Bocas Del Toros-Panama Adventure
Dec 30th, 2005, 01:08 PM
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Bocas Del Toros-Panama Adventure
I recieved this from a friend who recently visited Bocas.
Toro is the real Gold Coast on the Isthmus of Panama. You get a real feel for the Spanish Main, which is alive and well in the Province of Bocas del Toro. For those of you that
have never been there, you need to go there NOW! Don't sit back and dream of what it would be like. Go NOW or plan on it in the near future. It is easy to get to. Just a short plane ride from Albrook's Marcos Gelabert airfield, or its a really nice drive from Panama City to Almirante. Then, from Almirante you then hop on a water
taxi for a short 30 minute ride to PARADISE, sitting next to natives and tourists and enjoying the breezy ride out to the islands. The really nice part of the drive starts when you cut off the Pan-American Highway at Gualaca in Chiriqui and drive north over the Serrania de Talamanca mountain range to the Atlantic Coast. From there you then head west again 60 kilometers along the Caribbean coast to Almirante. Almirante is a small container port that Chiquita Brands still uses to ship bananas and pineapples out of Panama. The scenery along the drive is breathtaking as you climb out of the coastal lowlands up into the foothills and finally up to the rugged continental divide through the Fortuna Forest Preserve. There is no more beautiful drive in Panama. You pass over the Fortuna Hydroelectric Dam and skirt the lake which is surrounded by beautiful cloud-rain forest. All along the drive, you come across the typical stilted houses with no screened windows that the natives live in. They sell fruits and vegetables and handicrafts.
After the 30 minute boat ride from Almirante, you reach Isla del Colon. You pull into the docks where there are many hotels along the waterfront that are big new or rebuilt buildings that all have restaurants right on the water that are three to four stories tall. They are built half on the water and half on the land. There is a main street running right along these hotels that runs down through the town. Along this street you find more hotels, restaurants, beach stores, surf shops, internet cafes, goumet food stores, a nice big plaza, grocery stores, banks, you name it, they have it. There are BBQ stands with ladies selling jerked chicken, BBQ'd pork, fried bread, fried plantain, and fried yuca. All look very appetizing and smell wonderful. I was going to stop and buy some chicken but the lady would not sell to me unless I waited for it to be done.
My friends were in a hurry to go nowhere so we went off to go nowhere. Anyway, that first night I ordered an octupus coctail for an appetizer and it was delicious and it had cilantro, habanero peppers, lime, ginger, garlic, and several other spices that I couldn't put my finger on, typical west indian seasoning that you eat and question later. Then I had langostinos with french fries and a nice salad which was also excellent. The name of this restaurant was The Nasty Mermaid.
We did not stay on Isla Colon, but instead stayed on Isla Carenero, which is a two minute launch ride from Isla Colon costing one dollar, and is a stones throw across a narrow passage from Isla del Colon. I like Carenero because it has nice beach right in front of the hotel, and there are no cars on the island. All I require is beach no more than ten feet away, hot water, and A/C. The place I stay is a simple little six room hotel on the beach called Doña Mara's and it has all of that for $50/night. You can stay in nicer places on Isla del Colon for cheaper but the beach is not ten feet away. And like I said, I am happy with A/C, hot water, and a beach right there.
The next morning we lazed around and argued about what to do and finally we decided that my lady friend really didn't want to go where we wanted to go, (Red Frog Beach) because there were no slot machines there. So we packed an ice chest with turkey sandwiches, beer, root beer, potato chips, cold apples, dip, and other snacks, assembled snorkel, mask, flippers, and beach chairs, went out on the dock in front of the hotel and flagged down a launch to go to Red Frog Beach. You flag down launches in Bocas like New Yorker's flag down taxis, only more easy. Red Frog Beach is on Isla Bastimientos about a 15 minute launch ride from Isla Carenero. Red Frog Beach is actually on the windward side of Isla Bastimientos and you take the launch to the leeward side of Isla Bastimientos and then have a 15 minute walk through a nice rainforest to get to the windward side where the beach is. It is a scene out of paradise. The waves are breaking, the sand is pinkish light tan, the water is crystal clear and if you show up before noon, you are the only people there.
