Bocas Del Toro, Panama

by Derek Johanson

in Travel

Yes, I know – long time since the last post on detoxing from alcohol. But here we go:

Bocas Del Toro was pretty much everything I expected. Tourists and sun. Well, it was sunny for the first 3 days, then the weather turned south.

Here are some pics.

For more pics go to my Flickr account.
Clay and I stayed at the famous Mandu Taitu hostel our second and third night. Um, pretty cool I guess. A lot of whiteys trying hard to be cool laid back travelers.
Also on the second day, Clay and I rented bikes from the main drag for $7 for 5 hours. They were junker bikes – both of ours broke down forcing us to walk with them last mile or two home.

Their breaking down might have had something to do with the fact that we took them on a dirt road to the beach.

Playa Bluff

This is the beach we took them to.

Absolutely untouched and gorgeous. Untouched besides the trash dump we passed along the way. Watch the video (there’s some surfing shots at the end).

Bastimento

After spending a couple nights in Bocas, we decided to head over to another island called Bastimento. It was a $2.50 boat taxi ride (about 20 minutes). Bastimento is hilarious. It’s like Pirates of Caribbean. There were even some pirates that robbed us (I’ll post that story tomorrow).

Everywhere we went on the island there were people dancing and singing on their balcony and I swear some of them were animatronic. They’d scream and yell the same things to the same friends each time we passed by.

We met some great people at Hostel Bastimento although I’m pretty sure the guy that ran the place was half retarded, which makes me wonder how it stays in business. I’m pretty sure he spoke both Spanish and English, but I couldn’t understand a word of it.

My Overall Rating – 3 out of 5 stars. Lots of tourists, lots of people trying to rip you off.

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Rico November 13, 2008 at 5:51 pm

From the looks of the pictures the legal age is 12 years old? That chick you were dirty dancing with looks a few years older than Ryder.

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Derek November 13, 2008 at 9:56 pm

Wait, is dancing with 12 years olds bad?

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