Bocas Del Toro, Panama is a like paradise after the noisy busy streets of Panama City. The small town is located on an island just off the caribbean coast of northern Panama. We reached it by prop plane in just over an hour. We were able to walk our rolling luggage right to our condo from the airport.
On day one we took a boat tour to some surrounding islands, went snorkeling in clear shallow water, and
got dropped off at a "desert island" a small jungled interior
surrounded by white sand. Everyone else on the tour was a couple, and
each pair wandered off on their romantic barefoot walk in the sand,
while Josh and I found a stick and hit seeds into the ocean baseball
style and drank beer for an hour.
Another day we took a boat taxi to Red Frog
Beach. We enjoyed the burger stand by the beach, body surfed in the
waves. Towards dusk we hiked back the mile to the dock for the boat
taxi back. Big mistake. We missed the last boat. We sat forlornly on
the dock for what seemed like a long time listening to the frogs chirp
in the rising moonlight. Finally we found an occupied house and got the
lady inside to call us a "cab:" $20 got us back to town.
Bocas has pretty good nightlife for a small town. If you've been here, no doubt you ended up at the Golden Grill at closing time.
At one oceanside bar we saw multiple young local men come and make transactions in the shadows. Suddenly, two of them jumped in a waiting outboard and zoomed a quartermile offshore and cut the lights. A minute later a dozen policemen came into the bar, interrogated nearly every local guy , and hauled away a couple of them. As soon as they left, the guys in the boat came back to the bar.
Mondo Taitu hostel might have the best happy hour of any hostel.. Atlas beer for 75 cents and live music. But Aqua Lounge may be the best bar on the planet. $1.50 beer, and they have swings and a trampoline, both of which can be used to launch yourself into the caribbean. Which we did, over and over and over.
