Hello, Bocas del Toro
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2010
1
79
88
Trip End
Jul 25, 2011
Bocas Town, Bocas del Toro, Panama
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Not much to report from Bocas del Toro (Spanish for "the bull's mouths" or "the bull's gulf"). It's swarming with American and Israeli holidaymakers, and lots of businesses are American-run. It's funny how we met hardly any people from the States in South America, but over the border into Central, and it's a different story. In the same way, we met few Europeans here, apart from a smattering of British.
With American tourists come up-scale bars, restaurants and the sudden availability of very good quality food, and we relished the deli-style "Super Gourmet" grocery store right next to our hostel, which stocked an exclusive and vast selection of meats, cheeses, seafood and wine, fresh breads, yogurts, milk, homemade brownies. It was nice to pamper ourselves again for a bit.
We met up with our friends from Lost and Found again, sampled some of the town's legendary party atmosphere at waterside bars and clubs, and generally lolled about in the intense heat, eating mediocre Eggs Benedict (see pic) and planning the next stage of our trip across the border into Costa Rica. We also saw the town go mental when Barcelona won the Football, with makeshift floats consisting of people+sound systems in pickups doing laps of the town. Each lap would have another car or two in its party convoy as townsfolk and taxis took the afternoon off to celebrate.
Our hostel, Casa Verde, was great and would really recommend it. It had a little kitchen and the rooms were clean and pretty (clapboard on the outside, cream wooden floorboards inside), but the real show-piece was the outdoor decking and bar area which backed out onto the water. We spent many a happy hour here.
Comments
Does the addition of American tourists also lead to a rise in prices?
Not hugely. Beers were between 50c (happy hour) and a dollar. Not bad. I think Panama is generally quite cheap, though.
bocas=mouth del= of the toro=bull therefore bocas del toro means mouth of the bull fyi