Sweet Love Catalina

Santa Catalina, Panama

Continuing with our beach theme from Las Lajas, we headed to the surf-town of Santa Catalina. Santa Catalina is somewhat well known among backpackers and travelers alike as a quiet town with huge waves for surfing and a great way to lay low and escape from the hustle & bustle of the city life. This sleepy town is very remote. There is no ATM, no grocery stores (only small shops with convenience-store type food – produce is purchased from the friendly neighbourhood fruit truck man!), and only a handful of restaurants & hotels.

Despite all of this, it remains a popular destination and there is always a friendly face to wave to while you make the 25 minute walk from town to the beach.

Though the mega-popular destination from Santa Catalina is the nature reserve, Coiba, getting a tour or boat to drive the ~1.5 hour journey to the island proved to be a little bit out of our budget. Instead, we spent our days exploring the town, hitting up the beach, and renting a sea kayak!

We set out for the teensy tiny island just of the coast of Santa Catalilna. We kayaked first to the beach there and had a small picnic lunch. With full bellies we got back in the kayak and circumnavigated the island. It only took about an hour, but we had to give the shore a HUGE berth because of giant rocks and even bigger waves that crashed down on them. At one point, we were riding the swells and Mac thought that they were close to about 8’!!

As I mentioned above, in addition to kayaking, we also spent a fair bit of time at the beach. Mac honed his surfing skills and I got thrown around in the ocean like a washing machine spin cycle.

Our three days in Santa Catalina were so nice and relaxing, but after a while we were dying to escape the heat! I’m happy we made the time to visit this sleepy beach-side town, but three days were more than enough for us. We continued our Panama-theme by going from beach to mountain and back again by traveling to the tiny mountain town of Santa Fe. Stay tuned for waterfall adventures & a coffee farm tour!