Snorkle Heaven Bocas del Toro, Panama

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After the fun overnight bus we arrived around 5:30am to the dock where a boat would transport us to Bocas del Toro Island. Nothing like a 50 mph boat ride to wake you up first thing in the morning!! (No coffee required).

Once we arrived we strolled around the island to see where we would stay the night. Since it was early, early morning no one in the town was really up and about. So we found a hotel that was serving breakfast to kill some time... then ended up staying at Hostel Heike. After dropping off our packs it was time to explore!! We grabbed a water taxi to take us to a neighboring island that boasted great beaches. Instead of paying $2.00 to take us TO the beach, we only wanted to pay $1 and walk to it. There was a slightly worn path that we walked along wondered how long it was going to take us to get to "this beach". After about 45 minutes of picking our way through branches and roots in and around various isolated beaches we ended up hiking through the jungle! No machetes and our plastic flip flops were not helpful when trying to hike up muddy hills!! We were just waiting for snake to jump out and take off one of our toes (no one has admitted openly about this concern..haha). We then came upon a compound that looked like it had been recently visited so we grabbed a path which then turned out to be a dead end. So Josh went to inspect another trail since he had more reliable tread on his sandals and didn't seem to mind the spider web layers building up on his face from all the webs stretched across all the paths! FINALLY we found another beach to continue the walk, which in fact led us to another jungle path!! Fortunate for us... this one led to a stone road which was located beside a local's house. As we walked by all the children, the mother and father watched us go by. Who even knows what they were thinking when they saw 3 giant gringos all sweaty and muddy walking by!! Haha! After about 2hrs we had circumnavigated the island, and reached our starting point... so much for saving $1!!

We enjoyed the next few hours at Agua Lounge which was a restaurant/bar that had the center of their ocean deck cut out for swimming and a high wooden diving board to accompany it. The 3 of us then decided to show off by doing funny stunts off the diving board. After that we enjoyed snorkeling through the 1000s of neon fish swimming about and playing with the many giant star fish hanging out about the floor.

The following day we took a boat out to Dolphin Bay where we watched dolphins play about and chase boats doing circles in the sea. Then our boat took us to an isolated beach where we snorkeled and watched the gorgeous fish swim about.

Later in the afternoon we took another boat back to the mainland Almirante where we grabbed a bus to an EcoLodge called Lost & Found in the Fortuna Cloud Forest.

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