At 1 PM there rest of the crowd shows up, and you are glad they did because they are people from all over the world. There are people from the U.S., Canada, England, Europe, South America, Austrailia, you name it. They are all there for one purpose, to spend a wonderful day at the beach. When you arrive at the leeward side of the island to get to Red Frog Beach, they charge you a dollar when you step off the launch. This is to maintain the path and docks on the island and to keep the beach groomed. And they do a very nice job I might add. They were adding new planks to the walkways, and there was a guy with a wheel barrow picking up seaweed off the beach. It was a dollar well worth it. They even have a small bar on Red Frog Beach and they will serve you a nice cold margarita on the rocks or a cold beer and a snack right on your beach towell or at your beach chair, you don't even have to walk to the bar, which is less than 100 feet away. They come to you.
We spent the rest of the afternoon bodysurfing, swimming, and chatting with the other beachgoers and lazing around on the beach. Our beach chairs were set up under trees growing on the beach, so no need of beach umbrellas. The water was the perfect temperature, don't ask me what it was, all I know is that is was cool when you first got in, but you adjusted to it within twenty seconds. It was perfect dry season weather. I think dry season is early this year as it has been dry and sunny for almost a week now.
Red Frog Beach is called Red Frog Beach because, yep you guessed it, there are red frogs in the jungle that fringes the beach. They are little poison dart frogs that have red on their backs.
We stayed at Red Frog Beach from noon to 5 PM and then headed back over the trail to the lee side of the island to catch our launch back to Carenero. It was one of those rare afternoons that you never want to end. Back at the hotel, after a nice warm shower, some skin lotion, because I got a little sun-burned, and a bloody mary with some carrots, celery, broccoli, and cauliflour with some ranch dip for coctail hour, we started to entertain
thoughts about where to go for dinner. Basically we did the same thing as the night before, we walked around and looked at what was posted on the menus outside the restaurants and decided on a restaurant based on that. That night I had whatever you call a garlic bread with tomatoes and parmesian cheese, and a guacamole with chips for an appetizer, and then for dinner, fresh red snapper done in a coconut and curry sauce with fried green plantains and a fresh salad. Again, too stuffed for a dessert, but I had a very good margarita with the appetizer. The name of this restaurant was The Limbo, it was also a hotel.
Well, being in an extremely good mood, and in view of the fact that Isla del Colon's most famous bar was open that night, we decided to go to the Barco Hundido (The Sunken Boat Bar). Again, why walk since the boat ride down the beach several hundred meters only cost one dollar? So we caught the boat of course. Don't forget, I had a big dinner and I was stuffed, and its hard to walk when you are stuffed especially when you know you can catch a boat for a dollar. So we headed off to the Barco Hundido Bar.
The Balboa Yacht Club Bar of old had nothing on the Barco Hundido Bar except maybe the Balboa Yacht Club's bartenders Davis or Marshall's bloody Marys. Never-the-less, the ambience at the Barco Hundido has got it all over the Yacht Club. The locals are there along with the yachties and the tourists. But the highlight of the night is when a dozen just newly arrived Aussie surfers show up all low key, start drinking, and the situation
quickly turned to a mayhem that only Aussies are capable of. They ripped off their clothes down to their skivvies ans started to throw each other into the water (the water
being crystal clear, well lit up, and full of angel fish, seargent majors, and wrasses. The water off the docks at this bar looks like an aquarium. Then the Aussies started aiming at the single lady tourists in the bar and throwing them in the water. It was total mayhem, and I never laughed so hard in my life. Of course, just about anything goes in Bocas so no
one thought twice about the total anarchy created by the Aussies. These Aussies know how to have fun and joke around. They had the whole bar laughing. They had not been on the island four hours and they already owned it. One of the launch guys who lived on Carenero had offered us a ride back invited us to his house
for more drinks and I thought, hmmm, maybe not, no telling what his place is like. But to my surprise he had a beautifully built house all opened up to the water right on the water with a dock. Turns out he was financed by a wealthy Panamanian who had set him up so that he could maintain the house and boat by working the boat. Very good idea if you find the right boat guy. We stayed there until four in the morning and then walked one hundred feet down to our hotel and plopped into bed in the cool A/C and dozed off until 10 AM the next morning. There is something about a hangover in paradise. A hangover is not near as bad when you know you are waking up with it in paradise.
We got up, had breakfast went for a swim and then went into a depression and argument about why we were leaving that day. Well, my friends from Louisiana had an itinerary they had to stick to, and other places to go in Panama and they too were wondering why they had planned to go anywhere else besides this paradise at Bocas del Toro. Why only three days this time? I was ready to stay for at least two more days. Oh well, such is life, you sometimes make bad decisions."
