Our friend, Jason, was here from Long Beach, California. So we decided it would be fun to take a little trip to a place none of us had ever seen before. We’d already heard a lot about the islands of Bocas del Toro in Panama. They are located in the extreme western part of the country, only 40 kilometers (like 30 miles) from Costa Rica.

Being so close to Costa Rica, I assumed it would be just about the same. But it really was different in many ways. Entering by boat, we got a real feel for the place before we even landed.

Essentially, Bocas is an archipelago with a charming variety of aquatic species, coral reefs, mangroves, tropical forest, beaches with crystal clear water, undisturbed jungles and lots of flora and fauna.

The adventure started in Puerto Viejo where we were working with our volunteers for a couple of
days. From there we took a jungle mountain road (shortcut) to Sixaola, Costa Rica. It’s the border town. Once there, we parked the car in someone’s driveway and walked across the bridge. Well, if you can call it a bridge. It was pretty scary! We had to check out of Costa Rica immigration and then into Panama and pay a $5 visa charge (fee varies depending on the country your passport is from).

Right at the end of the bridge there were several taxis waiting for us. For only $5 each we piled into a frightening truck and careened our way down rough roads surrounded by bananas for an hour to a boat launch in the town of Changuinola. As soon as the truck stopped, a gang of little Panamanian kids ran to the truck to “help us” take our luggage off. Of course, they wanted a tip for the help.

We paid another $5 each for the boat and only had to wait about 20 minutes before departing. The boat went through a river and then a long canal before we arrived at the bay and made our way to Bocas. The ride took about an hour. One of the most interesting parts of the trip was watching the natives paddle down the canal in their carved boats. One of the kids was actually wearing a loin cloth. Not something I’m used to seeing every day!

The boat lands in the town of Bocas del Toro on the island of Isla Colon. The island really isn’t that
big, especially the part where all the tourists stay, basically just one street along the water. Pretty hard to get lost.

There are some really cheap hostels to stay at for about $7, or you can also find air conditioned hotel rooms for about $25. We went with a place that had air and a pool for $60. Well worth it!

The next day we hired a boat and captain to take us around to some of the islands, dolphin watching,
to lunch at a shack in the middle of the water, snorkeling and to play on Red Frog Beach (on Bastimentos Island). In addition to the fish and dolphins, we saw lots of their famous red frogs and even a gigantic spider. You can get a 7 or 8 tour like this between $15 and $25 each. Next time, we’ll go scuba diving.

At night we tried to find good food, but didn’t find any. I guess they are not well known for delicious restaurants. But we did find a super cool dance club called Bar Hundido (Sunken Bar). The entire bar was over water, and had catwalks to get from section to section. Our favorite part was the end of the bar where everyone would sit on the catwalks and dip their feet into the water looking at the fish.

All-in-all it was a great trip and pretty cheap at that. We’ll certainly be recommending Bocas to all our friend, clients and family.