Panama: The peace and quiet of Bocas del Toro

"Many of us will go to Bocas del Toro, please join us!", it read on the website. I took a cruise all the way from the Canary Islands to Panama, so I'd better see a bit of the country before going back to the Netherlands.

Thinking about being on a boat with so many people for 2 weeks, I knew I would be needing some peace and quiet after that. I booked the most amazing cabin that I could find to treat myself. With the free cancellation, because I still had no clue how to get to this group of islands in the west of Panama.

^{My awesome cabin (my own photo)}

It turned out not to be that complicated. Air Panama flies there a couple of times per day. It wasn't that expensive and the seat-selection-map of the plane helped me get rid of my anxiety that this plane was probably going to be super tiny and bound to crash (you gotta love the sneaky fear-of-flying bastard inner voice).

I was all set. On the boat, I discovered that others would go hitchhiking ("Are you nuts?") or just take a night-bus ("That can't be comfortable"). I was pleased with my choice and was even more pleased when I was on board the plane. It was just a perfectly nice and comfortable flight. Even with stewardesses serving drinks in this small plane.

The plane landed on a strip on Isla Colón, the main island of the province. And you could just walk from the airport to downtown Bocas del Toro. My cabin was located on a different island, Isla Carenero, that is only a few hundred meters away from the city. I didn't have to swim with my luggage because they have a huge number of water-taxis that bring people to the many islands. They only cost 1 dollar one way for my island.

Isla Carenero

I checked into my yellow cabin, using my best Spanish (which isn't much). I could hear the water slamming into the piles of the cabin. Sometimes you could hear the larger fish hunt. The cabin was exactly what I needed. It was quiet and I had an amazing view from my private deck.

I explored my quiet island while the rest was partying in town. I tried hard to ignore my FOMO but knew that I needed this. Walking around, I noticed how sweet the dogs are on this island. Almost everyone has a dog that walks loose around the home. And they are super well behaved while you often walk close to their homes!

I quickly ran into a place that would soon turn into my goto lunch place on the island. Leaf Eaters Cafe is a quiet and chill vegan restaurant with a little gift shop attached to it. Many hours have I sat here enjoying both the food (and smoothies!!) and the wifi. I can't express how much I love this place ❤️. Just look at it! Eating next to the water that was full of tiny fish. Water taxis sailing back and forth at a high speed was just part of the awesomeness.

This island was pretty empty. They told me about nice restaurant further away and since it was dark (and then it is DARK) I was nervous about walking there. Thank god they warned me about the blue crabs that would become active at night. Otherwise, I surely would have gotten a heart attack when they suddenly started moving underneath the dead palm tree leaves when I walked there in the dark with nothing but my flashlight!

^{This sunset was the most amazing one I have ever seen}

Playa Boca del Drago

After a few days catching up with my introverted needs, it was time to explore one of the many amazing beaches that are in Bocas del Toro. We planned on going to Playa Estrella (also known as Starfish Beach). We got into a bus that went straight into the jungle. I must have gotten a few bruises from the many bumps in the road. The trip took longer than expected, but after a while, we were dropped off at Playa Boca del Drago. The last bus back would be there just before dark. Missing that one would be terrible since it's not really a place that you can call a taxi from.

We had to walk through the jungle and across the beach to get to the beach where the starfish would be. But the views were so amazing that we were super slow. No way would we reach Starfish beach in time and also be in time for the bus before it was dark. At some point we found a little beach with a familiar face (from the cruise) in the sea, telling us there were starfish there too. And so we dropped our stuff and got into the water with our snorkels.

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The nice thing about Bocas is that the bus will wait for you if they know you should be on it. So I don't think we had to rush as much as we did. Most of us were still in the jungle taking photos of the sunset.

Playa Bluff

There was another beach that I was desperate to visit. It was Playa Bluff, a super long sandy beach on the other side of the jungle than Starfish beach.

A taxi dropped us off at a bar near the beach and promised he would come back pick us up around 7. We soon noticed that there was a huge difference with the other side. We could clearly hear the waves crash onto the beach.

Too bad for my snorkelling gear, but we weren't going to swim here. Instead, I decided to take some photos and try out my drone while my friend was trying to take a nap. Which didn't really work with the buzzing noise of the drone in her ears.

After the sandflies were done eating me alive, the taxi came to bring us back to Bocas town. An amazing town, filled with backpackers and party people, and therefore doesn't fit into the "peace and quiet" theme of this blog 😜.