Bernie's Travels: Bocas de Toro, Panama

From Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica I bused it to the southern border and passed into Panama over a one-lane bridge crossing the river that divides the two countries. It was an unconventional, fun border crossing. Trucks came through one at a time pushing people out of the way. On the other side I walked up to the immigration office and found that it was closed. The only immigration official working had just left for lunch. I was the first in line, as the hour drew on the line grew longer. Welcome to Panama! Other than a litlle wait the border crossing was simpler than most and I was soon on my way to Bocas de Toro, a string of islands just a little further south on the Caribbean coast.

Just as Puerto Viejo was hit by severe storms and flooding, so was Bocas de Toro. In fact Bocas de Toro had much more damage. There are normally two ways of arriving to the islands by boat. One way is through the banana canals, but they were silted in from the storms. The other option was from another town further down the coast. To get there we had to pass lots of banana plantations. At one point the road was temporarily closed to allow a raft of bananas to be pulled across the road by donkey. That was a first.

After a few hours I had made it to the port town and found my way to the docks which were an interesting sight as they usually are.

It was a bout a 25 minute boat ride out to the largest city in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro, Colon. It was a beautiful boat ride.

Colon was a nice size town, with a funky character. It was a laid back kind of place to be sure. For the few days I was there I had a good look around the town with friends from the hostel I was staying at, another really fun place. Traveling like this it is great to meet other travelers that are in a similar situation. Not only was Bocas a fun place to be but the hostel was great scene as well.

One day I went out with some folks from the hostel to the beach on the other side of the island. We took a taxi truck all the way out there, but it was still quite a mess from the storms. We walked around looking for a nice beach but ended up hanging out in a restaurant most of the time. It wasn't a beautiful day at the beach, but we had a good time.