Bocas del Toro

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We left Boquete and took a short flight from David to Bocas del Toro. Most of the flying time was spent circling higher and higher over David so that we could clear the mountains that run through the center of Panama and get down to the Caribbean coast. Bocas del Toro is a chain of islands near the Costa Rican border, and we stayed just on the outskirts of Bocas Town, the biggest town in the area.

We had left our hotel booking until kind of late and were only able to get a room at our hotel for two nights. We tried to find another place to stay on the island for a third night but it was Easter weekend and everything was full. Luckily everything is pretty laid back in Panama so Jason just walked the ten minutes back to the Bocas airport and changed our flight to Panama City to one day earlier.

We stayed at Cocomo on the Sea, which was a great B&B with only four rooms, run by a guy from Ohio who told me on more than one occasion how quickly he'd adapted to living in Bocas. He was very tan, seemed to know everyone on the island, and every time I saw him he was barefoot - what a life.

The one bad thing about staying in Bocas town is that there aren't any beaches, but there are boatmen everywhere who will take you out to the other islands to swim or snorkel. We took a trip out to a beach the first afternoon and did some snorkeling off the side of the boat on the way back.

On our only full day we woke up to rain. We had a long breakfast with the other guests at the hotel and finally decided to go out despite the weather. We rented a boat with another couple from our hotel to explore some of the other islands. We saw some dolphins, checked out some mangroves and coral, and did some snorkeling. It was pretty fun and the weather held up for the most part.

That night we went to a restaurant run by a German/Spanish couple that some people at our hotel had heard about. It was off the beaten path and pretty cool - the Spanish wife does the cooking and the German husband does the service (German style - everything was so organized!). They only serve one table at a time and we had 5 or 6 courses, all of which were really good. The only drawback was that I got eaten alive by mosquitos, but it was a great meal.

The next day we took care of some errands in the morning and then got back on the plane to fly to Panama City.

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Photos

Watch out for the 5-ft. long baracuda
It was eating scraps thrown from the kitchen.