Bocas del Toro

The overnight bus from Panama City dropped us at Almirante at 6:30am. A quick taxi ride for $1 each took us to the docks, where we took a half hour speed boat ride to Isla Colon, the capital of Bocas del Toro ($6). BDT is made up of 9 main islands and numerous smaller islets. Isla Colon is fairly developed with roads, a fire station, hospital, bank etc.

We wandered around looking for a place to stay... most were pretty pricey but we found Posada Isla Chica for $40. The room is huge and has a balcony with a partial view of the water. We went to get Anna her coffee fix from a German bakery (which sadly lacked any appealing baked goods) and so picked up a pancake mix in the supermarket and Anna made us pancakes for breakfast at a fraction of the price the bakery was charging.

It started to rain so we had a lie down and next thing we knew it was 2:30pm! A bit too late to go to the beach on the north of the island so the tourist info lady recommended a visit to Isla Carenero (the local beach on Isla Colon is called Sand Fly beach so not very appealing!!). Isla Carenero is a small island, 200m from Island Colon, with no roads, just some sandy paths that join the various huts along the shore.

We got a water taxi to the main beach for $2, which was nice but small and the trees put it in shade and it wasn't warm enough to tempt us to swim. So we wandered along the coast - seeing tons of tiny crabs with one huge claw - and had Pina Coladas ($3 each) on the deck of Bibi's, a lovely restaurant. We then walked along the coast for another 5 minutes or so and got the boat back for $1. Carenero had a lot of beautiful accommodation options but no great beach and seeing as the weather is a bit iffy we aren't tempted to stay a night there as I thought we might be.

We went for dinner at Bocas Bambu ($20) where beer was the same price as water! Anna had creole fish which was lovely and I had pizza which I could only manage half of so tomorrow's lunch is sorted. We just about managed to stay awake long enough to watch the 8:30pm fire show at the restaurant which was pretty good though not as crazy as the one in Montanita.Читать далее