Bocas del Toro

Upon coming to Panama, I was for sure that we would be living in the valley full time. I didn't expect to be able to travel around Panama, but I'm so thankful that we actually get vacation days to relax, shower, and see other parts of the country.

My first vacation was to Bocas del Toro - it is a region in Panama Northwest of Panama City with its western edge on the boarder of Costa Rica. It is comprised of many islands that are accessible only by boat.

Bocas is on the left and Panama City is on the right.

Bocas Islands. We stayed in Bocas Town in Colon Island.

From the left, the crew was Ian, Emily, Kylie, Amber, Me, and Alex.

We decided to leave late Thursday night since the trip to Bocas takes about 8-10 hours. Taking a midnight train is the best way because you can sleep on the bus and arrive there in the morning with the whole day ahead of you. Boy were we wrong - we got to the train station around 10pm and what do you know? There is no bus to Bocas at midnight. Great! Thankfully Ian knows Spanish and spoke with a lady who told him that we can take a bus at midnight to David (a town between here and Bocas - takes about 6 hours) and then catch a bus from there to Bocas (another 4 hours). The bus ride to David was a huge charter bus where we sat on the second story and froze our ass off due to the air conditioning. And then the bus to Bocas was a tiny van that crammed about 20 people into it, so you're basically sitting on top of each other. But alas, we got there!! And what a beautiful place it is!

Some boat terminals where you get off the bus and have to take a water taxi to Isla Colon. 

Some giant cargo ships to bring in supplies to and from Panama.

The architecture in Bocas Town was pretty run down - but it was beautiful for what it was. The hotel we stayed in was one of the oldest on the island. The picture above isn't the hotel, however. But it was an abandoned building on a side street. You can see the Spanish influences on most of the buildings with porticoes and colonnades that mimic the plantations of the south.

We did a boat tour where we went to 4 different locations. The first was Dolphin Bay where we saw dolphins swimming around us. Then we went to another island to go snorkeling - My first time snorkeling! The picture above is of the hut where we docked afterwards to eat lunch and hang out. There was a plank walk to the bathrooms with no railings - pretty sure it would be illegal in the US, but it was a really cool place.

The third stop was to Red Frog Beach - it's called that because there are Red Dart Frogs on the island. We sadly didn't see any, but we saw crabs and lots of ants. This stop was awesome because we dock on one side and walk through this national park rainforest across the island. When you reach the other side, you come out to a white sand beach with waves large enough to surf but can't because they break too close to the surface.

The picture above was the last stop. It's called Hospital Point - and we went snorkeling for the second time. The coral reef was beautiful and you could see the drop off where the reef's ended. The weather was beautiful and it was so much fun.

I had to take a picture of this food cart. It was on the main strip of Bocas Town. We didn't get food here, but I thought it was quintessential!