Bocas Del Toro (January 26th to February 2nd)

Friday, Jaunary 26th

When I was making breakfast this morning, a Capuchin monkey came into the open air dining area. He jumped out of a tree and onto the railing a few feet from me. The people at the hostel said it’s the same monkey that comes in all the time, while his friends and family stay in the trees. There were probably a dozen of them jumping through the trees. Jeff missed the monkey show because he was still in the dorm room repacking his bag.

We moved a few hours down the road today to the islands of Bocas Del Toro. We rode three hours on the bus, then half an hour on a water taxi boat to the main island, Isla Colon. We have a reservation for three nights at Selina Hostel. We are a little scared because it has a reputation for being a loud party hostel. It’s in the same chain of hostels as the loud party hostel we saw in Playa Venao. This place has something like 200 beds. We chose it because it was easy to reserve online. It has some of the cheaper dorm beds available, and also has waterfront. You can swim off the back deck. We requested to be in a room as far from the bar and music as possible. After three days we will move to another island for two days, then one more island for two days. After a week we leave Panama for Costa Rica.

View of the hostel in the cloud forest as we were walking away

Our route today

Shanty town on water outside of Almirante, where we got on the water taxi to Bocas del Toro

More shanties

When we got off the water taxi we went out to lunch at the first place that we saw, Cafe Del Mar. It was a place I had read was good and had vegan options. Jeff got a veggie burrito and I got a veggie panini on homemade coconut bread. The food was good, but the portions were small and fancy looking, and we had to pay gringo prices. The water on the island is apparently treated, but it’s not trusted to be drinkable, so we are kind of scared to be here. We don’t want to get sick again. Because of our fear of getting sick, any eating out we do will likely be at gringo places, to hopefully ensure good hygiene standards.

Food at Cafe del Mar

Check in at Selina wasn’t until 3. We waited on the second floor in the open air kitchen that overlooks the street. The kitchen is kind of grungy and there’s food all over the place that people have either left behind and don’t want any more or they are just idiot pigs and expect the food to be there waiting for them.

We were put in a 12 bed dorm on the ground level only a few doors down from the bar, but the girl in reception swore that was far from the bar. I wanted to ask to be switched right away, but we decided to see how it goes. The walls are heavy concrete and the bunks are also made of concrete, so we thought maybe they might muffle the sound well. The building is 3 floors. The bar is on the ground floor, on the back deck overlooking the water. Ideally we would’ve liked to be on the top floor street side, that would be as far from the bar as possible. We wondered if maybe the top floor was only private rooms. The private rooms here are quite expensive, $85. That seems like a little too much to ask for a room in a party hostel.

After check in we went out to have a walk around town, check out the grocery stores and buy a new lock (I left ours attached to the locker in El Valle, luckily with nothing in the locker). The grocery stores here have a lot of gringo items available and some other fun things like authentic Thai curry paste!

For dinner, we had some free cereal from the hostel kitchen with free soy milk from the hostel fridge along with a free banana also from the hostel. It was an economical and delicious meal. We love cereal.

For our evening entertainment we went out to Cine Café. It’s a movie theater that plays whatever movie you choose from the collection. They have both old and new movies, and hundreds (if not more) to choose from. You reserve a time, then get your own private room full of bean bags for watching a movie! They also serve food and have drinks as well. We had popcorn, wine and pear juice. We watched The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio because some person on our sailboat ride raved about it and couldn’t believe so many of us on the boat hadn’t seen it. It was a pretty cheesy movie. We didnt really understand why it was liked so much by the people on our boat!

The cinema with 4 tiny theater rooms inside each filled with beanbags

After the movie we went to the local rotisserie chicken place for an order of patacones. They are sold at  2 for 25¢, so you must order a specific number of them. We chose 16, because that’s $2 worth and also seems like it would be about 2 plantains worth. It was a great price for a mountain of delicious plantains.

patacones covered in Maggi ketchup!

Back at the hostel we tried to go to sleep, but a bunch of hooligans kept coming in and out of the room over and over and leaving the door open. The open door allowed the bar noise to come in, and whenever they were in the room, they were really noisy, talking loudly and making all sorts of strange and loud noises. It was a group of at least 3 hooligans, two of which were especially obnoxious bros types who sounded Australian and at least one girl. Jeff asked them many times to close the door and be quiet, but they seemed to already be somewhat incoherent. I was able to kind of tune them out, but then Jeff pointed out to me that they seemed to be doing cocaine. I started listening and it did seem they were indeed up to no good! They kept loudly voicing their concerns that they couldn’t find the rest of their cocaine! One of the bros left the room and we think that the other bro and a ho bag girl had sex. The disturbances continued for about an hour until I convinced Jeff to go ask if we could change rooms. The hooligans were confronted, the manager and security were notified, and we got moved to a private room with private bathroom on the third floor, street side! We don’t know what became of the hooligans, but we don’t care now. We’re thankful for them, we now have this nice room for 3 nights and only paid for the dorm!


Saturday January 27th


I am accustomed to having hostels kitchens to myself early in the morning. I was going to make oatmeal or hot cereal and tea, but when we got to the kitchen we immediately understood why it had appeared so grungy yesterday. It’s because of the hooligans that trash it, and the cleaning ladies can barely keep up! There were dirty dishes everywhere, and trash and leftover food. The sink was overflowing. It was disgusting. I felt bad for the lady who had to clean it up, and I didn’t want to get in her way, so we had more free cold cereal and got the heck out of there.

We actually have a view from our rooms window!

Gross, messy kitchen.

View from the back deck.

We wanted to go biking around the island today, and a search on TripAdvisor revealed that there are electric fat tire bikes available for rent. The company that rents them and the activity itself comes very highly rated, so we decided it was worth the extra cost to try the electric bikes! The cost was $40 each for a full day. The owner gave us a map and a recommended route for seeing the whole island and the attractions along the way. The bikes are really heavy, so without the electric, they are pretty hard to pedal. You can turn on different levels of electric power assist, depending on how much you want to pedal or not. We chose to keep the electric assist on level one most of the time, because we like bicycling. For hills you can turn it up as high as 5, and there’s even an acceleration lever to accelerate to max power when in any power level! It’s was quite fun!

