Bocas del Toro

What had always confused me about Latin America, is why the buses are always so frigid. I never thought I could get frost bitten in Panama until I took an overnight cross-county Latin Greyhound express. They crank up the AC so much, that Latinos are accustomed to bringing winter blankets with them on long bus trips. I saw a guy in a snow suit and asked him where he was skiing. “Nope, just taking the bus to Costa Rica,” he tells me.

On a 10-hour trip north to Bocas del Toro, a beautiful chain of islands, my girl sat right below one of the vents, and since I had to use the whole blanket, she shivered the whole time! Just kidding…I did let her borrow my t-shirt (what a gentleman). We were fortunate to catch on the in-flight TV the pirated DVD of Big Mama’s House 2 in Spanish – if you can believe it, it’s even better than the English version!

We ended up in Almirante, the undisputed armpit of Panamá. No offense to any native Almirantes, but this place had been pretty neglected. I’ve noticed that throughout Latin America, the power and money is centralized in the capitals and other major cities, leaving the outlying provinces to fend for themselves – meaning public infrastructure such as road maintenance and plumbing often goes ignored by the government. It was a pretty filthy. I wanted to take a bath in Purell after I left this place.

Almirante was the jump off town for the islands so we took a $3 water taxi for a 30-minute sunrise cruise to Bocas Island. The great scenery on the boat trip more than made up for our white-knuckle bus ride.

We found our hotel and crashed for hours. In the afternoon, we explored this funky ex-pat enclave. It had a very hippie vibe - I smelled patchouli everywhere. It’s quite an eclectic little town with some great food. My favorite was El Pecado (The Sin) restaurant. The first time we tried to eat there, the bartender told us they couldn’t serve any more food because they ran out of water. I stopped for a second –this is an island! How can they run out of water?!? Oh well, I was resigned to dining on my favorite Papaya fruit shake.

Melba and I found a great place that served us a monster lobster dinner for 25 bucks. It was amazing. While we were eating, we made friends with some local young’uns. These kids were very cool and loved seeing their pics on the digital camera.

The second day, we took a boat excursion to watch some dolphins jump through our wake.

We snorkeled some crystal clear waters and chased tiny flounder on Starfish Beach - it was covered with these huge red starfish.

We hopped on land and trekked through the jungle until we found Red Frog Beach. It had a cool bar where all the seats were swings hanging from the trees.

Nighttime served up some local debauchery at the Barco Hundido – the local Swiss-Family type bar whose deck encircles a sunken ship that’ all lit up a night. While sipping your Balboa beer, you can sit and watch trumpetfish and crabs
hanging out in the ship’s hull. Part of the bar is a party boat. Supposedly, the owner will untie the boat from the dock without notice. People on it don’t realize they’re floating away until they see the bar in the distance.

Swan's Cay

This island was unbelievable - it's tiny and out in the middle of the ocean right off Bocas del Toro, but is the only place in Panama you'll find the red-billed Tropicbird. We paid, Javier, one of the local boatmen to take us around the islands in his boat for the day. The guy was great and incredibly honest. After Melba and I got back to our hotel, somebody was knocking on our door. It was Javier with our sunglasses that we had left on his boat. He called around and found out where we were staying and dropped them off before he called it a day. I really love the honesty of the Panamanians we've run across.

Supposedly, you can get a boat through that little hole. Javier wouldn't do it even after I called him a little girl in Spanish.