port.

Bocas del Toro generally refers to a group of 9 islands, with 'Bocas Town' being located on the largest island named Colón.  Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón en Español) discovered them in the early 1500s while trying to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean.  The archipelago was later used by pirates because of its many natural harbors and lack of nearby Spanish colonization.  In the late 1800s the banana industry started to grow and United Fruit Company (now part of Chiquita) built much of the infrastructure that exists on the islands today.  Many immigrants came from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands to work on the plantations and their culture has survived throughout the years.  So there's your little history lesson about the area and why its different from the rest of Panama.

After a half hour boat ride to Isla Colón I definitely felt like I was in a different country.  I decided to walk from the marina toward my hostel despite the heat - I wanted to get a feel for the town.  I heard a few people speaking English with an almost Jamaican accent.  The buildings were brightly colored but obviously very old.  There were a lot of small food stands and souvenir trinket shops along the main streets.  A lot of people rode bicycles but most were on foot.  The island was small enough to get around without much need for a car (and taxis were really cheap when you got lazy).

I had been warned by a few people in Boquete that Mondo Taitu, the hostel I selected a few days before, wasn't that great.  It seemed to be one of the centers of activity and a friend had stayed there, so I wasn't deterred (and I'm glad I stayed there in the end).  I opted for one of the air conditioned rooms and I'm guessing the backpackers that gave me bad press couldn't afford the extra cost (jumping from $10 to $12 per night for A/C luxury).  The main reason I picked it was because one of the most popular bars on the island was in the hostel.  That made it likely that it would get noisy at night, but I was willing to take the risk.

I went to the front desk to check in and I got a weird look from the guy at the front desk.

"I know you.  Where are you from?"
"Atlanta."
"You play soccer."
"Yeah, I play at the Georgia Tech rec fields a lot."
"No, in the ADASL."
"Yeah..."
"I played against you on the AMG Silverbacks for a few years, my name is Jacques."

Trippy, he totally blew my mind.  After he said his name I remembered him and recognized his face.  Jacques was a top goal scorer for his team and I used to defend him for a few years when I was with the Pelicans.  He told me that he graduated from Emory and had been living in Bocas for close to a year.

I got settled in my room and had another small world experience.  First, there was an Aussie couple from Geelong.  That wasn't too weird.  Then I met a group of American girls from the Peace Corps that had been working in Guatemala for the past two years.  They were on a whirlwind tour through the rest of Central America before heading home.  One was from New Jersey, another from Iowa and two from the LA metro area.  One of those two was from Orange County.  And her parents owned a Thai restaurant.  That I went to when I first moved to California.  Bocas was turning into an episode of "This Is Your Life."

Endangered species

It was after noon and I only had until the end of the day plus another full day before I headed back to Panama City.  Although there were a few good breaks at the islands, surfing was out because the swell forecast was flat for the next few days.  I asked around at the hostel and it looked like Red Frog Beach would be a good place to spend the afternoon.  I took a short water taxi ride to Isla Bastimentos and through my Spanglish and his Englañol I understood that he would hang out on the island and wait for me (otherwise I would be stuck since it was barely inhabited).

On the path to the beach my driver hopped off the trail and started poking around tree trunks.  He waved me over and we saw this strawberry poison-dart frog.  It was about the size of my thumbprint and wouldn't hold still for more than a second. When I got to the beach I had it all to myself. There was a hotel with a few people about 500 yards away but that was it. I took the camera in the water and didn't see much (except for what I got on this video):



I saw a sloth in a mangrove tree on the way back to Bocas town but I couldn't get a good shot of it with my camera. It really just looked like a ball of hair through the leaves and branches.  I went out with the Aussies for dinner at Bambu and drinks later at that night at the hostel bar in what ended up being very low key.  The next day the three of us rented bicycles and rode from the hostel to another empty beach called Playa Bluff.  Sea turtles nest here at certain times of the year but I couldn't tell that any had been there.  I did a bit more snorkeling and hung out in the shallows.  Here are the best shots (story continued below):

The Aussies didn't go out that night so I met up with the Peace Corps crew.  The Mondo Taitu bar was dead so we went to La Iguana, another bar on the island.  The dance music they were blasting wasn't really my thing but their back deck was a dock that you could hang your legs off of (or jump off I guess).  The Bocas del Toro baseball team won their Panamanian league semifinal and the locals were going nuts in the bar.

Bocas Town from the plane

I had an early flight so I didn't push it too hard.  The girls, by coincidence, were also going to Panama City (by bus) and didn't know where they were staying.  I suggested the hostel I had looked into and we agreed to meet up when we got there.  I recommend taking the $60-80 flight rather than the $15 bus ride... that lasts 8 hours.

There were a lot of things I didn't get to do in Bocas.  There were plenty of other beaches, some decent dive spots (according to the girls), you could take a tour of a native/traditional village on one of the other islands, and if the surf had been nice that would've been fun.

The next morning I went to the airport... there were kids walking across the runway on their way to school.  I got on the plane (with no assigned seats) and chose the one right behind the cockpit.  There was no flight attendant, no safety speech, no greeting from the captain even.  They just hopped in, started the propellers on the plane and we were off.  Next stop - Panama City.