We first set out to Boca Del Drago beach, 15 km away on the northwest side of the island via paved road. We rode through a combination of jungle and cow pasture. The northwest side of the island is protected, so there aren’t waves and it’s a good area for swimming. When we reached the end of the road, we parked the bikes against a palm tree, locked them, and took a walk. After walking 15 minutes on a trail along a very narrow stretch of beach, we reached Starfish Beach, a place where you can see lots of giant starfish in the water! We took turns swimming here and ate a snack of grapefruits (from the lost and found jungle), lulos (that we found in the forest in Boquete) and some peanuts and cashews.

There were lots of signs saying not to touch the starfish, but people do anyway. Some idiots even like to cluster them all in one spot for a great photo opportunity. Here’s a review I read on TripAdvisor:

Idiot tourists!  We see a lot!

A cute tiny palm tree that has broken loose and is probably soon to die.

Jeff swimming around looking for starfish

They were really big starfish, bigger than my feet!

Fun artwork on the beach huts. Dont pee in the water!  Hurts starfish!

This hut was abandoned at the time, but there were many others like it selling food and drinks

Lots of boats here from people on day trips and also boats that came from where the road ends, for the lazy people that can´t walk the 15 to 20 minutes further.

Starfish at starfish beach

Back on the bikes, we returned down the paved road. On the way we saw a sloth and a lone howler monkey dining on leaves. When we got almost back to town we turned left at a t intersection and went up a dirt road the leads to the Northeastern side of the island. We passed a popular surfing spot called Playa Punch and stopped to watch for a while. We continued on to an area known as Playa Bluff, and eventually the end of the road. This part of the island is less developed, with a lot of land for sale to develop. Currently it’s a really pretty jungle road with just a few fancy b&bs and restaurants. I’m sure in a few years all the land will be sold off and developed.

Jeff looking cool on his ebike! Haha!  Big battery behind seatpost

Most of the cows down here are strange bony looking ones

Sloth in the tree at the top left of photo

Howler monkey near the top right of photo. He is hanging upside down from his tail eating leaves!

Bamboo tunnel along the road

A big building partially made out of plastic bottles on the road to Boca del Drago

Sometimes the road was right next to the ocean

A beautiful place to ride bikes. It´s a shame that some many of the beach front palms are eroding away.  

Surfer to the left at Playa Punch

Surfer to the right, at Playa Punch

The road used to go further, but now it´s private. It´s owned by an ATV tour company. The ATV tour is the #1 rated Tripadvisor activity in all of Bocas del Toro. It is really expensive though!

A lovely quiet section of road, where lots are for sale.  Jeff is on his bike talking to a horse in the shadows!

We hadn’t had lunch, and were feeling zapped from the sun, so we stopped at a restaurant called Island Plantation. They are the only one in the area that’s right on the beach. They specialize in pizza, but they had smoothies too, so we decided to get smoothies and save our appetites for falafels back in town. They were gringo smoothies in a 16 oz mason jar mug for $4.50, and VERY sugary! The location was very nice though. Playa Bluff has ferocious waves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen angrier looking waves! The waves are constantly coming in, one on top of the other, breaking with explosive force, shooting water 30 feet into the air and froth up onto the sand. The water must get deep quick. Standing ankle deep in the surf, you can’t help but feel scared. If you fell over you’d get sucked out and beat up. It’s definitely not a swimming beach!

Look at those waves! They´re crazy!

On the way back we got to ride on the sand right on the beach. It wouldn’t have been possible on a normal bike because the sand was soft and even with the fat tires, we kept sinking into it, but the electric motor helped us power through. It was really fun! When we got back on the road, we saw a white faced capuchin monkey in the trees! The white faced monkeys are definitely my favorite, so cute.

So much fun riding on the beach!

I´ve never seen such violent waves!

After 7 hours out, and 45 kilometers of riding, we turned the bikes back in. On our way back to the hostel we were lured into the Bocas Brewery for happy hour. At 2/$7, that’s still gringo prices, but it’s artisanal beer and they had IPA that Jeff wanted to try. I got a porter, my second beer of the whole trip. The bar was neat to see, the back of it extends out over the water on a series of interconnected walkways. There’s even a old boat that’s part of the bar. We imagined what it must be like here late at night with the temptation of swimming when everyone is supremely intoxicated and sweating from dancing.

View of Selina hostel from the water

Back deck at the Barco Hundido Bar

The beer helped us to ignore our hunger a short time longer, just long enough to go back to the hostel to take showers. The falafel place is only a few doors down from our hotel. We made it there just after 6 to find it was closed! Apparently they are only open 8 to 11 on Saturday nights!! We weren’t sure what to do at that point, because we’d like be ready to go to sleep by 8! We ended up buying veggie fried rice, patacones and yucca from a lady with a food kiosk on her front porch. Unfortunately it came in two styrofoam take out boxes, but it was good food, and only cost $6. While we were out we also got a water refill. We found a restaurant across the street from the Central Park that refills gallons of water for 50¢.

Food for sale on this lady´s front porch. She´s making a fresh batch of patacones!

A really nice room for us!

I was tempted to go to the fried chicken place for another big plate of patacones, but instead we got some groceries. I bought ingredients for a curry soup I plan to make tomorrow, a bar of local barely processed chocolate, some coconut bread, bananas and a ripe plantain. I microwaved the plantain in the hostel kitchen, and we ate the plantain along with bananas, chocolate and coconut bread. After all that we were finally full! The coconut bread doesn’t taste very much like coconut, but it is slightly sweet. The bread comes in roll/bun shape and is very dense. You can buy individual rolls cheaply near the checkout area of all the grocery stores. Usually there are an abundance of traditional bakeries in the towns we visit for buying bread and all sorts of pastries, but we haven’t seen any here. Each grocery store is pretty small, some are kind of like a convenience stores, and they are all family owned, no chains here.


