Vacation Update

Vacation Pictures

General Cool Pictures

Bocas del Toro is a relatively small town on Panama's Caribbean coastline. You can tell it used to be nothing more than a typical Caribbean island and has now turned into the "new" typical Caribbean island, complete with bars, dive shops and vendors. It still managed to be pretty charming with colorful houses and most touristy areas limited to the main few streets. I'd say the majority of housing options were hostels (compared to hotels), and I don't think any of the buildings in town even had a third floor.

I stayed at a spanish school/hostel populated by Europeans and you were more likely to hear German than English, although almost everyone spoke English as well. Surprisingly there were quite a few people in their thirties who had been at the school for a month or were planning on staying for weeks. I expected everyone to be college students on break.

I definitely enjoyed the people at the school, but it was a bit difficult to be there on my own, since most of them spent at least half the day in class. I ended up doing a few tours on my own, and went to the beach with a pair of Argentine girls who were also staying at the hostel.

I took a short tour through the Smithsonian research station on the island, which was interesting. The facility is pretty new and obviously very nice. We got to hold some starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers and ended up seeing some interesting birds in their swamp. Northern Jacana and Boat-billed Heron and a male Passerini Tanager were the coolest. We also saw a few caimans in the pond.

Playa de Estrellas was probably the highlight of the week. Ines, Paz (the Argentines) and I took a local bus to the other side of the island, Bocas del Drago, got off the bus and walked about 30 minutes along the deserted shoreline. You see a hand-painted sign that says Please Do Not Touch the Stars and in the water you can see at least 10 starfish. The ocean was maybe 1-2ft deep for a good 20ft off the coast, and there were seagrass beds and bright starfish. I got to borrow snorkelling gear and further offshore was some soft coral. I ended up seeing a cuttlefish and a snapper fry that kept trying to eat me.

The return trip was a bit annoying, particularly when I got held up a bit at the border and only just caught the bus on the other side. When I finally got back to the center there were two IT guys from headquarters hanging around. We had dinner and on Sunday went to Manuel Antonio National Park, which is woods with pathways to the beaches. The wildlife sighting was unbelievable, easy spots everywhere. We saw three different types of monkeys (white-faced capuchin, squirrel and howler), raccoons, tame white-tailed deer, and a sloth on the way back. The beach was pretty as well.