Bocus del Toro, Panama

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Bocas del Toro, Panama March 7th—14th
After driving back to San Jose, we spent two nights in the Margarita’s B&B where we have stayed before (a very cute, inexpensive place where we meet the most interesting people from all over—lots of Canadians, some Americans, and Brits ), turned in our car and got a taxi to the small airport in the city. We flew on a small airplane - Nature Air airlines. If every seat on the plane were full, it would hold 21 people. We were lucky the day we flew, there was only one other passenger besides us (and the two pilots). (To get it off the ground, they first have to wind up the rubber bands that spin the two props.) It did have GPS so they could find Bocas easily. The other passenger lived in CA but he said he’d been to Shawnee Mission years ago when he was with the circus—see, I told you we met interesting people! Everyone was instructed to lift up on their seats as we went down the runway and off to Bocas we went.
Angie and Steve own Villa Paraiso where we have stayed for the week. They are from Wisconsin and don’t like the winters. They bought property, went back to WI while they paid it off and then five years ago they came down and built this home with their three boys in tow. Their boys were 8, 10, and 12 when they came to stay. I just found out that she’s been home schooling them. Very nice family (and brave to bring their kids to live here). They live upstairs but we rarely see or hear them unless we have questions. We have our room, the lower level patio and pool to ourselves. There was always the sound of waves right off the beach. We are in a bay off the Caribbean and expected to see the clear, very blue waters so common to the Caribbean. Where we are it wasn’t so clear although Angie said that sometimes it is... We took taxi’s or rode the bikes provided to see the clear ocean that was as expected. We decided, we like the pool best while we’re at the house. The roads are all paved and in very good condition but the taxi drivers drive like a ‘bat out of hell’. The Alto (stop) signs must mean to maybe take a look, certainly not to stop.
Our biggest disappointment was that the promised WiFi did not work. I guess Angie’s been having trouble getting it for some time. They’re supposed to get it working next Tuesday (we leave on Monday). We walk either on the beach or along the road about 100 ft to a hotel that does have Internet so we’ve gone there when we need to get email and call home on Skype.
Bocas del Toro is a series of islands. It definitely has a Caribbean feeling. People take water taxis (small boats) to go from one island to another. We’re staying on the main island of Colon where the actual city of Bocas Town is located. Downtown there are many restaurants and bars, most of the nicer ones sit out on piers over the water. The price for food and drinks is cheaper than we experienced in Costa Rica. We’ve gone to some places where the local beer is $1.00 a bottle and happy hour drinks (like pina colada or margarita) are $2.00--$3.00. Their currency is American dollars but their coins are called Balboas which are the same size as our coins (Jim says they will work in Coke machines at home since they are produced by the U.S. Mint – a leftover from when the U.S. owned this place). The quarters have Panama written on them and a photo of Balboa instead of Washington.
Angie gave us a phone to use with taxi drivers numbers in the contacts. We are far enough out of town that we need to call a taxi ($3 each way for two) or ride bikes to get anywhere. The bikes they provide are the old fashion, no gears kind. As we rode them, it reminded me of when I was 8 or 10 riding my old bike around the neighborhood.
The local food stores are all owned by the Chinese. They don’t speak English. Angie said they have a monopoly on the food stores and prices and even though they over charge for things, they would rather pay the Panama fine and keep over charging.
One day, we rode our bikes away from our place for about 20 minutes to a restaurant/hotel that sits up on a bluff. We ate breakfast there, checked our email, and met another couple from Colorado. They said they’d been in Central America for over 2 years. They happened upon a deal to house sit for 5 months in Costa Rica and that led to another place to do the same for 6 months in another country (Guatemala, I think), then a place in Belize and they were planning to live in another house in Panama in a week or two. They said they had to be there every night but could leave during the day. The owner pays the utilities and, if there were pets, they were paid something extra for taking care of them. One owner had ponds of tilapia fish that they had to learn how to care for. She is a message therapist and he installs solar panels so they’ve been able to find work where ever they were and lived in a nice house rent free. We then rode another 15 or 20 minutes to get to Bluff Beach. Beautiful clear water, waves and red sand. We locked up our bikes to a palm tree and walked the beach for a while. While riding back, the chain on Jim’s bike slipped off twice and he had to stop and fix it. Sort of took the fun out of it…
