Bocas Del Toro

We were very excited to hit he beaches and were looking forward to our stay in Bocas Del Toro...a series of islands in Northern Panama on the Caribbean side just south of Costa Rica. We decided to take the night bus from Panama City to Bocas Del Tor, we would leave at 6pm and arrive some time around 5am...the bus would drop us off at the ferry terminal in Almirante where we would take a boat about 30 minutes to the island.... we were not able to check into our place until 11 so we "thought" we would just bum around for a while

Where the water taxis drop you off in Bocas Town

Everything went fairly smoothly, (except no one really slept as every time the bus would stop for a bathroom break or snacks, all the lights would go on and we would get instructions in very loud Spanish on when to be back)...we ended up arriving in Almirante at 4:30am, ferry was leaving at 5, we were all exhausted, so I quickly called a hostel (they miraculously answered, I was told later that they do not open until 7:30am) and asked if we could just rent a room for a few hours to sleep, we settled on $25, and off we went....(my first time in a youth hostel actually, as strange as it sounds I thought the whole experience was pretty great)

                              
 After our stay in a beautiful hotel in Panama City, we wanted something a little more authentic and went for an AirBNB right in Boca town on the island of Colon, it is the most populated island full of  bars restaurants and hostels...pretty gritty, but we all loved it! For $77 CAD a night we had three bedrooms (yay! first time in 9 weeks!) a kitchen/dining area and...GREAT WIFI! (something we haven't had in a while). We were just 5 minutes from the main strip and were able to walk around town. After we checked into our place our wonderful host Larry gave us some great tips on where to go, we walked to the water taxi where we set off for a beach day on the island of Carenero, (about a 5 minute boat ride and $3/pp).  A perfect first day!

At Bibis a restaurant overlooking the bay

the beautiful bay

The next day we took the public bus to the north part of the island to a beach called Playa Estrella (Starfish Beach). The bus took about 1/2 hour and it was so fun, the bus driver had his kids with him and they were blaring dance music, stopping along the way yelling at their friends out the windows, the drive itself was almost as fun as the beach! Starfish beach is a beautiful bay full of huge startfish, there was Reggae music playing and the vibe was awesome.

Playa Estrella

Anneka's first coconut water

On the bus

Don't worry the Starfish is in the water still! The water is just so clear!