Island Time in Bocas Town

We opted for a travel service shuttle from Boquete to Bocas del Toro. It saved us several hours and included the boat ride to the island of Isla Colon, the base of the bocas del Toro archipelago in the Caribbean.

We were in a nice new van full of foreigners. It's quite the contrast to the local buses which stop often, but we kind of like using them.

About halfway through the trip we were stopped on the road with a traffic jam. There were lots of rumors flying between the driver and the passengers. it turns out there was a protest from the locals. Apparently they want the government to build a new bridge. They stopped traffic for a couple hours to prove their point. It was all very peaceful. There were three cops joking and talking to the protesters. All of the people in the dozens of cars and trucks that were waiting were pretty patient, as if they had seen this before.

Someone said the protests would end at 1 so we got out and walked around and had a quick lunch of the pbjs we brought. And at 1:00 we were off again.

In the port of Almirante we got out of the bus and got to skip in front of everyone waiting for the next boat to Bocas since we were on a shuttle bus with Hello Panama Travel. 45 minutes later our boat arrived in Bocas town.

We're only staying here one night because we want to hang out on a couple different islands. This is kind of a gritty party town and we wanted a little more nature and chill vibe. My cousin Kim has been to Bambuda's Lodge on Isla Solarte twice and that was good enough for us. We have three nights booked there.Read more