What a trip!! What day is this? Checking the calendar it is December 1!! The past few days flew by so fast!!! I warn you . . . the best part of this and the next story will be the photos.
We departed beautiful, froggy, serene little Boquete the morning of November 27 heading to Bocas del Tora. We hoped to get in three important sites in our short three days in Boquete: The Pipeline Trail, the Lost Waterfalls and maybe the hot springs. We got the first two done but we simply did not have time to drive all the way to Caldera Hot Springs. But how lucky can we be? Our next choice and probably the far better site was the Los Cangilones de Gualaca. This small but miraculous place was directly on our route to Bocas Del Toro. Tours are sold to go there for about $40 per person. But if you have a car, it’s an easy drive—no guide needed at all. We arrived about 10:30 am and it was all ours – a private paradise! Now how do I describe this spot? Picture if you can a fairly flat stone formation with curved edges and foot-friendly walking. Once part of the ocean floor, the smooth rock formations contain ocean fossils. Like a giant gash created by water flows over thousands of years, a canyon cut through these formations is just right for jumping in. You can enter one pool, float through the canyon and come out in a crystal clear pool at the end of the tunnel. What I wouldn’t give to be 12 years old again. I’d leap from canyon wall to canyon wall and race my brothers through the canyon chute. And I can imagine spending a family summertime get-away with packed lunches, swimming, picnicking and snoozing in this nature-made amusement park.
And to think this was on our route!
The little settlement called Almirante serves as the port gateway to the hundreds of Bocas del Toro islands. A man on a bicycle met us as we entered the town and asked if we were going to Bocas City. Of course we were. He directed us to one of the water taxi operators. Ten minutes later we had purchased round trip tickets for the next water taxi to Isla Colon and arranged to park the car during our stay there. We loaded our luggage in the front hold and climbed into the boat. It had seats going from side to side holding four people each. There were about 25 people in each taxi. The big outboard started and away we sped.
On a map, the distance between Almirante on the mainland and Bocas City on the Isla Colon appears to be just a short distance but at full speed the trip takes about an half-hour. We passed mangroves and sped through vast open sea. When we docked at Bocas City, we were given our bags and connected with the driver of one of the yellow Toyota Hilux vehicles. Miguel became our regular driver for every ride we needed for our entire time here. We called and he came!
We found our Jungle House as it is called on Airbnb and boy this one was . . . hmmm. The wooden jungle house had three bedrooms. Two were air conditioned, thank goodness, and the rest of the house was open air. It could have been romantic in an exotic jungle sense but it could use some refreshment to say the least. Its saving grace was the cool bedrooms. And it came with its own kitty. Or maybe I should say, the kitty owned the house and we were her guests.
Enough for tonight. Tomorrow I will share photos and stories about bike rides, the Plastic Bottle Museum and boating the islands.
Sounds like an interesting adventure. Your pet kitty is adorable. What was the jungle like in terms of animals? Did any of them make their way i to your open air home?? Canyon photos are fabulous! Love you!!!
Ohhh, sweet Mary! Yes, the kitty was completely adorable — even Stan said he’d take her to be ours. The only animal we saw at this time was a bat flyng about in the open space in our house. Stay tuned though. Girl. I miss you; I love you!