Sunday January 28th

We spent most of our day in the hostel today. Since moving out of the dorm, it really doesn’t feel like a hostel. There are three floors with lots of private rooms and smaller dorms on the second and third floor. It feels more like a hotel, since it is so big. At most hostels you get a choice of how many beds are in the dorm, the fewer beds there are, the more it costs. The smallest dorms you will find have 4 beds, but most often 6 or 8 is the standard. Selina has 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 bed dorms. The hostel is right on the water and has a nice lower deck with access to the water. The water access was the reason we chose this hostel, so we figured we’d better take advantage of it.

We had a late breakfast/early lunch of curry soup that I made. Like most foods that I make, it was inspired by the free foods in the kitchen. I found a can of corn, a green bell pepper, a head of broccoli, an almost full can of coconut milk, an almost full fancy glass jar of tomato sauce and two jars of locally made hot sauce. I decided to use these things to make a curry soup. I thought soup would be nice because I could boil it real good and kill of any potentially harmful microbes that could be lurking in the water or veggies or the unhygienic kitchen. From the grocery store I bought a carrot, lime, garlic, ginger, onion, green plantain, ñame (true Caribbean yam) and an otoe (malanga, like taro). I had curry powder and mustard in my spice pantry that finished off the ingredients list. It came out really delicious. I really love yams (they were very potato like), plantains and taro.

A malanga root on the left and two caribbean ñame (yams) on the right. The yams have a strachy white flesh inside.

Jeff always finds a furry friend everywhere we go.  The cats always jump on him!

Soup came out really good! Every time I see the photo, I long to eat it again!

We took sun on the back deck and went swimming in the water. I brought my goggles in to see if there was anything interesting to see, but the water clarity was really bad. The water is also probably polluted in this area from so many boats/water taxis constantly coming and going. There is a floating raft just off the main deck and a net hammock that hangs over the water. There were a pair of thong butts on the deck that had everyone’s attention. At one point, one of the girls was on the raft posing for a photo shoot while the other girl was on the main deck acting as photographer. They tried to capture a photo of the girl diving in to the water. She got caught up in the moment and dove in with her sunglasses on and lost them! Our goggles were enlisted to search for them. Both girls tried and failed to find them. The water is deep, about 10 feet, cloudy, and there is a strong current. But not to worry, a young man joined the search and found them on the first try. He bobbed up out of the water wearing the sunglasses like a real cool guy. He was rewarded with a recently opened beer, that had been bought for the girl by an admirer! Haha!! The girls were Argentinians, there seem to be a ton of them staying here. During all of this we listened to classic rap favorites, such as Eminem and Nelly’s “Country Grammar!” Haha!

We waited all day for the falafel place to open at 5 pm. We even got there a few minutes early, and there were already 3 tables full of people! They had a basic menu of falafel plates, falafel wraps and a few options for wraps and plates with meat. They had a problem with the making of the bread for the wraps, so our waited ended up being there almost an hour, and in the end they could only supply us with one wrap. The falafel plates cost $2 more, but they gave us one for the same price as the wrap. The food was really good, but they are rated #1 on TripAdvisor for dining on this island, and it didn’t seem like it was that good!

This is the falafel restaurant, a concrete pavilion with a food trailer for a kitchen!

Falafel wrap and plate

Third floor hallway at Selina hostel

Monday January 29th
We moved out of our hotel room today and took a water taxi to Isla Bastimentos. The new place we are staying offers a free boat ride at 10 AM, so we took it. The ride from the main island was short, only about 10 minutes. We docked on the South side of the island and had to walk along a sandy path through the forest to the North side of the island. The trail cuts across the narrowest stretch of the island, so it was only about a 10 minute walk. We are traveling light as we left the food bag in the storage room at Selina. It was all non-perishable dry goods. There is no kitchen at the new property. We are staying at Palmar Beach Lodge, which is located on Red Frog Beach. The beach is very hyped up as a tourism destination. Many people take day trips from the main island just to see this beach. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting though. Apparently we are in a time of the year in which the tides are high. They are so high that the beach is all eroded and there’s practically nothing left. The waves crash right into the hotel property and the trees that line the beach. To walk along the “beach,” you have to walk in the surf and up and over lots of the logs and leaning down trees. The waves are of the explosive variety, so you really can’t swim here. It’s quite strange. I don’t understand the point of hanging out at a beach that’s no good for swimming.

A view of Bocas town (on Isla Colon) as we rode away.

Our lodge has a scavenger hunt we will try to complete

restaurant menu side 1

restaurant menu side 2

Promotional photo, it looks nothing like this right now!

This is what it really looks like, the beach is eroded away and usually goes much farther out.

Doesn´t look very inviting

Not too safe for swimming either.

The trail to reach the lodge from the dock on the other side of the island

Trail lined with sprouted coconuts they placed in order that have become tiny palm trees!

Lots of people take day trips here, I bet they are disappointed when they arrive! Here are all of the people lounging in the bushes!

People making the most of their time at Red Frog beach.

It sure looks nice if you frame the photo just right!

Palmar Beach Lodge used to be called Palmar Tent Lodge, because they specialize in fancy tent camping, A.K.A glamping. The tents are really popular and get booked well in advance, so there were none available when we made our reservations last week. We are in a dorm. It’s a really nicely designed 8 bed dorm, and we like it better than the tents.

Nice wooden dorm room with a really nice little staircase to reach the top bunch

Bathrooms

Our dorm

One of the tents, sleeps 2

A neat shower with a plant inside! The showers are rain water fed.

Since the beach wasn’t what we were expecting, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We arrived too late to try and do a tour. We considered taking a hike to Old Bank, the largest settlement on the island, but the front desk said it wasn’t safe. The trail goes via Wizard Beach and people get robbed sometimes on the trail. The only people that get away with using the trail are surfers carrying nothing but their board. We considered walking the other direction to some beaches on the eastern end of the island, but the tide was especially high and difficult to get anywhere at the time. We ended up taking a water taxi to Old Bank. The cost was $5 per person each way, so $20 round trip. That was kind of a bummer. Once we got there, we walked to the highest point of the island to a cacao, coconut and banana farm called Up in the Hill. The walk up was disgustingly hot until we hit the forest, but it was an interesting walk on narrow sidewalks through a local “neighborhood.” There is a cafe and gift shop at the top where we enjoyed a cold coconut milk, a cacao drink, homemade kombucha and some vegan chocolate truffles. We were going to have a veggie burger, but they didn’t have them! We also got a turmeric golden milk and some natural coconut oil bug repellent. It was a pleasant place to take a rest. There wasn’t much of a view though. They offer tours of their farm each day at 11 AM. We didn’t know that until we got there though. A tour would have been nice, but we’re definitely not taking another $20 boat ride. Before we left Jeff spotted a red frog by the bathroom. The red frog beach is named after them. It was a nice red frog with black spots, very cute, but poisonous.

