Red Frog Beach on Isla Bastimentos

Isla Bastimentos is about a 10 minute water taxi ride from Bocas town.  The island sits within the Parque Nacional Marino Isla Bastimentos, a mostly marine park.  It costs 3.00/person to enter the park.  Red Frog Beach is one of the most popular beaches in Bocas del Toro province.  It is located on the eastern side of the island facing the Caribbean Sea.

Red Frog Beach

Looking out to towards the Caribbean Sea from the lookout.

The beach...rainy and cool.

Red Frog Beach when the sun came out.  Much nicer that is for sure!

Playa Bluff...same beach different day!

On our way to Playa Bluff.

Playa Bluff

Big swells today!

Fred is wondering whether he should or not!

Great beach day!

Bocas del Drago

Saturday we went to Bocas del Drago, located on the western side of Isla Colon on Punta Cauro.  The beach stretches for quite a few kms with many bars and restaurants for you to enjoy while there.  Snorkelling is pretty good there, also if you stay up there overnight, there is a good chance you might see sea turtles, so we hear.  We were lucky to see starfish, and lots of them, in the water near the shore.

The Playa

Starfish near the shore.

More beach

Palm trees line the shore line.

Love it.

Playa Bluff

Today we took a drive along the east side of the island stopping at what we thought was the end of the road.  However, people on bikes told us to carry on to a nice beach, so we put our little Jimmy in 4wheel drive and carried on.  It took us over 40 days to find this awesome pretty much private beach.  We spent the afternoon here and we'll be back again.

The road to Playa Bluff.

Water hazard on the road.  No worries!

Playa Bluff

The playa stretched for miles.

Farther down the playa...still beautiful sand and a wider beach.

Crossing the Isthmus heading to the Carribean

Tuesday morning we left the interior heading for the Carribean to a place called Bocas del Toro.  The drive to the top of the Isthmus and back down to the Carribean was incredible.  The drive was through the mountains took about 4 hours to go 160 km.  Yes it was slow but the sights along the way of the deep valleys, rivers, and waterfalls was beautiful.  This road took us through a National Forrest area.

One of the waterfalls at the side of the road heading across the Isthmus.

Once we were over the Isthmus we saw glimpses of the Carribean and endless banana trees.  We also noticed the homes were more 3rd world than we have seen so far in Panama.

A glimpse of the Carribean.

Getting closer to Almirante, a port town, where we needed to catch the ferry to Bocas.

We finally made it to Almirante and as we entered the hustling began.  There were men on bikes wanting to get you to the ferry, park the car and recommending hotels (when there were only 2 in town).  We knew we had missed the ferry as it only goes to Bocas at 8:00 am, but we wanted to find where we needed to be the next morning and at what time.  Found that out, now was the big decision for on which hotel.  Seeing it was my birthday, Fred decided to go all out and get the $25.00 one at the Hotel 888 instead of the $24.00 one.  Well it wasn't the Ritz but it was clean.  

The next morning, don't ask Fred what kind of sleep it was but then he doesn't sleep well anyway,  we were up early and heading to the ferry by 6:00am.  We got in line with all the trucks hoping we were in the right line and as it turned out we were and before we knew it we were loaded and on our way to Bocas.  We arrived in Bocas Town on Isla Colon, the island is 61 sq km, to find it was a bustling little place.  There were people, locals and tourists, everywhere, shops, restaurants, bars, you name it, quite a change for us.

Getting closer to Bocas.

Arriving in Bocas.

We are staying a few blocks off the main street and this is the view from our 3rd storey condo.  We do have a view of the water along with a lot of other views.  Gotta love it!  

Macho Monte Canyon

Today we found a hidden gem just around the curve from where we are staying.  It's really hard to find as there is no signage and it doesn't really look like much until you get down into the canyon.  Lucky for us there were some guys from Texas training the Panamain people search and resue right at the bridge to the canyon.  We asked for directions and the trainer was so helpful giving us really good directions to get down there.  When we got down there we were in a totally different world.  The canyon walls would probably be 40 - 50 ft.  The water coming from the mountain was only a small stream which ran  around and through the rocks creating smaller waterfalls.  During the rainy season, the rocks we were standing on would be covered with water rushing down into the narrow canyon creating a huge waterfall.  There was also a lot of water coming out of the cracks on the canyon walls.  We sat there for quite a while listening to the water and hoping we'd see some of the people being trained, repel down the canyon wall.  No such luck.

The canyon from the bridge...hard to see the beauty from here.

Entrance to a cave...

Macho Monte Canyon

Stream from the mountain heading to the narrow canyon.

Across the road we found another waterfall.

Hard to see the drop where Fred is standing but it probably would be about 75 ft.  Imagine the water rushing down those stones in the rainy season.

This hidden little gem is truly very great to see.

Playa Barqueta

What better thing to do then head to the beach on a Sunday!  It was good to head out of the rainforest area to get some heat and sun.  Well, we got the heat but it was overcast today so no sun.  We drove through sugar cane and rice fields to get to the playa on the Golfo De Chiriqui.  The farmers were harvesting some of the sugar cane and truck loads of the cane were heading down the highway to the processing plant.

Papaya trees

Playa Barqueta is a beautiful long beach.  It's a good beach for surfing and body surfing.  There is a huge new resort, Las Olas Resort, and a lot of huge beach homes stretching out along the shoreline in both directions of the resort.  It was great to takie a long walk on the beach.  Good thing the sun wasn't shining as there weren't  a lot of Palm trees to seek shelter.  Great day on the beach.