Where's Andrew

BOCAS DEL TORO, BOQUETE & BOCA CHICA, PANAMA - JUN 23 - JULY 2

Panama Boarder

Panama, my last country before South America. I catch a bus from Puerto Viejo to the boarder which is a small bridge over a river. Until last year, there was only on old railroad bridge over the river that both pedestrians and vehicles used to cross but a new bridge has been built for vehicles which is a good thing when you look at how rickety the rail bridge is that the pedestrians use. My guide book indicated that Panama requires an onward ticket leaving the country to get in to Panama as a tourist but the writer says that in over a dozen boarder crossings, he had never been asked for his ticket. So, I had decided to chance it. Mistake! Panama immigration asks me for my ticket out of Panama. When I can't produce one, I get pulled into the office and I'm asked all kinds of questions about where I'm going and what am I doing while travelling. The guy's actually pretty friendly but he says he is not supposed to let me in without the ticket. He asks me if it is OK to search my stuff and gets a couple of soldiers. One stands with his hand on his side arm while the other goes carefully through my stuff with me. After that I go sit in a small room and I am guarded by a soldier while the immigration officer calls Panama City to do a computer security check on me. After more than 2 hours, he finally comes back, asks me a couple more questions and then says I'm good to enter Panama. I thank him profusely, and I then catch a shuttle bus to Almirante where I get on a water taxi to Bocas Town.

Almirante River Front

Panama is one time zone ahead than the rest of Central America. It is also a long skinny country but it actually stretches almost perfectly west to east from the southern end of Costa Rica and the Panama Canal is north to south not east to west. There is a small peninsula on the southern side of Panama that has an east coast where the sunrises over the Pacific. The Panamanian currency is call the Balboa. It is always equal to the US dollar in terms of exchange rate. When the currency was introduced a few years ago, the people of Panama would not accept it and continued to use the US dollar. Now, most of the coins are in Balboas (quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies) but all the paper money is US. The boat trip to Bocas Town is pretty cool, every shore I can see all the way there is full of Mangrove Trees with no beaches.

Bocas Town

It takes about 45 minutes to get to Bocas Town and it is on the southern end of Isla Colon. There is a another town called Old Town on the north end of Isla Bastimentos just across a small channel from Bocas. I book a private room at Hostel Hansa (named after the owner's cat) for $13US. With the time change, the delay at the boarder and the travel time, it is now almost 4:00PM and too late to get to a beach. Too bad as it's beautiful out and extremely hot and of course humid too.

Red Frog Beach

I decide to check out the many tour companies in town and book a full days snorkelling and beach tour the next day for only $20US. The next morning I arrive at the tour boat wharf and find I'm snorkelling with a Panama family, 2 older women from Colorado and a guy from Spain. The snorkel tour starts with a boat ride to Luguna Bocatorito to view dolphins. Bocatorito is a large bay in the estuary and is a popular place for dolphins to feed. Unfortunately, all the tour companies know there will be dolphins hear so there are lots of tour boats there basically chasing the dolphins. It's the off season and only 5 or 6 boats were there but I can just imagine what it would be like during the busy season. We then motor to a floating restaurant where we can place lunch orders and then to a coral reef right in front of the restaurant. The reef is a bit sparse of coral and there are not a lot of fish but the colours of the reef are spectacular. The corals are red, orange, pink, purple, blue and green along with more typical white and browns. An hour goes by in a flash and other than the colourful corals, I see some large angel fish and a file fish along with a lot of small reef fish.

Dock Near Red Frog Beach

After lunch, we motor through mangroves to a small wharf where we dock. We walk about 1/2km through the jungle to Red Frog Beach. The beach is exposed to the open Caribbean Sea and is beautiful. We hang out for a couple hours before heading out for our last stop for some more snorkelling. We snorkel along a rock reef wall at a place called Hospital Point and the second I get in the water, I'm surrounded by thousands of sardines. Feeding amongst the bait fish are small Barracudas and dozens of Alligator Needlefish. It is much deeper here that the 1st spot and I notice how poor the visibility is (less than 10m). I see a group of scuba divers in the murky depths below me and decide right then that I will not be diving here in Bocas del Toro. It's a short motor back to Bocas Town and we've been gone almost 7 hours. The ladies from our tour want to hear about my trip through Central America so I agree to meet them for dinner at a local restaurant called Pirates.

