The long bus to Bocas Del Toro, Panama, started with a 6am hostel pick up in La Fortuna. The bus then stopped at the coastal city of Puerto Viejo, which many backpackers stop off at but I opted to skip and go straight to Bocas. The next bus was very delayed as I was left stranded in Puerto Viejo for much longer than I should have been. Finally, it arrived and I got another bus to to the border which was a relatively smooth process to get through.
A third bus transported me to Almirante, the gateway to Bocas Del Toro, where I caught a short water taxi from the main island of Colon to Solarte, home to my hostel, Bambuda Lodge. Bambuda Lodge is one of these resort style hostels that is famously popular. It has a restaurant and bar, a pool overlooking the ocean and even a waterslide down from the hostel into the water. After a busy few weeks I was happy to relax and chill here for a couple of days.
Bocas Del Toro was super nice but, similarly to that of the Cloud Forrest in Costa Rica, I have been spoilt to such amazing places this trip that I began comparing it to other places I had been. Like it was nice but it wasn’t as nice as Caye Caulker I thought to myself – a side effect of having been to so many great places.
I spent 2 nights in Bambuda Lodge and then 1 night in the main island of Colon. It was very relaxed!
After my 3rd night I boarded a bus to Panama City in preparation for my sail to the San Blas Islands and Colombia. It was another long bus trip and I treated myself to a hotel for 2 nights to get organised for my sail and get some proper sleep for the first time in a while. I didn’t sightsee in Panama City as I was actually kept busy preparing for my sail. I went to a massive shopping centre to get a few things only to find out it wasn’t open until later because it was a holiday in Panama and then when it did open it was chaos. The shops in the centre have this annoying thing that you can’t enter a shop with a bag and you have to go to a counter next to the shop where they give you a number and store it away until you’re finished and you go and collect it. I bought a shirt early into my shopping venture and then spent 70% of the 2 hour trip bringing it to the counter of various stores because I wasn’t allowed to bring the bag in.
An obligatory trip to the supermarket to collect rum and beers rounded off the day.