On the way up and back down we passed a vegetarian and vegan restaurant called Coco Hill. It’s supposed to be very good, and we were looking forward to eating there, but it was closed for no apparent reason. Their signs said closed Tuesday and Wednesday, but today is Monday!

Old Bank town

The sidewalk going up the hill

Looking back down on the walk up the hill, a neat neighborhood with no cars

Cacao truffles, homemade kombucha and homemade coconut milk chocolate drink

Lots of fun drink options at Up In The Hill

Up In The Hill restaurant

Cool frog by the bathrooms.

When we made it back to sea level we felt we should do some more exploring around to make the most of our $20 in transportation costs since we decided we wouldnt come back, so we walked to the end of the road in both directions from the dock. The road is a cement path about as wide as a bike lane. There are no cars in this part of the island. There are a few hostels and restaurants, but it’s mostly just local homes. There were a ton of kids playing in the walkway. On the water side the houses are on stilts over the water. Looking underneath the houses, there was a lot of trash, probably a lot of it was plastic debris that washes up on shore, but I suspect the locals were also contributing to the problem. There seems to be poor sanitation. I can’t imagine what happens to the sewage. The thought of eating in a restaurant there made me ill. There were lots of dogs wandering around and chickens too. The village had a grungy look to it, and we were grateful to finish our walk and get the heck out of there.

Walking the road that parallels the water

We got back to our lodge feeling quite hungry. They have a full service restaurant with lots of healthy options and vegan/vegetarian options. It’s not terribly expensive either. We had coconut rice, beans, plantains and 3 different salads/veggies dishes on our plates. We also got a side of fries to share. The fry order was on the small side and cost almost as much as the rice and bean plates, but now we know. The fries came in one of those stupid cone baskets that have become so popular. We hate those things, they make it possible to turn French fries, a normally abundant side dish, into a small artsy portion. The main dish was really good though, we will likely order it again. It was 4 pm by the time we ate, so we decided we would just let that be our dinner.

Trash is removed from our lodge by the wheelbarrow full. This guy has to walk about 10 minutes to the dock where it gets taken away by boat. 

Not the prettiest picture, but the food was really good and well priced.  Coconut rice and salsas made it really good

My view while eating. They have these slack lines at every beach, so surfers can work on their balance.

We sat in the lounge chairs for a while after we ate, eventually got bored and took a walk. We went left out of the hotel onto the beach (West) and walked until we ran out of beach. The tide was a bit lower than it was when we arrived in the morning, but still not much of a beach, we had to climb over logs and fallen trees and the trunks of many still living trees that are growing almost horizontally. There are lots of coconut palm trees. We have been seeing coconut palms everywhere we go for the last few months, but the coconuts are generally inaccessible to us. I found a big one on the ground though! The kinds of coconuts you see in the store in the US are already missing a big layer of their shell, but when on the tree they are at least twice as big. Jeff threw it against a tree until it broke open a little and we drank the coconut water through a crack. There was so much water that it poured all over us. Eventually we got it all the way open and ate delicious soft young coconut meat. It was the best coconut we have ever eaten, soft and gelatinous, very different from the firm dry coconut we are used to. I left my phone in the locker during this walk, so I don’t have any pictures, but we intend to go on a longer walk tomorrow and find more coconuts! We stayed out until after sunset, then quickly retreated to the bug free zone of our dorm.


Tuesday January 30th

This morning the beach looked even worse than when we arrived yesterday. We’ve been wondering what the deal is. It seemed many locals had come out to ogle at the destruction.  The owners also watched in dismay as their property gets taken away. The section of beach directly in front of our lodge seems to be the worse off, with tons of down trees and a steep drop off where the waves crash. Jeff saw a local retired U.S. Marine guy out walking with his dog, so he asked him about it. The guy told us they are experiencing higher than normal tides due to a super moon, one of the most powerful full moons of the year. The beach has also been destroyed from repeated storms that keep coming through and have caused storm surges, making the tides come in further than they would if the beach was in normal shape. It was pretty depressing to watch. We saw chunks of sand break off into the water like a calving glacier, and there are several trees right on the edge that will likely go down in the next couple of days. We looked up the tide charts, and found there we are literally here for the worst of it. We had no way of knowing in advance though. 

They modified our breakfast to include veggies instead of eggs.

A depressing sight.

Our beachfront property.

It was raining all night lightly and still raining in the morning when we woke up. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a very nice day, but it eventually got hot and sunny. We decided to leave our depressing beach to hopefully find a better one. We discovered there is a dirt road leading into the jungle right next to our lodge. We took this road up to a trail leading to the Selina hostel. We went to check their menu, because they seem to always have good vegan options. It was similar to the menu at the main island Selina Hostel. They have vegan arepas that we have our eye on. We did not stop to eat though because we ate a late breakfast and were planning to skip lunch and have an early dinner.

A few more minutes walking past Selina, and we were on the other side of the island at a resort property being built by the red frog marina. There was a private dock with some fancy boats parked, a little mini market, a reception desk and a shower facility. There were lots of golf carts parked for marina guests to use during their stay. From the docks there was a network of roads leading to the “villas,” big fancy houses. Many of the roads and houses are still under construction. There are lots of vacant lots waiting to be sold and developed. I don’t know if they were meant to be timeshares, retirement homes, maybe rented by the night or what, but there were a lot of them. I would guess there will be a hundred of them by the time they finish the project. We walked on roads that didn’t yet exist on google maps. We got high enough up that we could see the ocean down below and several small islands offshore, one of which had a big for sale sign on it. We saw mostly construction workers and only a few people that looked like they might be staying/living there. It was really weird. A huge area of jungle has been cut down to develop this place.

