Blogs from Panama, Central America Caribbean

JOHNNY'S JOURNEYS: PANAMA CANAL CRUISE 2023 February 6, 2023 (Monday) After ten hours of driving from Mobile, AL yesterday to Kissimmee, FL, this will be a shorter travel day for us. As we drive along the Turnpike towards Miami, Bethany calls us to sing Happy Birthday to me. I'm now 68 and going on 38. Going through a tunnel, we reach the Port of Miami and see the Norwegian Sky. There is a parking deck just across the road from our terminal. We then rolled our luggage to a designated area and left them there. I had preregistered online, so checking in was pretty simple. Our scheduled time was from 1:00 to 1:30. We went inside and showed our passports and Covid vaccine cards. A paper with our individual barcodes was scanned and we entered the ... read more

Getting to the Bocas Islands from Boquete was simple, but it took about five hours. We all gathered at Hello Travel at 8am but it was a frustrating wait for departure as we finally left about 45 minutes later. The best part of four hours was spent on a minibus through spectacular mountain and forested landscapes. About three quarters of the way we stopped for a comfort break and grabbed some snacks, before the last hour of the journey to Almirante. It was chaotic at the port but soon enough we were all on a boat. It felt slightly overcrowded but not as bad as we had feared and it was about half an hour on the water over to Bocas Town on Isla Colón. Back on dry land it was a ten minute walk with ... read more

David is Panama's second city. That's really hard to believe when you approach on the bus and even harder to believe when you are actually there. Most people don't bother stopping and just change bus to get to Boquete. They are missing out on something very different when it comes to city breaks, although speaking Spanish really did make it a more enriching experience. On arrival we fended off the ticket touts trying to get us onto another bus and avoided all of the numerous taxis as it was only a 10-15 minute walk to our hotel. Ok, it was a bit of a hot and sticky walk, but in David the climate makes that in the capital seem fresh, so you have to get used to it. When we got to the url=https://www.booking.com/searchresults.en-gb.html?aid=1769628&sid=9a578de347668f45368f9dd1a856b6cd&sb=1&src=hotel&src_elem=sb&error_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fhotel%2Fpa%2Ftryp-panama-centro.en... read more

Our first destination on the original itinerary for Holland America’s 75-day Grand South America and Antarctica Voyage aboard the MS Volendam had been Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands but had been changed to Ocho Rios, Jamaica a week or two before the cruise began. I had not yet signed up for the Dolphin Encounter & Cayman Turtle Centre shore excursion offered in Grand Cayman but was planning to do so after I had had a peek at the weather forecast. Instead, our first port of call was now Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I had been to Runaway Bay, Jamaica (less than twenty miles from Ocho Rios) twice before and had seen most of the area’s tourist destinations, so I had decided to save my “shore excursion dollars” for something new and different. Cruise Day 2, ... read more

I returned from San Blas Islands and headed straight to Santa Catalina, on the Pacific Coast in Panama. Santa Catalina is known for diving at Coiba Islands, but as I don't dive, I did not do that. I spent next couple of days just planning the next leg of my trip. From Santa Catalina, I headed to David and then to Boquete. Boquete is at a higher altitude, a mountainous area known for its hikes and coffee. There I experienced rain for the first time on this trip. I did the Three Waterfalls trail where I saw some majestic waterfalls up close. Unfortunately, due to the rain, the third waterfall was closed, but the other two I was able to see up close. I had taken a local bus to the waterfalls, but on my way ... read more