Day 1

Had Balboa the local beer in Tantalo hotel. It’s beautiful with white balloons attached to the ceiling. The beer tastes like a light lager. I like it. Was only 3$ 😅

Left Airbnb at 9:30am, had coffee in Baloo, and headed to the Panama Canal. According to my research, Miraflores Locks was the best view, so I got an Uber and went there. Uber was only 5$.

I watched as they opened the gate and the ship passed through the canal. Very interesting.

After visiting the canal, I took an Uber to go to Amador Causeway. I rented a bike for 1 hour.

Started my day with walking around the neighborhood. Had coffee and headed to the Cinta Costera 3. On my way there, I stoped by to see the Arco chato. Didn’t learn much about it since there was not much info.

I took a taxi from Skullys to the lighthouse in Bocas town. The host here was super nice. Had a great breakfast and he is letting me check in much earlier than I was supposed to. Yay.

A few things I noticed here:

1) men give you annoying comments but they don’t seem to pose an actual threat. During my bike ride, I got worried they might follow me or something, but nothing happened.

2) people wear pants even though it’s hot.

3) most people don’t speak English. Though I was told they do! 😂

4) bocas del toro is much more rural than I expected. Seems like everyone knows everywhere. You sit in the taxi which is 3$ no matter where you go, tell the taxi driver where you’re going and they will take you.

5) AC is a luxury thing here

6) they mostly ignore you when you’re alone in a restaurant. Have to wait more than half an hour before anyone asked for my order!.

I booked diving with Panama diving school and then took a boat to red frog beach. No one has change for a 20 here!!! So the woman in the diving school gave me a dollar to pay for the boat. I finally arrived to the red frog beach and now I realize why they call it red frog:

This entry is for the Jan 4th:

I woke up with dizziness and horrible stomach ace. Had a borrito for breakfast and chilled until noon. Felt better but it was raining so I had to wait until the rain stopped. Then, I went to bocas town, rented an E-bike and biked to starfish. It’s an hour bike each way and beautiful route. Lots of bumps in the way which didn’t help my stomach ace hahaha

Started my day with a light two egg breakfast and two Panama fried bread. Then worked until noon in the hotel.

I felt very nervous about diving after so many years. The two dive masters seemed pretty cool though. El gave me and another guy, Walter, a refresher instruction for about 30 min then I put the wet suit on and we went with a boat to an area called White House. It was much easier and more relaxed than I remembered. No need for worries at all. Very chill.

I saw a lot a fish 🐠 big and small, groupies, seahorses and a huge crab.

We did another dive in an area called pandora. The second dive was much easier. We saw a ship reck which was very interesting. I will definitely do this again.

We got back to the shore at 5:30 and I went to my room to take a shower and get ready for dinner. Because I was worried about the dive I didn’t eat anything all day.

I started walking down the street to see what seems good for dinner. I found this taqueria that was not even on google or on the map. Decided to try it since many People were sitting here and if I know one thing is that food is supposed to be good if there is a crowd. Will see 😂

This is a very nice chill morning so far. I got my shuttle ticket for 11:30 to go to bouquete, then I \240packed and went to this cool cafe called: Cafe del mar. Ordered a cappuccino.

OMG something very cool happened today. I met this very awesome girl from Germany when I was waiting for my boquete water taxi and shuttle. Also, the guy who dove with me is here. Cool! He knows my new German friend and is trying to hit on her 😂 I’m not sure if she is interested though. With a lot of hassle, we hopped on the boat. There was very little room available so we barely fit there in the boat. Then, we had 30 min boat ride to get to this place where we are supposed to get into our shuttle.