Taboga, Island of Flowers, Panama

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It's Christmas time and the Island of Taboga is enthusiastically decorated with nativity scenes for the Navidad festivities. Randomly, at all hours of the day and night, the church blasts Christmas songs from their piercingly loud sound system.

From Taboga, there's a view of the sunrise with a back drop of Panama City. It looks like Miami, with towering buildings and cranes busily constructing new structures along the waterfront. The Island is mostly covered with a terraced landscape of colorful houses decorated with lights and speckled with flower covered trees and shrubs.

Between the City and the Island, enormous container ships wait anchored, for a turn to pass through the canal. Never have I seen a place where all the world comes together for commerce and transport of goods in such a surprisingly organized way. The Pacific side of Panama City has a number of islands, some of which have been deforested, and scraped flat to develop large oil tanks for refueling the ships traveling through the area.

There is a one lane, narrow road through the town of Taboga, with golf carts and small 4-wheel drive vehicles passing up and down. Beyond the concrete, the road turns to red dirt and in every direction you can take beautiful hiking trails up to the hilltops and have beautiful vistas of all sides of the island.

The back side of the island is completely undeveloped. It is pristine rain forest, with mountains reaching 1200 feet above the waves crashing on the rocks below. The tide normally changes 5.5 meters (18 feet) twice each day. Brown Pelicans feed on bait balls boiling on the water's surface and Black Vultures sit heavy in the branches above. Volcanic beaches appear and disappear twice a day as the sea brings new treasures and scatters them across the rust colored sand. Humpback whales can be seen around the island.

There are several hotels and restaurants to visit, and a unique and beautiful gift shop near the church which has local and imported hand made crafts.

Taboga, "The Island of Flowers", is a tropical paradise with a rich history and a great place to retire. Just a 40 minute ferry ride from the hustle of Panama City, it is worth a visit.

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