Private marina, we weren´t allowed past this point, Jeff went a little anyway

A tangerine like fruit, but not a tangerine

Never seen this fruit before

The marina from the public dock

There is a sloth in the tree, top center. They are like cats and sleep 16 to 20 hours a day. We rarely see them moving.

Construction zone for the fancy neighborhood

View from the fancy houses

I really enjoy this plant, so symmetrical! It´s called a Travellers Palm. It´s related to Bird of Paradise and even flowers. I have never seen one with flowers though.

We eventually got back down to a sea level road that parallels the ocean. We were in search of Polo beach. We had very little information about how to get there though. Eventually we saw a group of several people from our lodge coming back down the road towards us. They were all muddy and said they’d walked a half hour further and found no beach. Most of them gave up and went back to the lodge. We retraced our steps a short way to a road leading down towards the coast. From there we were able to take a trail alongside the beach until we reached Polo Beach. It’s called Polo beach because a very animated old man names Polo lives there! He was so happy to see us and so welcoming. You can buy meals from him and also coconuts or coco loco (coconut filled with rum!). He had meat smoking on a BBQ that was being fueled by coconut husks, and he had rice. He usually has seafood. We opted for just the coconuts. He whacked them open quite easily with his machete! We bought 2 of them for $1 each. He rambled on the whole time we were there, but we couldn’t understand a thing he said. He spoke a little English, but a strange island English. He had us smiling the whole time though because you can tell he is so happy, and it’s contagious.

Rainbow eucalyptus, these are the only two we saw. We took this photo for the scavenger hunt.

Signs marking the entrance to Polo´s Beach

Walking down the path to Polo´s Beach

Polo leading us to his house

Polo opening up a coconut for us for $1

Me and my coconut on the Polo´s Beach

coconut

Polo´s Beach, Isla Bastimentos.

Nice trees lining Polo´s Beach

Everywhere we go we are forced to wear these stupid wrist bands. We always know where everyone we see is staying based on what wrist band they are wearing!

Polo´s House

We walked a short distance past his house after finishing our delicious coconuts. The beach there was very nice, much more protected than the beach where our lodge is located. We were a couple of coves away from our lodge on Red Frog Beach. There was reef a ways off shore for the waves to break on, so the beach was protected and didn’t seem to have suffered too much erosion or falling trees. It was like a different world! We swam for awhile, and even got to go out to one of the islands. We were the only ones around for awhile, but a few other people showed up as we were leaving.

Jeff talking on his shell phone!

Stupid yoga photo we had to do for the scavenger hunt! There were a lot of failed attempts at capturing this photo, haha!

A pretty stretch of beach. All of the palm trees have exposed roots. I wonder how much longer they will hold out. The storms badly damaged them.

The walk back was past more villas. There were also lots of wild banana trees along the walk. We always see banana trees, but never see ripe fruits. The fruits tend to be small and underdeveloped, but today we saw some almost ripe fruits! Sadly they were up too high to reach. If I could have figured out a way, you know I’d be up in those trees! I think the reason we don’t ever see yellow bananas on the trees is that the owners always pick the bunches when they are still green, then let them ripen off the tree, protected from animals, birds and insects. All of the trees we saw today don’t really have owners though, so the fruits remained on the trees.

If only I could reach these bananas, I´d be hauling away the whole bunch!!

A flowering banana tree, fruits just beginning to develop.

It was sunset time when we got back to the lodge. We had planned to go back to Selina to eat the arepas, but in the end we were lazy and just ate here. We ate the rice, bean and salad plates again and got a hummus plate to share. They have filtered rainwater showers here, which we have taken advantage of both nights that we have been here to rinse off the salt. Like yesterday, we are in our dorm beds nice and early. Tomorrow we check out and move to a new island. Today at first didn’t seem like it was going to be a good day, and we weren’t really enjoying our stay on Bastimentos Island, but today turned out fun, and we now have a better opinion and understanding of the island.


Wednesday January 31st


Jeff was woken up in the night by a young Austrian girl vomiting and being noisy from too much drinking. She puked somewhere in the dorm, then she (or her friend) cleaned it up with toilet paper and threw it all in the trash can that happens to be stored right by Jeff. She also vomited in the sink and probably plugged it up. I am lucky to be a heavy sleeper and didn´t hear any of it. Jeff can´t keep quiet when things like this happen, so he kept sighing at them and shushing them. The girl who wasn´t sick actually had the nerve to ask Jeff to go check on the sick girl when he went to use the bathroom after being woken up!! We are glad to be leaving. Even though our free shuttle boat won´t be taking us away until after 10, we packed up as soon as we woke up and moved out of the room. We hung out in the restaurant area and had breakfast until it was time to go. Jeff got a stuffed arepa, and I got a single plain arepa. The arepas were giant, warm, crispy, delicious and extremely satisfying. We miss arepas. We are developing tastes for so many traditional foods. We also got to have free juices for having completed the photo scavenger hunt!

By 10:15 we were riding back into town. It rained on the way but luckily wasn´t too bad. Back in town we headed for the internet cafe to caption and post another blog. That took about 40 minutes. Then we went back to Selina to retrieve some of the contents of our food bag. The Palmar Lodge specifically told us not to bring food and although our next place doesn´t have a kitchen, they didn´t tell us not to bring food. We will bring ingredients for breakfast oatmeal and some sandwiches. It began to rain again, so we stayed at Selina for awhile and ate in the restaurant. They have an impressive number of vegan options on their menu. We got an eggplant and tomato stuffed arepa, a salad with falafels in it, and an eggplant meatball with toast.  They also have vegan tacos, a black bean and sweet plantain stuffed arepa, an eggplant lentil "meatball casserole," quinoa salad, black bean burger, eggplant meatball sandwich, chocolate banana smoothie, green smoothie and beet-carrot-pineapple smoothie. Everything sounds so good!

