Just Chillaxing: A Suprise Panamanian\Caribbean Holiday

Oh hi! After Cahuita and its brilliant, atmosphere, people and food we decided that we really, really loved the whole caribbean coast vibe and wanted to see a bit more of it, even if it was just another taster. So we caught the bus at Cahuita with two Canadian boys who were also headed out to Bocas del Toro in Panama. But first we had to cross the border and it was interesting comparing our border experiences. We had a great time chatting with them and discovered our mutual sloth hunting experiences, and how this had become a bit of a mission for them too. They had some great examples of when speaking spanish would have really helped, and like us, vowed to improve our spanish more concientiously on our trips.

The bus took us through some villages over the course of an hour and a half, where we soon enough recognised the shabbyness of the final stop as the border and made our way as a group to the border crossing. We were greeted by a man in an orange t-shirt who had taken it upon himself to direct the procedings (for a fee) for tourists. This involved us not taking very much notice of him and him shouting instructions at us.

We queued up to fill out the paper work and answer some arbitory questions about our intentions then got onto the bit we had heard about, crossing the iron and wooden bridge over the river on foot. The bridge itself was in a shocking state. Rusting holes in the pedestrian walkways that were not big enough for backpacks and on coming people to pass each other.

Hurriedly we started out on foot over the bridge itself. This was quite nerve racking because the wooden planks were loose, had massive gaps in them, we were quite high up and we knew that traffic would be crossing this section too. I was worried about moving to the edge of the bridge because there were sheer drops, some of which were ineffectively mended with chicken wire. Not ideal. To add to the scene, the orange t-shirt man reapeared half way across to welcome us to Panama (as part of his package). However he then did nimbly run across the bridge to hold up the massive American tanker that wanted to cross. So I had to 'hurry up' putting my vertigo aside to quicken the pace. It was quite a challenge. Had anyone tried to touch me at that point, I would have gone mental!

But we made it across and then were straight into the Panama immigration section where we watched the official take a break from checking our passports to play with his son and check out the lunch his wife had brought him. No rush, we were at the front of the queue and still had time to catch the boat, allegedly. It was here that the orange t-shirt popped up and insisted we get into a taxi immediately.

First we changed our money at the chinese restaurant for some dollars to pay for the taxi. Then sadly our only option was to get into a taxi with American dad and his two teenagers, who he proceeded to argue with for the whole journey. They had the biggest wheelie luggage we had ever seen, and about two pieces each before hand luggage. They were happy to let a group of six year old locals wheel it to the boat for them. They continued to argue and we sat next to a french family who later, when the boat arrived, argued with said Americans as they jumped the queue to get all their luggage and themselves on first. Turned out that they live in Bocas and occasionally go back to America to get 'stuff ' that you can't get in Panama. Whatever.

We made sure that they were at the opposite end of the boat to us and we sped off, quite literally on a super mad speedboat journey at formula one speeds. I could barely believe it was safe, although it was really good fun and very exhilarating! Soon enough we had to grind to an inpromptu halt as the propellor got caught on a massive chunk of pondweed, that the driver couldn't see because the back was weighed down with wheelie luggage, yes really. The driver had a really cheeky face and clearly loved driving like a maniac, so proceeded in this manner, causing massive swells in his wake. Locals were fishing in dug outs on peaceful waters only to find themselves in a massive swell. Oh dear, at times he did look a bit sorry. It can't make you very popular locally can it?

The Journey was amazing crashing through rivers then onto the open sea, where the water changed to turquoise and there was a Bora-Bora type hotel with private cabanas on stilts over the ocean were. It was stunning. When we did arrive at Isla Colon the largest and most developed island and provincial capital of Bocas del Toro, we could instantly see from the jetty large zebra fish swimming about in the clear waters and massive star fish under the boat on the sand...impressive.

We chose to stay at Hotel Dos Palmas because it was 100% Bocatoreno. Ideal. Also it was original in its wooden construction that jutted out on stilts over the water. Yay! There was a choice of rooms, we got one in the building on the left. It was lovely. The owner was really friendly and showed us to the back of the building where there was an open seating area with amazing views over the sleepy late afternoon calm waters.

Here we met a canadian who was building a house on one of the other islands that had a controvercial development currently being built called 'red frog beach'. We had read about it previously. It sounded pretty much like this whole area was soon to become a retirement haven for wealthy Americans and Canadians, who were buying up plots of land. A shame for the locals who's original housing could be seen amongst the renovated buildings, tourist restaurants and a 'design interiors' shop.

Some of the beautiful buildings, locally occupied on the street opposite the dock.

We had a wander around but because it was sunday could not find anywhere to eat that had what we wanted, so we opted to utilise the happy hour on the wooden decking overlooking the water behind one of the restaurants. This was a bit drunken.

The next morning we finally got to go to Lilli's cafe and sample her famous 'Killin Me Man' hot pepper sauce with a Lilli's omelette each out the back of her cafe on the waterfront. This was brilliant and seemed to be bona-fide local. This really set us up for the day ahead where we had planned to go to to see the starfish along the coast that the area was known for. We ended up getting a collectivo with some locals, it took about 40 minutes on some very bumpy roads with some amazing palm tree lined coastal views.

This is the view after getting off the collectivo.

It wasn't difficult to amuse ourselves!

Wiji holding a starfish for the first time, a bit apprehensive....Ooooo.

No! Its all good, its hilarious.

Quality.

Wiji sitting on the sand shelf with the starfish.

I'll just take one of myself!

Naturally we brought a picnic with us, and found some shade to eat it.

Midget gringo plays the Dij. LOL.

Before the crab popped back down its hole.

Wiji floating about in the Caribbean Ocean...he's really struggling with this travelling lark, yeah. Shame.

And soon enough a full day of terrorising starfish, beach combing, swimming and picnicing was over and we had to catch the 5pm collectivo home...boo.

We had a last chilled evening on Isla Colon before our one day journey to Panama City the next morning. We caught a 7:30 ferry that would take us to connect with a bus that went direct to Panama city. This did seem a bit too good to be true...but we thought we would give it a go.