Bocas Post
Bocas del Toro made a fun place for a five day trip. Although this is more than expected, it is a pretty pricey place as far as Panama goes. We stayed at this hotel: http://bocastesoroescondido.com/. It was about 7.2 kilometers out of the actual Bocas Town, which mean either a 90 minute walk or a $5 taxi cab each way per person. This isolation raised the cost of our trip, but also meant that we had access to one of the best Bocas beaches with minimal people on it. At most, I think I counted maybe seven people on Bluff Beach.
The town itself is reminiescent of Cozumel in that the tourism focus is strongly felt from the moment you get off the boat and people are offering you lodging deals, tour deals, taxi deals, bike deals -- everything is apparently a deal despite the fact that prices, compared to mainland Panama, are a bit audacious. That being stated, although I didn't hit up the bar scene as strongly as I may have liked, from what I did see, the bars were pretty chill. In fact, if there's anything the island is trying to sell is just how 'chill' it is. For a moment, due to the the considerable presence of foreigners (almost a quarter of the population according to my taxi driver, Jorge), you forget you're even in Panama. It's okay though, there are plenty of Bocas is Panama stickers hanging around to remind you where you are.
Bocas is beautiful, but for what it offers, I feel I can find analogous beaches in less tourism exploited areas. The hangouts, however, seem attractive enough and there seems to be no shortage of parties as every night we were in Bocas Town we were handed fliers to happy hours or free drinks for ladies parties. One thing for sure is that if you're traveling on a budget, you can make Bocas work, but it's recommended to go when you have a fair amount of capital to fund your exploits.
All in all, it was a relaxing vacation and I'm sure I will return to Bocas sometime before my time in Panama is up. Shout out to Erica Gallegos for giving us a place to stay en route and to Alex Blum for giving us an incredible tour of his community. David and Santiago were also hit up, but the only thing I discovered was that David was much more livlier than Santiago and that the two cities should not be cited as equals. David is like the cooler, slightly trendier brother of Santiago.