Star Fish Beach

The next day I catch a local bus to Bocas del Drago at the far north end of the island for a day at Starfish Beach. It's about a 25 minute bus ride followed by a 30 minute walk. The beach is nice but there is not a lot of beach between the high tide mark and the jungle. The beach is also very steep and in 3 or 4 steps, it drops off way over my head. I snorkel along the drop off and see many starfish and some big Barracudas. The rest of the day is spent relaxing, swimming and reading. I have such a stressful life and it seems I've been putting a lot of time into relaxing at the beach the last few weeks. That night a huge thunder & lightning storm rolls in around 10:00PM and it does not stop raining until the middle of the next afternoon so I just hang out in town that day and make plans to leave the next day to Boquete.

I had been told that you cannot access the rest of Panama from this region by land but find out that is not true so after catching the water taxi back to the mainland, I catch a bus over the continental divide to David, and then another bus on to Boquete. I get there around 4:30PM and wait at my first hostel of choice for about 1.5 hours talking to a nice girl from the Netherlands while I wait for a staff person to show up. I finally give up and walk to Mamallenas Hostal and book a nice private room. I'm feeling like I might be catching a cold and after a nice dinner, go to bed nice and early. I wake up with a really bad sinus cold. Oh well, I've been kind of expecting to catch something and at least I've got a nice room and Boquete is a nice town to do nothing in. It is about 1200m above sea level in the central highlands. The temperature ranges from the low 20ies at night to the high 20ies during the day with only moderate humidity. There are all kinds of ex-pats in Boquete and the surrounding area so there are always lots of Gringos everywhere. There is even a large supermarket open 24/7. Boquete is known by travellers because of all the great hiking trails but I spent 3 more nights there doing nothing other than watching some European Cup soccer while battling my cold. The other highlight was eating dinner at a real nice Peruvian Restaurant called Machu Pichu.

Ernie and Mako Boat

I meet a guy in the hostel from Panama City Florida named Monty. He has just turned 61 and is looking for a place to retire and Boquete looks like his town of choice. He asks me if I'm interested in going fishing with a retired guy from Alaska named Ernie. I say yes and we head outside to where Ernie relaxing in the central plaza and I find out that Ernie has a 23 ft Mako boat with a 225 Yamaha engine and all kinds of fishing equipment. He has just had some kind of repair to the motor done and needs to put 10 hours of low RPMs on the motor before he can use it like normal. He is not supposed to go above 2200RPM which is a perfect trolling speed. Monty and I are invited to go fishing with him on July 1st to Boca Chica which is 1.5 hours away. He will drive us there and has a place we can stay one night after fishing. I'm still feeling pretty lousy but not too bad to go fishing so I'm up early to go the next morning.

Ernie and Monty

We meet up with Ernie around 8:00AM but by the time we leave, it is after 9:00AM and we don't get to Boca Chica until after 11:00AM. On the car ride there, we decide not to go fishing until the next morning since we were so late in leaving Boquete which is fine with me. The town is so small, I almost would not call it a town. There is no town centre and no main street with small businesses but rather just a residential neighbourhood. It turns out that Ernie has built a small hotel with about 6 rooms all with AC. He has no staff and almost never has anyone stay there. Monty and I each get our own room and then we decide to head to the marina.

Fish Lodge at Boca Chica

The marina is impressive, it's right of the river and has a small dock with a good boat ramp. All the boats are kept on their boat trailers. Most are kept under covered in a large structure divided up into stalls for each boat. The boats are all top notch open ocean fishing boats designer for heading well offshore for Marlin or Sailfish. Unfortunately, we can't go way out but inshore is supposed to be good for Mahi Mahi, Wahoo, King, Barracuda and a variety of Tuna. We meet Carlos who owns the marina and is from Columbia. He's a real character with a sarcastic wit and he gives Ernie a hard time about not telling him that he was coming because the engine repairs are not done yet.

