The Bocas Del Toro province is located off the North Eastern coast of Panama. It consists of nine main islands and we have spent four days on the main island, Isla Colón. The island has a Caribbean influence with lots of amazing food options and music. It’s also one of the most popular destinations for Americans in Panama so English is spoken pretty much everywhere tourists are. It’s currently the rainy season which means it absolutely buckets down in the early morning or through the night and is usually dry during the day. It has been around 30 degrees each day which has been a nice change.

It’s easy in a place like this to just think we are on a short holiday away and to spend lots of money. We have been surprised how well we’ve been living for around $50NZD a day, including accomodation. We haven’t done any of the expensive tours out to other islands because we don’t think we need to. Especially since we are spending the next six weeks through Costa Rica, Belize and Mexico we think we will definitely see enough beaches.

Our first two nights we cooked our own dinners to enjoy some much needed colourful vegetables. On our second day we hired bikes for $5USD each and cycled 7km out to Bluff Beach. The beach has beautiful turquoise water and caramel coloured sand. We couldn’t swim there due to strong rip currents. On the ride to Bluff we stopped at a couple of bars for some cold drinks and had an amazing burger for lunch at the second place.

On our third day we caught a local bus out to the other side of the island to visit Starfish beach. We packed a picnic to enjoy and SAW SLOTHS IN THE TREES ON THE DRIVE THERE. Starfish beach itself was disappointing. The water was clear but the beach was littered with lots of plastic from the restaurants. The boats that drop tourists off hit the sand meaning there’s fibreglass all through the water. The worst part is most of the starfish don’t live there anymore because tourists keep picking them up, which kills them, for the instagram shots 😔. We got out of there and enjoyed our picnic around the coastline where it was quieter. Sticking to our budget we got on the happy hour specials when we returned for $1 beers and a pizza for $6.

Our last day was spent relaxing, we went for a walk and had a $5 lunch at a local Caribbean style restaurant.

Tomorrow, June 14, we fly (unfortunately) to San José in Costa Rica. The plus is that because Bocas Town is so small we can walk to the airport from our hostel. Something that doesn’t happen very often. We stay the night in San José before catching a bus to La Fortuna the following day to have some more SLOTH ENCOUNTERS.