The Casagrandes Abroad: Panama

This is a belated blog entry on our wonderful trip to Panama. On February 26, we hopped a flight out of the bustling Nosara Airport, with destination to San Jose, from which we would connect to Bocas del Toro, a Carribbean paradise in northeastern Panama, just south of the Costa Rican border.

Bocas del Toro is a collection of smallish islands in turquoise waters that Chris Columbus visited on his fourth trip west to the Americas. While these islands undoubtedly had names given to them by the natives, Columbus took the step of renaming them and it is his names that stick to this day. Not surprisingly, the main island is Isla Colon, Colon being how the Spanish speaking refer to Columbus himself.

Isla Colon and the bustling town of Bocas del Toro as seen on our approach on a rainy day. (A welcomed rain--as we get none of it out in Guanacaste, CR)

Our plane landed on Isla Colon, in the town of Bocas (yes, the main town has the same name as the whole set of islands). Bocas is a chaotic collection of buildings that together make up all the colors of a burst of confetti. They struck both Tara and I as New Orleans-esque in their style...long narrow houses. You can get some sense of it from this video of Riley and I exploring Bocas on bikes and from the photo below.

The colorful Bocas waterfront.

We walked from the airport to The Hotel Limbo by the Sea, a mere six blocks or so...that's how small Bocas Town is. It was a great home for us for two nights, after which we decided to move away from the chaos of Bocas to the outer islands. While we did see folks swimming in the water right off the buildings in town, it was not quite as inviting as the water we saw right off the outer islands, and there was a bit too much boat traffic.

We were greeted by an outstretched mermaid at Hotel Limbo!

A fruit & veggie stand in Bocas town.

However, before moving, we did have a great boat tour that left from town and took us to Dolphin Bay, and then to a nice snorkeling spot, a very nice lunch on the water, and then to another island to see frogs and birds and sloths, and finally to Red Frog Beach where we saw (yes) a Red Frog and did a bit of body surfing.

Here is a short video of the dolphin and mangroves part of the boat ride (but admittedly the video does not capture much.)

When the rain came pouring down on Day 2 of our stay in Bocas, we decided to head out to the outer islands. The search for a nice place to stay was on and I am very happy to say, We won! We found this great little hotel that was a set of six casitas built on stilts on the water. Owned by a young couple from Argentina, Eclypse de Mar was run largely off solar power. We went without power during daylight hours but had lights as soon as the sunset until about breakfast time.

The Casagrande Boys at Eclypse de Mar.

Our room, literally had windows built into the floor, allowing us to see into the turquoise water below. We proceeded, in the rain, to have the most remarkable day. Planets aligned, stars fell into a particular configuration that must occur just once in a parent’s life. In the rain, with no electricity to entertain them, our three children (even the rather rambunctious Tae) took to reading books, playing calm and rather quiet games, chatting with Mom and Dad (ok, and playing on the DS a little bit—but not too much). And, we had an unbelievably lovely day. Quiet, relaxing, in a particularly beautiful spot of this planet.

Well, the next day we awoke and—uggh—it was still raining. And, though no child became unglued, it was clear to Tara and me that the alignment of planets and organization of stars had ended. We needed some sunshine and some outdoor fun. Whether Tara did a secret sun-dance and did not tell me, or something else, our wish came true. The sun came out, shining brilliantly on the Caribbean waters and we set off on another boat trip.

This time we headed north up to the Bocas del Drago, the northern end of Isla Colon. There we had a very nice meal on the beach and the kids played and ran around.

Tae running on the beach during lunch at the beach of Boca del Drago.

We then set off for more or less open sea, away from the protection of the many Bocas islands. We headed to Isla Pajaro (Bird Island)—a small island, or more accurately, very large rock, about a half mile northeast of Isla Colon. It is in open sea and on this day the swells were big! Our tiny ship was tossed and if not for the courage (and altered mental state--yes, that is how he spent our lunch hour!) of our Rasta boat captain, the tiny ship would have been lost. Bird Island is the only home in Panama to the Red Billed Tropicbird, a beautiful bird with long white tail. Many of these flew on and off of the rocks. So, too did a larger bird that looked a lot like a lost penguin, only a flyer not just a snow-slider and swimmer. Both birds were very fun to watch.

The Red Billed Tropicbird, found in Panama only on Isla Pajaro.

We were nearly smashed into the rocks of Isla Pajaro.

But the most excitement was the thrill of nearly smashing on the rocks. Our captain, to his credit, had his eyes set almost continuously on the oncoming waves that smashed their whitewater and anything it carried into the island. Fortunately, we were never among the things the waves carried in and so we boated away from the island all smiles.

Whitewater smashing into Isla Pajaro.

The "penguin-like" bird on Isla Pajaro.

Departing from Isla Pajaro, we went to Playa Estrella (Starfish Beach), a sandy spit on Isla Colon where starfish lay in the clear shallow water by the dozens. We all swam and played there for an hour or so. There were however some no-see-ums in the water, perhaps mini-jellyfish that were stinging a bit and got Riley in particular, so she stayed out of the water for a while.

One fun activity was to flip a starfish over and watch it turn back. Really interesting to watch them move…in general it took a starfish between two and five minutes to flip back over.

Tae finds a starfish at Playa Estrella.

A starfish flips back over in under five minutes.

The next day was our last in Bocas. Riley (who had a sore ear) and I headed into Bocas town and adventured around on bikes and produced the first ever International Coin Olympics, in which a Costa Rican coin, a Panamanian coin, and a US coin battled for supremacy in being flicked across a plastic table. The winner was the coin that consistently achieved the longest distance. For those interested, the Costa Rican 100 Colones piece took the gold, the US Quarter took the silver, and the host nation Panama came in a disappointing third, taking the bronze with its quarter of a Balboa coin.

Meanwhile, Tae, Baker and Tara had a day of snorkeling. I can’t tell you too much about it—encourage Tara to write on it. But I can post some photos of the day. I know they had a ball.

Stay tuned for a blog on our two days in Panama City…

Pura Vida