Bocas del Toro // Isla Colon

I had spend my last night in Germany in cologne with Alena, one of my best friends from school. She gave me a ride to the airport the next morning and was the last familiar face I saw before going on my big adventure. 135 days later I met her again in Bocas del Toro, Panama!
As we both didn't know exactly when we would get to Bocas we figured we would just meet at the hostel. As I had forgotten that there was a time difference between Costa Rica and Panama I arrived a little later than expected. When I got to the hostel I had a message from her saying that she was going for a coffee with Gregori, a guy who was working at the hostel who she had met when she was in Panama a year earlier. I asked around at the hostel if anybody had an idea where the went and some guy told me to try the german bakery. And this was where I found her. It was totally weird but also super nice meeting her again on the other side of the world!
We stayed for a while having another coffee with Gregori before heading back to the hostel where we went to the roof with a bottle of wine and talked about everything that had happened since I left. I really enjoy meeting so many new people on my trip and you can have really interesting conversations with people you barely know. But talking to Alena who knows me since 20 years was a whole different thing and it felt great.
Later we went to an Italian restaurant and had a huge pasta for dinner. As Alena was only traveling for 3 weeks she was of course on a different budget. But as I had saved a lot of money volunteering in Nicaragua I decided to treat me well for a few days and not be to cautious about money.
The next morning it was raining so we weren't to sure what to do. After breakfast at the hostel (free pancakes) we walked around town for a while and Alena showed me what she remembered from last year. We also walked through a few less touristy streets and made our way to the airport where Alena wanted to check the prices for flights to Panama City.
When we got back to the hostel it had stopped raining completely and it didn't look like it would start again soon. So we decided to rent bikes and go to Playa Bluff. Finding a bike that fit Alenas long legs wasn't too easy but she found one that was kind of ok. So off we went on our beach cruisers stopping along the way for some drinks and snacks to take with us. The first part of the way was easy along paved roads. But after a while the road became pretty bumpy and partly even sandy. But we took it easy and even pushed our bikes whenever the hills were just a little to steep for us :)
When we arrived to Playa Bluff we found our space on the long and beautiful beach to lay down all by ourselves - another upside to being here in low season.
It never fully cleared up that day but it didn't rain again and we spend a few hours chilling at the beach.
At night we went to a small local restaurant a guy from the hostel had recommended and had traditional caribbean fish soup with coconut milk. I liked it a lot.
After another bottle of wine on the rooftop of our hostel we went over to the party hostel "Selina". The crowd was pretty young here but the location was nice right at the water and we had great fun dancing. We checked out two other places later on but didn't really get back into the dancing vibe.
The next day we went to Isla Bastimentos (additional post). At night we had really good burritos at a nice place along the main road and drinks at another place with a terrace to the water we had seen the night before.
Alenas favorite place in Panama had always been Boquete. And even though she had just spent a week there, she still felt like she needed to go back there one more time. She had been talking about it since we met in Bocas. And the good thing about knowing someone for so long - you know if something is really important to that someone. So as I also didn't feel like I would miss out on something here in Bocas and I was excited for her to show me her favorite places in Boquete in person we decided to catch the shuttle the next morning to go to Boquete together.Read more