Bocas del Toro

We'd heard many good things about Bocas del Toro, a wee group of islands on the Caribbean coast of Panama, so we made it our first stop in Panama. We'd made it as far as the dock in Changuinola, then it was time for the water taxi to Isla Colón.

It took us about an hour on the water, and it was a lovely ride. All of the water was like a mirror reflecting the gorgeous vegetation on either side.


We saw lots of birds, locals who live and/or work along the water, lots of little baby Dexters, some dogs who weren't happy with us passing so closely to their territory, and some dogs who couldn't care less. We looked out for manatee noses but didn't manage to see any; that's a good thing since the boat mostly sped through the water.

When we arrived in Bocas del Toro (the biggest town in the islands, named the same as the group of islands), we were struck by all the tourists, hostels, and cafes. I soon realised it reminded me of Belize's Caye Caulker but bigger and with paved roads. We'd read in our guidebook that there would be a religious festival happening the next day, so we'd booked our hostel room in advance just in case. The place we'd booked appealed to us because it was billed as 100% bocatoreño; when so many businesses are owned/operated by foreigners, we appreciate the chance to give our business to locals (and hopefully learn more about local culture that way). We were happy to find the place a wee bit away from the main drag, right on the water, very chilled, and very peaceful. Right outside our room door, we could see big, fat starfish and various fish coming and going among the hotel stilts. The owner spoke very slow, lazy Caribbean English and never seemed to leave her chair on the porch.

That first night we just chilled, as everyone does on the island.


We figured that the next day we could look into tours to see manatees and the other islands. It turned out that it's not the right time of year to see manatees (sorry, Tom), and we coud only find snorkel-oriented tours of the islands. We enjoy snorkelling, but we've already done loads of it during our travels. There was one really appealing-looking Catamaran tour of the islands, but it involved fishing – not our thing. We seemed to be too late for volunteering to help with turtle conservation, and we didn't see any sort of festival activities happening. No matter, we just chilled again. It was really, really hot during the day so we weren't even inspired to go to the beach.

The next day we'd intended to wake up early and go to a local beach with lots of starfish, but the extremely lazy mood of the island enouraged us to sleep late instead. Doesn't take much! We chilled that morning, then got the water taxi back to Changuinola. Bocas del Toro is a lovely part of Panama, but at this time it doesn't have anything for us that we haven't already experienced in Central America. Time for more adventurous stuff!