Island Hopping Around Bocas

Bocas del Toro, Panama

After our relatively easy border crossing, we headed straight for the islands of Bocas del Toro. We spent two nights on the main island of Isla Colon, and two nights on one of the other big islands, Isla Bastimento. Isla Colon is filled with a number of bars, restaurants, hostels/hotels & grocery stores. Seriously, there are SO many grocery stores there. It’s also the hub for organized tours and dive trips.

Snorkelling Tour

We managed to find a very reasonably priced full-day tour so we jumped on the chance and spent the day cruising around the islands. Our first stop after leaving Isla Colon was to the bay near Isla Cristobal to do some dolphin watching. We waited for a few minutes until finally we saw the all too familiar sight of the fins breaking the water’s surface. Trying to photograph dolphins proved to be quite difficult (though I was lucky enough to capture one elusive fin!), so I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

After the dolphins, we headed to Cayo Zapatilla – a National Park with the bluest waters you ever did see. We spent our two hours on the island enjoying the waves at the break point and walking along the white sand beach.

Once our fun in the sun was over, we boated off to Cayo Coral to do some snorkelling! I went for a snorkelling tour on Little Corn Island (and never posted about it… oops!), but this tour was so different! While Little Corn offered glimpses of quite a number of marine animals (turtles, sting rays, baracudas, sharks), Cayo Coral offered the most colourful coral I’ve ever seen! It was hard to believe it was real and that it hadn’t been spray painted all of the colours of the rainbow!

After snorkelling we went to a spot for lunch and then headed back to Colon for a much needed siesta!

Island Adventures

In addition to snorkelling tours, there is plenty to do around the islands on your own. Our first night in Bocas we went to Aqua Lounge – a hostel/bar situated just a short water taxi away on a nearby island. The surrounding deck has holes cut out with swings and trampolines on the perimeter that one can use to jump into the water!

Our time on Isla Bastimento was spent hiking to nearby beaches – Wizard Beach & Red Frog Beach. The trek to Wizard Beach was, in a word, awful. The weather in Bocas was quite gloomy and rainfalls frequented our time there. Because of this, the (extremely steep) trail was essentially a mud slide. We passed other hikers that abandoned their flip flops in favour of hiking barefoot. Mac and I went with our hiking shoes and they proved to be quite efficient. The reward for our hike through mud was a completely deserted beach. It would have been lovely if the weather was a little nicer (it was crazy humid & muggy, and the ocean had huge rip tides that made it unfit for swimming).

Our next day was spent going to Red Frog Beach. The path to this beach from our hostel was 100% better – it was gravel lined and there were no steep slopes to speak of. The beach itself was also quite opposite to Wizard Beach – the better weather meant that everyone and their travel partner was catching some rays there. Despite its busyness, we found a spot for our towels and enjoyed people watching while also catching some rays!