Day 9 - Tour of Bocastown

We considered heading to the beach but with that state of the sandflies on the beaches we opted to head into Bocastown. Bocastown was about a 2 km walk down a road with rough patches of sidewalk. We passed by many houses of varying degree of repair and disrepair. We stopped into a restaurant once we made the turn onto the main street and Tegan and Elliot had an ice cream. I had a pepsi, that I shared with Tegan and poured some into her cup of ice cream to make a float. She really enjoyed that. Elliot didn't like the raisins in his ice cream; rum & raisin is what he ordered and he thought the raisins were chocolate chips initially.

We made are way through the many shops that lined the main street in search for a couple of t-shirts for the kids and a flag of Panama. Most of the shirts we saw had either Bocas del Toro or Cerveza Panama on them. We only found a Panama shirt for Tegan. Some of the handmade jewelry and crafts were quite nice and well crafted. There was a cute little woven sea turtle necklace that I was sure Tegan would love, but she passed it by. Picky kids.

On the way back we hopped into a place for some Pizza and fries for Elliot. The pizza was hand-tossed and looked promising, but it was somewhat of a let down in flavour. Instead of going to the beach I suggested to the kids that I could take across the street to Jenny's pool. The thought it a good compromise. Tegan and Elliot ended up playing with Kayla for a spell and then they reminded me of the pool and we invited Kayla to go as well. But in they end Kayla didn't come along with us. Tegan and Elliot did play with another girl in the pool and the had a great time. It also rained the whole time they were in the pool and I just stood under a palm tree watching over them while they played.

Tonight we made sandwiches in our cabana for dinner and watched some TV while we packing up for tomorrow's departure from Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro.

 

Day 7 - Bocas del Toro / Jon's Place

I woke up early this morning to find a troop of capuchin monkeys climbing in the trees outside of our room and the sunniest day in the rain forest. I had to grab my camera and quickly snapped off a pile of photos. With knowledge that there were some baby monkeys as well, I continued to photograph when they circled around. I found it really interesting how the monkeys would bend the canopy plants over, dumping the water that had been collected with the previous rains, searching for insects to eat. They picked oranges from the trees and then dropped them to the ground as well as breaking off many branches that fell with a large crash.

When Tegan and Elliot finally woke, they too got a taste of the wild monkeys as they jumped from tree to tree to tree. I left to go pack up our bags so we could get on our way, packing them took about an hour. We paid for our stay and were off to the bottom of the hill. Correen was ahead with Gabriel the caretaker of the hostel and I was with both kids urging them to careful as they and I navigated the decent with our bags. Tegan gave me her bag (now with 2 small bags and 1 x-large bag), Elliot ended up scraping his knee when he slipped on some concrete and I still was suggesting we hurry as the bus could arrive at anytime. And it did. I heard something gearing down on the road below and I said that could be the bus. It was just another 200m to the bottom and we just made it.

The bus was packed. We were in 3 different rows and separated for the trip. We saw waterfalls, crossed a large hydro dam, bought some sliced pineapple from one of the vendors that jump on the bus when it stops; until we finally stopped for 15 minutes at a comida for some Chinese food, which we only had enough time to eat half of. We continued our journey and arrived in Almirante, a dirty seaside town and our ferry to Bocas.

The taxi driver was suppose to charge us $2 but insisted on $3 and some boys jumped on our bags in the taxi to unload them and demand payment for a 10m walk. We waited a good 40 mins before the water taxi left the dock. The boat ride took about 20 minutes to reach Isla Colon and it wasn't too rough, Elliot even fell asleep in the boat.

We boarded a taxi for our hotel and we were shown to our cabana. Beautiful in contrast to streets of town we just drove through. The cabana was 2 rooms, 3 beds and the front-yard a large dock with which to string a hammock or two and watch the sunset. Stunning.

Tegan and I took two trips to the grocery store stocking up for our 3 day stay. We stopped in at a comida where there was an Afro-Carribean grandmother selling banana empanadas and coconut balls that were made with cane sugar. We tried the empanadas and loved them.

Tegan and Elliot introduced themselves and played with Kayla, the 8 year old girl from next door. They played exceptionally well together and we learned some new Spanish words from her, including; caracol for snail and maní for peanuts.

We walked down a side street on a hunt for some dinner. The place we settled on, only from default of no others being open, was Bocas del Dragon. The tacos were massive and delicious, Tegan had the fish and I had the chicken. Correen and Elliot had the lobster dinner and I think they were satisfied by the feed as well.

When we got back to the cabana we stayed up for a little bit longer, enjoying our hammocks and the dock.