Toro is the real Gold Coast on the Isthmus of Panama. You get a real feel for the Spanish Main, which is alive and well in the Province of Bocas del Toro. For those of you that
have never been there, you need to go there NOW! Don't sit back and dream of what it would be like. Go NOW or plan on it in the near future. It is easy to get to. Just a short plane ride from Albrook's Marcos Gelabert airfield, or its a really nice drive from Panama City to Almirante. Then, from Almirante you then hop on a water
taxi for a short 30 minute ride to PARADISE, sitting next to natives and tourists and enjoying the breezy ride out to the islands. The really nice part of the drive starts when you cut off the Pan-American Highway at Gualaca in Chiriqui and drive north over the Serrania de Talamanca mountain range to the Atlantic Coast. From there you then head west again 60 kilometers along the Caribbean coast to Almirante. Almirante is a small container port that Chiquita Brands still uses to ship bananas and pineapples out of Panama. The scenery along the drive is breathtaking as you climb out of the coastal lowlands up into the foothills and finally up to the rugged continental divide through the Fortuna Forest Preserve. There is no more beautiful drive in Panama. You pass over the Fortuna Hydroelectric Dam and skirt the lake which is surrounded by beautiful cloud-rain forest. All along the drive, you come across the typical stilted houses with no screened windows that the natives live in. They sell fruits and vegetables and handicrafts.
After the 30 minute boat ride from Almirante, you reach Isla del Colon. You pull into the docks where there are many hotels along the waterfront that are big new or rebuilt buildings that all have restaurants right on the water that are three to four stories tall. They are built half on the water and half on the land. There is a main street running right along these hotels that runs down through the town. Along this street you find more hotels, restaurants, beach stores, surf shops, internet cafes, goumet food stores, a nice big plaza, grocery stores, banks, you name it, they have it. There are BBQ stands with ladies selling jerked chicken, BBQ'd pork, fried bread, fried plantain, and fried yuca. All look very appetizing and smell wonderful. I was going to stop and buy some chicken but the lady would not sell to me unless I waited for it to be done.
My friends were in a hurry to go nowhere so we went off to go nowhere. Anyway, that first night I ordered an octupus coctail for an appetizer and it was delicious and it had cilantro, habanero peppers, lime, ginger, garlic, and several other spices that I couldn't put my finger on, typical west indian seasoning that you eat and question later. Then I had langostinos with french fries and a nice salad which was also excellent. The name of this restaurant was The Nasty Mermaid.
We did not stay on Isla Colon, but instead stayed on Isla Carenero, which is a two minute launch ride from Isla Colon costing one dollar, and is a stones throw across a narrow passage from Isla del Colon. I like Carenero because it has nice beach right in front of the hotel, and there are no cars on the island. All I require is beach no more than ten feet away, hot water, and A/C. The place I stay is a simple little six room hotel on the beach called Doña Mara's and it has all of that for $50/night. You can stay in nicer places on Isla del Colon for cheaper but the beach is not ten feet away. And like I said, I am happy with A/C, hot water, and a beach right there.
The next morning we lazed around and argued about what to do and finally we decided that my lady friend really didn't want to go where we wanted to go, (Red Frog Beach) because there were no slot machines there. So we packed an ice chest with turkey sandwiches, beer, root beer, potato chips, cold apples, dip, and other snacks, assembled snorkel, mask, flippers, and beach chairs, went out on the dock in front of the hotel and flagged down a launch to go to Red Frog Beach. You flag down launches in Bocas like New Yorker's flag down taxis, only more easy. Red Frog Beach is on Isla Bastimientos about a 15 minute launch ride from Isla Carenero. Red Frog Beach is actually on the windward side of Isla Bastimientos and you take the launch to the leeward side of Isla Bastimientos and then have a 15 minute walk through a nice rainforest to get to the windward side where the beach is. It is a scene out of paradise. The waves are breaking, the sand is pinkish light tan, the water is crystal clear and if you show up before noon, you are the only people there.
At 1 PM there rest of the crowd shows up, and you are glad they did because they are people from all over the world. There are people from the U.S., Canada, England, Europe, South America, Austrailia, you name it. They are all there for one purpose, to spend a wonderful day at the beach. When you arrive at the leeward side of the island to get to Red Frog Beach, they charge you a dollar when you step off the launch. This is to maintain the path and docks on the island and to keep the beach groomed. And they do a very nice job I might add. They were adding new planks to the walkways, and there was a guy with a wheel barrow picking up seaweed off the beach. It was a dollar well worth it. They even have a small bar on Red Frog Beach and they will serve you a nice cold margarita on the rocks or a cold beer and a snack right on your beach towell or at your beach chair, you don't even have to walk to the bar, which is less than 100 feet away. They come to you.