Cool lodging option on Isla Carenero, we saw these on the boat ride back to town.

View of Isla Colon waterfront

While we waited for the food, I prepared another blog post with my cell phone app. Posting blogs is an involved process. Each night (ideally) I type about the day. I do the typing in my notes and save them there until it´s time to assemble a post. When it´s time to put together a post, I paste each day of text into the blogging app, then I scroll through and add photos a few at a time. The last step is to go to a computer and add captions, proof read or have Jeff do it and then post. It´s really nice when the hostel we stay in has a computer, but this doesn´t happen very often. We have to wait a long time for food, because we got there at 11:30, and even though there chalkboard says lunch starts at 12, they made us wait until 12:30 to order. So we ended up being at Selina for a long while and I got a lot of work done. All the while the same rap playlist we listened to last time we were here is playing again.

Arepas with roasted red pepper spread, falafel salad and eggplant meatball.

After we finally left Selina, we went for a few groceries, then got on a water taxi. For $20, we got raisins, prunes, oatmeal, soy milk, bananas, plantains, garbanzo beans, avocado and coconut bread rolls. The groceries will definitely be a lot cheaper than eating breakfast and lunch at the lodge, plus their menu is not vegan friendly. Before we left, we tried to get patacones, but the place was not open! :( The water taxi cost $5 and only takes about 10 minutes. It seems to be common that the boats run on empty and just put in a little fuel each time they get commissioned for a ride, so we keep having to ride to Isla Carenero to get fuel. Isla Carenero is the next island over, it´s close enough that you could swim. It rained pretty good on our ride, and the cover over the boat didn´t help much. Luckily it´s not cold!

Trying to stay dry while our driver is busy getting fuel.

Pool and view from reception area

Common area at the lodge, reception, kitchen and dining area

View from the top floor where our dorm is located. Lots of solar panels.

The view when you get off the water taxi

The lodge is in a really beautiful location and is very nicely constructed, but you are isolated because there aren´t any other restaurants you can walk to. All of the reviews I´ve read rave about the food. Meals are served family style, everyone one at a big table, all of the meals preplated and brought out all at once. It´s quite the production. I was concerned about what we would be able to eat, but I searched the reviews for mentions of vegan and many said that vegans were well taken care of. I also found reassurance on their website, but made sure to mention it in my reservation anyway. At 4:30 they post the dinner menu on a white board by reception. It instantly draws a crowd, as the meals are not unlimited, they run out after a certain number of people. You have to sign up as soon as it´s posted to ensure you get the meal you want. I carefully studied the menu after it was posted and found that there was no vegan option. They had rice and beans, but the beans contained bacon. I asked the person taking the orders and they asked the kitchen. The guy in the kitchen seemed pessimistic and said he guessed they could leave the bacon off our plates. We decided we didn´t want to pay $9 for a plate of rice and beans when it cost $5 with a bunch of sides at our last lodge. I highly doubt it´s somehow that much better and worth 4 more dollars. 

Instead we went down to the dock with my bag of food and prepared some soaked oats for dinner. I used soy milk, cacao nibs, bananas, cocoa powder, raisins, prunes, flax seeds and chia seeds. We were getting eaten alive by sand flies on the dock, so once I finished assembling, we took the containers back upstairs to soak. While we waited, we talked to a German girl who was absolutely covered in sand fly bites. Sand flies are also known as no see ums, but down here they are called chitras. I was scared that I would end up looking like her, and we had reservations for a total of 3 nights here, so we ended up cancelling one night. The bugs weren´t a problem anywhere else but the lodge. While everyone else was downstairs eating dinner, we sat upstairs and had our oats. They were really cheap and delicious. I don´t think anyone else brought their own food.

This is what it says on their website, but apparently it´s not true

Dinner menu

Me making dinner on the dock

Sunset from the dock

Thursday, February 1st

We ate more soaked oats for breakfast, same as last night, then we set out on the jungle trail. There’s a trail connecting the lodge with hospital point, a beach and snorkel spot on the other side of the island. They offer rubber boots for hiking in, but they are all big men’s sizes. They were all way too big for me and would have given me blisters and would also have suctioned off in the mud puddles, so we went barefoot instead. It was so mucky and slow going that we almost turned back. The guy at the front desk told us it should take an hour. He was extremely overweight and has probably never hiked the trail, so he had nothing to offer us about the conditions. He also told us there was just one trail, which wasn’t true either, there were many intersections and side trails. It ended up taking us about 2 hours. The highlight of the walk was seeing all the red frogs. I counted 30 of them along the way! That was really neat.

The beach was hard to get to. It was down a steep and muddy eroded slope. There wasn’t much beach, and the waves looked angry. I suspect this is another example of damaged beach and high seas that we’ve been experiencing everywhere in Bocas. We had carried snorkels the whole way, so I decided to inspect the snorkeling opportunity even though I didn’t really feel like it. I didn’t make it very far before being pounded down to the rocky floor by a giant wave and also getting stung by a couple jelly fish. Jeff didnt make it as far out as I did and was nearer to the shore while I raced back in as fast as I could. As soon as I got there it started pouring and blowing wind. We huddled under a crappy shelter made of a few palm fronds. I don’t know who made it or why, but it came in handy. 

After the worst of it passed we hiked back from the beach and decided to see if we could find an alternate way out. We were dreading the long muddy walk back, and on google maps it looked like we might be close to some other lodges. We were hoping we could get a boat back. We eventually came upon a sign at the edge of some private property with a sign telling you not to pass onto their property, but that if you wanted a water taxi to stand there and yell! It was a dream come true! A few minutes later we were zipping along on our way back to our dock!

Red frog

Red frog!

Disgustingly muddy!

Beautiful flower in a tree that must be a relative of bananas

Small eroded beach 

The property line of the guy that gives rides back to the lodge 

Boat house where we took off from in our water taxi

We had some coconut bread and peanut butter when we got back, then rented kayaks and set out for the nearest restaurant, the Blue Coconut. We paddled through mangroves and over some shallow sections full of starfish. We took our time, not taking the most direct route. It took about an hour to reach the Blue Coconut, and bar and restaurant that’s built on stilts over the water near a coral reef. We tied up our kayaks and ordered French fries, patacones and piña coladas. Somehow they forgot about our piña coladas and never brought them out. We took that as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be, so we didn’t have any alcohol. We went snorkeling and enjoyed the deck. It even got a little sunny and nice out while we were there. We saw a big string ray while snorkeling. We also saw lots of sea cucumbers, lacy coral, star fish, brittle stars, urchins and anemones.

