A Panama interlude among the Starfish

11th to 13th March 2018 - Panama

As we were now close to Panama we decided to repeat the idea we had at the top of Costa Rica when we dropped into Nicaragua. Being a short bus trip away we decided on a 3 day tour into the Bocas Del Toro region in Panama. This area consists of a chain of islands in the Caribbean sea. We arrived on the main island, Isla Colon in the early afternoon, staying at the Gran Hotel Bahia. After a busy day we just had a short wander around the town and ate at a new Italian Restaurant next door, guided on the food choices by its very friendly Italian American owner. He convinced us to eat much too much and we then ran into an Australian who was traveling permanently, so we whiled the night away with friendly banter of back home.

The next morning we took a boat tour to spend a day out at the uninhabited Zapatilla Island and its pristine beaches. This is such a small island we were told it would only take half an hour to walk completely around. We decided to test that and set off for a hike. Two hours later, after fighting through dense bush that went right up to and into the sea, we stumbled out of the trees to just barely make it on to the boat as it was preparing to leave. The boat took us to an area to snorkel but there was not a lot in the ocean to see, though we did spot some dolphins, sloths in the trees dotted around the islands and some pretty starfish. That night we found an amazing Indian restaurant on the wharf called Om Cafe with the tables right over the water.

Om Cafe

Our final day out on the water was spent at Playa Estrallas (Starfish Beach). Over a 3 hour period we found many beautiful starfish, went for a walk along the beach, discovered a mangrove forest and saw what looked like a meeting of seagulls along a line of pylons. We made some new friends, Miguel & Jolita from New York (originally from Panama and Honduras) and Paola from Argentina. The next day we left our Caribbean adventure interlude and traveled back to Costa Rica.

Jolita, Paola and Elizabeth