Taking a taxi is interesting. Some of the drivers are blacks that live here and speak some kind of Cajun English ( hard time understanding it) and the others are Hispanic and speak Spanish and ‘poco English’ but somehow we get where we want to go. The taxis are crew cabs, painted yellow, fairly new and most have pickup truck open beds in the back. Three passengers can sit in the back seat and one in the front. Almost every time we’ve been taken somewhere, they stop and pick up someone else and drop them off along the way. We pay by the person and where we want to go. It’s $1.50 per person to go into town so we always make sure we have the correct change. Friday we took a taxi to El Drago Beach which is on our island but about a 45 min. cab ride. He promised to come back and get us in three hours. We had agreed it would be $25 round trip so we didn’t pay him anything until he came back to get us. We went there because we were told to walk about 30 minutes down the beach (very clear, beautiful water there) where we would see lots of starfish. I brought along snorkeling gear but the starfish were very clear sitting in about 12” of water and when I swam into deeper water I didn’t see any more so we just waded around and looked at them and took pictures. I do have a waterproof case for my camera so some of the pixs I took underwater. The restaurant at Drago Beach had the best fried shrimp which we enjoyed with beer while waiting for the taxi to come…he did! Right on time.
We’ve been to one unique restaurant twice. It’s between our villa and town and if you were driving by you wouldn’t know it was there because it’s in the jungle with no sign along the road. It’s called Guari Guari. As all of the restaurants around here, it’s open air but what is unique is that there is no menu. The price is $19 for the meal (expensive for around here) and they change the menu every day. The meal consists of 4 appetizers, the entrée and dessert. Very fun to try different things and everything was good.
When we got here on Monday, Carnival was going on so the main street was blocked off and full of people and music and that concluded with Fat Tuesday the next day. We tried to stay away from the big crowds (just to be on the safe side—we were told there could be pick pockets). We ate at Guari Guari Monday night and Tuesday we took a water taxi over to another island called Bastimentos. There was supposed to be a good Thai restaurant up the hill and another place called “Up The Hill” that had good organic chocolate truffles and coffee. The Thai place was closed for a couple weeks but we decided to see “Up The Hill” and then find a place called Roots for dinner. The previous guests at our place had written about places they went to so we knew to ask about where it was. Up The Hill was indeed up the hill. First we walked up a concrete stepped path (between small poor houses) then the concrete ran out and there was a sign that said, only 20 minutes more up the dirt path through the jungle. Some of the dirt path was muddy and we really had to look where we were going (but it was still going up!) We finally passed the Thai place, went another 5 minutes and found the little store/coffee shop. We had to take our shoes off to sit at a table (there were only 3 tables) and we shared an order of truffles. They were pretty good but not as good as in Belgium. Then we began the long walk back down and we were thankful the Thai place was closed because we would not have wanted to walk back in the dark. This island didn’t have nearly as many restaurants and we were glad we had a name to ask about. While coming over on the water taxi, we met another couple from Amsterdam and they pointed the way to Roots. We walked right by it (no sign from the street) but finally asked someone else and they showed us where it was. A guy was playing his guitar and singing for a while. Here is one place where a bottle of beer is $1.00. I’ve found that I’d rather drink a bottle of beer than try another kind of drink if the place looks a little sketchy. Dinner was pretty good but we found out that they leave the shells on the shrimp, even when it’s served in a sauce. Kind of messy.
There are some wild horses that roam around the island where we were staying. Several times we’d looked up and see three or four of them on the beach outside our place. There’s a different kind of apple tree in the front of the villa and the horses chomp on them. The apple tree also attracts fruit bats but we haven’t had the chance to see any.
When we leave here, we’ll fly in the “toy plane” as Jim calls it, back to San Jose. We’ll take a cab to our B&B for one night and then we’ll be home on Tuesday, March 15. Hopefully we can find a place to upload our blog for one last time.

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Photos

Jim outside Guari Guari
This is the place where they serve 4 appetizers, one entree and dessert.