We were able to get back from the restaurant going direct to the lodge in about 20 minutes. We checked the menu board when we got back and decided we’d give it a try. It was carrot soup and cost $9! Luckily we weren’t that hungry, because it wasn’t that much food. It tasted good, but definitely wasn’t worth $9. At least we gave it a try.

Kayaking through the mangroves

Boats docked at the Blue Coconut

Different varieties of hammocks for lounging in the water at the Blue Coconut

Deck at the Blue Coconut with hammocks in the water!

Blue Coconut Bar

Blue Coconut Bar

Friday February 2nd

We packed up last night so we could silently slip out of the dorm without waking anyone. Our boat ride was scheduled for 8 AM, which really isn’t early, but we seemed to be just about the only people in the whole lodge awake. Before leaving we had chickpea avocado salad on our coconut bread rolls. My spice pantry is in the storage locker at the Selina hostel, so the flavorings were limited. I always have vinegar available for my hair washing routine, so I used some of that, and I found hot sauce and a little bowl of pepper in the dining area. It was simple, yet delicious.

The lodge keeps a regular water taxi guy around who gives a $1 discount to guests, so we paid $4 per person instead of $5. It’s only about a 10 minute ride, but on the way we stopped to pick up locals who were headed in to town from 3 separate docks. It’s like riding a bus on water!

Back on the main island we stopped into the first hostel we passed to see if they had space for tonight. The place is called Hostal Hansi. They don’t take reservations, you supposedly have to go each day at 8 am to see if there is a space. We arrived shortly after 8, and I had high hopes that it would be the end of our room search. The first thing they asked was if we had a reservation?? We said no, and they said they had no space. I don’t understand.

We next went to check in with the tour operator I booked with. I was able to select the tour I wanted on their website and pay with PayPal. They are called UnderSea Panama, and although there are tons of tour operators in town all offering the same exact tours, this is one that actually had a website and some reviews of TripAdvisor, so that’s why I chose it. When you reserve on their website, there’s no place to select the date you want, and they don’t send any follow up email to ask you, so I was a little concerned, but they had our reservation and there was no problem. The cost is $35 for the full day, which seems really reasonable. It would have cost $10 more per person to book it through the lodge we were staying at, that is another reason why we decided to cut our stay short and come back to the main island.

We had about an hour and a half before the tour started, so we went looking for other hotel options. On Hostelworld all of the hostels listed are sold out for tonight, so we decided to try some of the cheap hotels. Just like everywhere else in Panama, the grocery stores in Bocas Del Toro are owned by the Chinese. They also commonly have hotels attached to the grocery store. The first one we went to was $45/night, but was full. The second one we tried advertised a price of $55/night, and had space. When I inquired about the price, it became a flat rate of $40. We gladly agreed and didn’t question it. We found the room to be surprisingly nice and with a bathroom and AC too. No complaints! The hotel is called Residencial Alba and has 3 floors above the grocery store. There are at least a dozen rooms per floor, so it’s a pretty big place. There are communal balconies on each level with nice views of town.

The guy who checked us in for our tour told us there would be no food available on the tour and that we needed to go to the grocery store to buy a sandwich. We didn’t buy a sandwich, but we did take his suggestion and bring food along. It was very convenient to go downstairs and buy the supplies that I needed. I made us each a batch of overnight oats in our fair share mugs, with hidden beans inside!

Our tour boat pulled away at 10 with just us, one other couple and our driver guide. It was the nicest water taxi type boat we have been on so far, and we were lucky to have lots of space. Lots of other boats that left around the same time went jam packed. We started out looking for dolphins in Dolphin Bay. We saw a couple, they were bottle nose dolphins. People get really excited to see dolphins. They are certainly neat to see, but we don’t try to get pictures of them. Next we cruised through the smooth waters of the mangrove channels to sloth island. Sloths are apparently good swimmers and can island hop if they want to! We saw two sloths on sloth island, one of which was quite close. It was sprawled out in a dead tree drying out from the rain in the sun!

Smoothie truck and a hotel in the background that is above the grocery store, that one was full.

Sloth in the tree at the top left. It´s funny little head looks like a branch.

The main attraction of the tour is visiting Cayo Zapatilla. There are two Zapatilla islands, named one and two. These islands are the furthest out of the Bocas islands and are very small, only a mile or two long each. They are surrounded by reef and clear turquoise water. The beaches have white sand and the islands are covered mostly by coconut palms. I don’t think there’s any sort of development of Zapatilla 1. That is apparently where a season of survivor was filmed. All of the tours visit Zapatilla 2, where there is a ranger station, a beach and a short trail. The islands are part of the Bastimentos National Marine Park. We were dropped off on the dock by our capitan and given 1 1/2 hours of free time. We chose to spend our time walking the trail rather than just laying on the beach and taking selfies. Our tour price includes the entrance fee, it’s pretty expensive $10 per person for foreigners. They aren’t using that money to maintain the trail. Most of the way it was over swamp with boardwalks that were falling apart. It was nice to see the island vegetation, tons of coconut palms, so many that there were piles of coconut husks all over the island, and in places where the trail was not over swamp, coconuts were used to cobble the path. There are also noni fruits trees and bread fruit trees on the islands. On our walk I found a big coconut that we brought back to the ranger to see if he could open it for us. He was a coconut master! With his machete he scored the husk into 3 different sections, then wedged them away to get at the coconut. He then used his machete to shave all of the hard shell off the coconut. He did this by holding the coconut in one hand and the machete in the other and repeatedly whacking at it until all that was left was the intact ball of coconut meat and a small hole at the top for drinking the water! We were very impressed and gave him $1. By the time we got back to the beach, it was overrun with thong butts and selfie takers. There were probably 20 tour boats anchored out.