View of Boca Chica Harbour

But, he promises to fix it that afternoon so we head out for lunch and to find a TV to watch the European Cup final. We end up a high end fish lodge with a beautiful view of the river mouth, a nice patio restaurant and a 52" bigscreen. Apparently the only other accommodations withing 20km is about 5 or 6 very high end all inclusive fish lodges which I take for a good sign. After watching Spain trounce the Italians, we head back over to the marina just as Carlos is wrapping up the repairs, so we are set for the morning. We drive about 25km to the nearest restaurant for dinner and are back early to bed.

We're up at 5:30AM and at the boat by 7:00PM. Carlos tows us to the boat ramp and puts the boat in, the tide is very low and Ernie bottoms out the engine on the river bottom. The prop is aluminum and is mangled. Thankfully Ernie has a spare prop and Carlos quickly changes it. I hope this isn't foreshadowing of things to come. The Mako boat is a very roomy design and very broad in the beam. The driving console is center to the boat with a deck all the way around it. We can't get the GPS to power up, I hope Ernie knows his way around. The quality of the rods and reels is great and Ernie has at least 10 rods and reels.

Outer Islands Near Boca Chica

However, he forgot one of his fishing boxes and we don't have any way of tying any lures not already on leaders and we have no weights. Oh well, we have a great selection of hoochies all ready to go and all the fish we are after are normally near the surface. Ernie is 74 and I have figured out that he is not as sharp as he maybe once was. We motor out of the river and quickly get 4 lines out and continue out of coast area heading for some outer islands. Not much happens in the first couple of hours but we do see some dolphins. I decide to check the lines to make sure we aren't dragging seaweed, as I let one line out, wham I get a good strike and the release is on as I was letting line out and now the fish is just ripping line out. It takes me a fee seconds to flick the lever over to activate the drag on the reel and I've burnt the tip of my thumb on the reel as the fish was tearing line out.

The rod and real are very duty and I soon have the fish pulled in and its about a 10lb Bonito which is a type of Mackerel. So, at least we've caught dinner. A short time later, we get another good strike on the same rod and Monty pulls in a nice 12 lb Mahi Mahi (also called Dorado). We get a couple nice strikes on one of the other rods but the fish are gone about the same time we grab the rod. We finally get the outer islands and I start to change the lures on the lines where we had no action. Shortly after, we get another strike on one of the new lures and I'm fighting another nice Mahi Mahi but I lose it. When I get the line in and check the hook, I notice there is a clear plastic tube protecting the hook, no wonder I lost it but surprising it was on for as long as it was. Needless to say, I remove the plastic tube. We start heading in and at about the same spot as where we got the first 2 fish, we get a nice double header. Monty and I bring in 2 more Benitos which we decide to release and a few minutes later I catch another Mahi Mahi. It's just a small one but the hooks gone through the eye then hooked badly in the gills so we keep it. What an awesome day on the water. The weather was gorgeous and it was so calm, only about a 2 or 3 foot chop. When we get back to marina, Ernie and Monty both say they need to be back in Boquete ASAP, so there is no time to cook dinner. We are madly getting the boat all packed away and I did not even get time to get a photo of the fish.

Within an hour of getting back, we are back in Ernie's car heading for Boquete. I get Ernie to drop me off in David which will save me an hours travelling the next day so I get a room at the Purple Casa Hostel. The next day, I will catch a bus to Santa Catalina. It is on the southern coast near the island of Coiba. It is a surfing town but the diving at Coiba is supposed to be the best in Panama but more on that later.

I've taken quite a few taxis while travelling Central America and quite a lot have stopped for gas while I'm in it. And very surprisingly, at least half of the cabbies have left the engine on while filling up. I've never seen that before and find it very weird and I can't help but wonder how safe it is? Once again, the typical dinner at a restaurant for locals is rice, beans and some king of meat or fish with fried platines. This has been the same in every country in Central America, I hope it's different in South America because it's getting a bit boring.

Until next time.