Although it's only about 200 km away from Boquete, it took us forever to get there. To get to the other side you have to take a bus that goes over some very high mountains and for only $7 you get 5 hours of excitement because the bus doesn't slow down because of tight curves. It was like a rollercoaster ride without the safety precautions.
However, the fun was not over after the bus ride. To get to the islands, you have to take a speed boat from Almirante. My sister really wasn't a fan of it, but I loved it! :-P By the way, Almirante (the town where the boats leave from) is the ugliest town I've seen in Panama so far.
When we arrived on Isla Colon during the early evening hours, we were a bit surprised to see Bocas Town so empty: we even saw vultures. However, we later found out that Bocas is a party town and before 9 pm at night nobody is out on the streets.
The hotel room we had booked surprised us in a positive way though. My boss had said that found it too sterile. But to be honest, if I have my own computer, a fridge, a flatscreen-TV with English channels, hot showers with good water pressure (Have I told you that so far I haven't had a hot shower at the hotel where I work? On good days, the water is luke warm. But of course, our guests always have hot water. :-/), and airconditioning in a room, it can be as tasteless as cardboard and I will still enjoy it. Especially when it's as cheap as this room was.
In general I really liked Bocas although it's very hot and humid, pretty run down in some parts and everything is even slower than in Boquete. There was just one big downside: There are no good beaches close to Bocas Town. You always have to take a bus or water taxi to the beaches and they charge very high prices for tourists. (That was the one beach that was close to Bocas Town, ugly and full of garbage. But wait: The nice beaches will come.)
On our first day we decided to take a water taxi to the small island of Carenero. It's the closest to the island of Colon and we were hoping to find a good beach there. Although the taxi driver of the boat told us in which direction the beach is, I prefered to at first look around the island. However, it turned out that this island is only pretty on one side. On the other side you are walking through slums where the huts don't have a sewage system. But some of them had electricity and an antenna for TV on the roof. But once you've crossed the slums, you came to very rich houses built by an US-American firm and very beautiful places. We found out that you can't walk all around the island. So we had to go back through the slums to find the beach. I like walking and discovering new and sometimes not so pretty places, but I think that my sister didn't really like our little trip into the slums and the jungle! :-P
On our third day we went on a snorkeling trip. And surprise, surprise: There was a really cute Panamanian snorkeling guide with us! :-P At first we went to Dolphin Bay and were looking for some dolphins. We even saw some, but it turns out: taking pictures of fast-moving animals is not easy. I think I got one picture where you can see a tiny bit of a fin! Snorkeling was fun though. They still have really nice reefs...and some dead ones already. Unfortunately, the first snorkeling ground was full of jellyfish and although most of them didn't sting, it was still a bit of a pain to avoid them. The next place where we snorkeled was without jellyfish and also very pretty. There was just one thing that bothered me: Right after I had jumped into the water, something really big passed by me. Since I can't wear my glasses in water and had forgotten to take my contacts with me, I couldn't see what it was. But it might have been a shark; one of the not dangerous ones though. Nethertheless, t did unnerve me a bit! And one of the stops on that tour was at a very pretty beach. But there was a downside of it, too: sandflies...ouch!!! Unfortunately, I don't have an underwater camera, so no pictures from pretty fish! :-(
Later that day we decided to go out. There are always bars on the island that have ladies night. And at the first bar which was built over a sunken ship, we met the cute snorkeling guide. It turns out that he is from Boquete, has lived in Germany (Berlin) before and will go back there in August. He confinced us to go to another bar on another island which also had ladies night. The water taxi right in the dark and in a way too full boat was more adventurous and safe. The other bar was full of US-American marines and the snorkeling guide felt kinda out of place. However, I fixed my sister up with some of the marines and went somewhere else with the cute guide! :-P
The next day my sister was so hung over that on the ride to Boca del Drago, a beach on Isla Colon, she got sick. I was doing fine though! :-P Boca del Drago is full of starfish...really cool!
Our last day we finally spent at the beach of Isla Carenero which was a very good choice because it barely had any sandflies.
All in all, it was a very nice trip with lots of mosquito bites. On our adventurous bus ride back we had a flat tire, but Panamanians are so used to it that it was exchanged quickly.
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