We spent the rest of the afternoon bodysurfing, swimming, and chatting with the other beachgoers and lazing around on the beach. Our beach chairs were set up under trees growing on the beach, so no need of beach umbrellas. The water was the perfect temperature, don't ask me what it was, all I know is that is was cool when you first got in, but you adjusted to it within twenty seconds. It was perfect dry season weather. I think dry season is early this year as it has been dry and sunny for almost a week now.
Red Frog Beach is called Red Frog Beach because, yep you guessed it, there are red frogs in the jungle that fringes the beach. They are little poison dart frogs that have red on their backs.
We stayed at Red Frog Beach from noon to 5 PM and then headed back over the trail to the lee side of the island to catch our launch back to Carenero. It was one of those rare afternoons that you never want to end. Back at the hotel, after a nice warm shower, some skin lotion, because I got a little sun-burned, and a bloody mary with some carrots, celery, broccoli, and cauliflour with some ranch dip for coctail hour, we started to entertain
thoughts about where to go for dinner. Basically we did the same thing as the night before, we walked around and looked at what was posted on the menus outside the restaurants and decided on a restaurant based on that. That night I had whatever you call a garlic bread with tomatoes and parmesian cheese, and a guacamole with chips for an appetizer, and then for dinner, fresh red snapper done in a coconut and curry sauce with fried green plantains and a fresh salad. Again, too stuffed for a dessert, but I had a very good margarita with the appetizer. The name of this restaurant was The Limbo, it was also a hotel.
Well, being in an extremely good mood, and in view of the fact that Isla del Colon's most famous bar was open that night, we decided to go to the Barco Hundido (The Sunken Boat Bar). Again, why walk since the boat ride down the beach several hundred meters only cost one dollar? So we caught the boat of course. Don't forget, I had a big dinner and I was stuffed, and its hard to walk when you are stuffed especially when you know you can catch a boat for a dollar. So we headed off to the Barco Hundido Bar.
The Balboa Yacht Club Bar of old had nothing on the Barco Hundido Bar except maybe the Balboa Yacht Club's bartenders Davis or Marshall's bloody Marys. Never-the-less, the ambience at the Barco Hundido has got it all over the Yacht Club. The locals are there along with the yachties and the tourists. But the highlight of the night is when a dozen just newly arrived Aussie surfers show up all low key, start drinking, and the situation
quickly turned to a mayhem that only Aussies are capable of. They ripped off their clothes down to their skivvies ans started to throw each other into the water (the water
being crystal clear, well lit up, and full of angel fish, seargent majors, and wrasses. The water off the docks at this bar looks like an aquarium. Then the Aussies started aiming at the single lady tourists in the bar and throwing them in the water. It was total mayhem, and I never laughed so hard in my life. Of course, just about anything goes in Bocas so no
one thought twice about the total anarchy created by the Aussies. These Aussies know how to have fun and joke around. They had the whole bar laughing. They had not been on the island four hours and they already owned it. One of the launch guys who lived on Carenero had offered us a ride back invited us to his house
for more drinks and I thought, hmmm, maybe not, no telling what his place is like. But to my surprise he had a beautifully built house all opened up to the water right on the water with a dock. Turns out he was financed by a wealthy Panamanian who had set him up so that he could maintain the house and boat by working the boat. Very good idea if you find the right boat guy. We stayed there until four in the morning and then walked one hundred feet down to our hotel and plopped into bed in the cool A/C and dozed off until 10 AM the next morning. There is something about a hangover in paradise. A hangover is not near as bad when you know you are waking up with it in paradise.
We got up, had breakfast went for a swim and then went into a depression and argument about why we were leaving that day. Well, my friends from Louisiana had an itinerary they had to stick to, and other places to go in Panama and they too were wondering why they had planned to go anywhere else besides this paradise at Bocas del Toro. Why only three days this time? I was ready to stay for at least two more days. Oh well, such is life, you sometimes make bad decisions."
Jun 3rd, 2008, 05:42 AM
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Don't miss barco hundido on Isla Colon... it's a bar that has been built out onto the water around a sunken ship that you can still see... very neat. Also, the bar on Red Frog Beach has swings instead of bar stools... what more could you need??