Piles of coconut husk on Zapatilla Island

A neat fallen tree next to the trail with lots of trees that grew on top of it

Coconut husk in the trail

Rickety boardwalk

Beach on Cayo Zapatilla II

Pretty bromeliad covered coconut palm trees

A noni fruit

A nice big coconut that I found that we consumed!

Wild hibiscus

Breadfruit tree. They have really pretty leaves.

Crowded part of the beach that we avoided. Lots of selfies and other photo shoots taking place.

The park ranger is a the master coconut opener!! We were very impressed, he made it look easy!!

Lots of boats docks on Cayo Zapatilla II

The view as we were leaving Cayo Zapatilla II

Next stop was Cayo Coral, an area of the mangrove where there is a reef. We hopped in the water and did an activity called deep boarding. You are towed by the boat with a thin board that allows you to dip in and out of the water like a dolphin. The boat goes slow, but makes for a rapid snorkel and certainly feels fast, because it’s faster than you could ever swim on your own. It’s all the rage in Bocas right now, and although I tend to love all things water related, I didn’t love deep boarding. It’s uncomfortable on your ears, the stream of the boat wanted to pull off my shorts and goggles, and it was easy to swallow water and sometimes hard to breath. Some people love it, but I guess it’s not for everybody! Jeff liked it more than I did. Normally when the boats go full, they have to take turns, but since we were a small group, we all went at once. We thought that might mean we’d get a longer turn, but we didn’t. It only lasted about 10 minutes. I was glad when it was over though.

After deep boarding we went to a really neat restaurant and lodge that is built over the waters at the edge of the mangroves. It was called Isla Coral Restaurant and is probably the most picturesque place we saw during our entire stay in Bocas. They had a menu specializing in fresh seafood. I’m not really sure why the guy at the check in desk said there was no food to be had anywhere on the tour. We ate what we brought, but would have loved to order a meal there. I think the lunch stop depends on the boat drivers, and we were just lucky to get to go to this place. Only 2 other boats were there, each with just a few people on board. Underneath the buildings are all sorts of tropical fishes, so we got to snorkel in the water there and enjoying swimming amongst the schools of fish. They also have cage in the water where they store their fresh lobsters. They had about 80 lobsters in it! A guy showed me the tool they use to catch the lobsters and told me about how they are found in deep water, 15-18 meters, which is more than 40 feet. The catching tool is a stick with a metal wire loop on the end that they use to grab the lobster by the tail. They do this one lobster at a time, free diving with no scuba gear. No wonder lobster is so expensive! That’s really hard work. They were selling each lobster meal for $18. I couldn’t look into the tank and think “ooh fresh lobsters!” like most people might, I just felt sad for the lobsters piled on top of each other.

On the ride back to the main island we slowed down at a place in within the mangrove islands to observe tons of starfish, more than you can see at starfish beach! It would have been neat to get out and snorkel there, but the water was really shallow, and we just slowly cruised over.

It was a beautiful sunny day today, and a wonderful way to spend our last day in Bocas. I love boating on smooth water. I would say I can think of few, if any, greater joys than speeding along through clear glassy water enjoying the cool refreshing breeze and views above and below the water.

Cool restaurant and hotel where we stopped for a break

Isla Coral Restaurant

Boardwalk leading to the hotel rooms and lobster cage at Restaurante Isla Coral

Water full of fish. There were schools of big fish too.

Poor lobsters stacked on top of eachother.

Leaving the Isla Coral Restaurant. The most picturesque lodging/restaurant we saw in all of Bocas.

Boating through the mangrove channels

Boating over clear water full of starfish.

Beautiful views of the mountains on the mainland.

more starfish

Jeff enjoying the ride

A boatload of plantains!! :)

Our tour boat was really nice

Another map of the islands. The Zapatilla islands are on the far right. The mangroves were between Isla Bastimentos and Solarte.

After the tour we took a walk around the inner streets of Isla Colon, where few tourists venture. All you have to do is go one block over from the Main Street that parallels the water, and it’s like a completely different place. The local houses are colorful old wooden structures, many of them are on stilts. We like to walk and look at houses and the plants in the yard. On our walk we ended up at the west end of town where there are some accommodations along the water that face the setting sun. Many of the hotels are really small scale locally run operations that are not on any online booking sites and don’t have websites. Those are the kinds of places we like to stay in, but it is always a gamble just showing up not knowing if there will be room. We saw one that we had read about in our guide book called Residencial Dos Palmas. It overlooks the water and is in just the right position on the island for seeing the sunset. It has just a single floor and one hallway of rooms and a nice back deck. If we ever came back to Bocas Del Toro, we´d stay there. We like supporting the locally run places.

As we walked around we checked out some of the menus on display street side. One really fancy place with a nice sunset view had a few nice vegan options, one of which was plantain ceviche. We were really temped to go in just for that and for the sunset views also, but then we thought about how many patacones we could have instead for the same prices, and it would have been more than we could eat! The plantain ceviche was a rip off at $6 for an appetizer portion. Occasionally we entertain the idea of eating fancy food and drinks, but we almost always change our minds. The cheap local foods are so satisfying. We also checked out a grocery store called Super Gourmet. They stock specialty gringo foods. They are have a deli, prepared salads, local produce, local chocolates and a water bottle refill machine. They have a location in Panama City, in Casco Viejo that we visited while we were there. We almost got food from there, but again continued on. We ended up back at Selina for some more vegan arepas and a salad, and after that, back to RostiPollos for a cheap plate of patacones.  Then back to our hotel for our last night in Bocas del Toro.

We see sleepy dogs in funny places all the time

Our hotel

View down on of the busy roads on Isla Colon from the top floor balcony at our hostel

View of the Central Park on Isla Colon from our hotel

Funny layout in our hotel room.

Pretty wooden houses on a side street in Isla Colon. The white board is menu for the meals that can be had there at someones house when they are open at lunch time.

Pretty sunset by the fancy restaurant and hotel.

Sweet plantain and black bean arepas. Really good!

Rotisserie chicken counter

delicious golden plantains.