Discovering Panama II

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After a long year of wait, we are again at the international airport Tocumen of Panama City. The choice for our accommodation in the capital, wasn’t that of our first journey in Panama, not in the “Casco Viejo”, but "Casa De Carmen", a very pleasant hostel with a big private garden situated in the zone of “Via España”, one of the commercial arteries of the Panamanian capital, very close to the modern bank zone of the city, enough expensive, but with an excellent breakfast included in the price every morning. In this green oasis in the middle of the big city we have had two days of excellent relax and adaptation to the tropical hot in February!
This time we did a short trip to Taboga Island. Taboga is an Island not far from the coast of the town. You can go there by boat and it’s a place where often goes citizens of Panama City for weekends and festive days. It’s nothing special, but its tongue of sand on the side where docking the boat, is surely an excellent place where to enjoy the sea and relax yourself without go far away from the capital.
Soon arrived the time to leave Panama City by plane, with destination northwest towards the Caribbean Sea, more precisely to Colon Island, “Bocas del Toro” as the homonymous province in which it is, a fantastic Caribbean archipelago of islands surrounded of white sands, coral reefs and conglomerates of mangroves. Bocas is surely one of the most known and tourist places of Panama and is the bigger town centre. Built along the coast on the point east of the Colon Island, we liked it very much just because all its buildings are built in majority with wood, they are pile works and they are painted with different colours everyone, in perfect Caribbean style. In Bocas you couldn’t have some difficulty to find accommodations to sleep or good places where to eat (we suggest you the restaurant Chitrè on the main road, Panamanian food more soft drink about 3.50$ per person), youthful and joyful hostels, or quite hotels.
We went to Bocas with another flight performed by Air Panama from Panama City, because not have been too easy go there by bus, even if chipper. Mind that a flight to Bocas or to David from Panama City, it’s around 100$ per person. It’s not chip, but less than a hour “et voilà”…if you won’t to do a lot of kilometres by bus, It could be a good idea!
What enjoy in Bocas? For sure “Playa Estrella” in Boca Del Drago.
It’s situated precisely in the opposite side of Colon Island, so you can reach it with 40 minutes by buses that leave from Bocas Del Toro town more a walk on the beach when you arrive over there. It’s a fantastic Caribbean postcard, with the presence of beautiful starfishes everywhere along the mirror of water immediately after the sandbank. Not far from there, at the Bus stop, there’s the only one restaurant in the zone. It’s a good place to eat, but if you want to save your money, we suggest you to buy a fast lunch before to leave, in one of the minimarket of Bocas del Toro. I don’t know if in Bocas del Drago there are accommodations for the night. Don’t forget your camera! It could be an unforgivable tragedy! Another paradise of this archipelago is Cayo Zapatilla, a small island thirty minutes far away by boat from Bocas del Toro; you can go there using boats of little tour operators that organizes trips just in one day that includes: a stop for a not free lunch, a visit to the close bay of the dolphins and snorkelling around a coral reef.
This island is a postcard. The words cannot explain its white sand, the colour of its waters and the green of its vegetation. There’s also Carenero Island, situated immediately in Front of Bocas Del Toro: you can go there with a sea taxi at the price of two dollars per person in just two or three minutes by boat. It’s not perhaps a must, but it has the mini resorts and cooler bars of the entire archipelago. Other cool attractive is “Bastimento Island”. There are accommodations and it’s more "savage" of Colon Island. You can go there from Bocas with a taxi of the sea, just a little and funny trip. Prices are hung up to the walls of these sea taxi companies offices, so you can’t misunderstand about it. Beyond the small town of Old Bank, where locals speak between them a dialect called “Wari Wari”, not Spanish language, “Bastimento” offers the splendid Red Frog Beach. This beach takes its name because there lives a kind of small red frogs, not easily to meet. We saw one of them inside a plastic glass, captured by some local children that played on the beach. This beach is situated on the uncovered side of the island, so the waves are always strong, reason for which it’s another small paradise for surfers, but for people that simply wants to enjoy of its typically Caribbean features too.
We left Bocas after four days of Caribe and good weather.
We took again the road (better the sea) with destination Las Lajas, Chiriquì with the collective taxi service for Almirante, an ugly small town on the coast of Bocas Province, where we took a bus to David. It was a long trip across the Cordillera, the mountains that separate the two provinces. Splendid views of mountains in the “Fortuna” natural park, where there’s the Fortuna Lake with hydroelectric power station managed by Enel (The Italian Company of electric power), several curves and big ascents too strong for our poor little bus.
We arrived in David after a getting tired trip, where we stayed for a night at the hostel "The Purple House", before leave to Las Lajas the following morning. David is for size and population the second town of Panama. It’s not ugly, but there’s a lot of traffic over its roads and, in the dry season, temperatures are near 40°, so it wasn’t the place where we liked to spend our days, although we had necessity to comeback a couple of times for bureaucratic reasons about our lot in Las Lajas. Not far from David, however, returning on the mountains, there’s the famous town of Boquete with his coffee plantations and the Volcano Barù. In our two journeys in Panama we can’t visit it yet. Ok guys, this is all.
We spent other days of this journey in Las Lajas.
We hope that you have pleased our itineraries and have induced you to visit this splendid country if still have not done it. If you want to follow our future itineraries, stay tuned on our web site!

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Photos

Punta Paitilla
Panama City

Playa de las Estrellas
Wonderful starfish full beach, Bocas del Drago, Isla Colon

Cayo Zapatilla
Daytrip near Bocas

Isla Taboga
The island in front of Panama City