Panama started for us with the gorgeous islands of Bocas del Toro where we stayed at a hostel called Mondo Taitu which has a happy hour every night with 50c beers and $1 tequilas. Dangerous. We also discovered that at least 2 or 3 bars every night have ladies night where we could drink free all night! Nadia had a close encounter with a waste basket as an end result. Lucky for us the hostel also offers free all you can eat pancake breakfasts to save you from the hangover.
We did a snorkelling tour for a day which was unreal. I have not seen such a variety and colour range of coral since the Red Sea in Dahab. It was beautiful. We also saw heaps of big brightly coloured fish, barracuda and dolphins. The next day we took a boat ride out to Playa del Draco where there is a beach that is nearly overrun by starfish. Nadia and I couldn´t resist that as we haven´t seen starfish like that since we were little kids and Mum and Dad took us to Bali. Red Frog beach was another place that we visited but alas no red frogs to be seen.
After an amazing few days in Bocas we got on another bus and headed for Panama City which was way nicer than we were expecting it to be. The old architecture is lovely and the streets keep you on your toes as there are definite no go areas for tourists that you learn about when people stop you on the street (like sweet little old Grandma´s who warn you off) or yell out of cars and buses that you are in danger, theives, turn around! Nice of them to do that I think even if it does frighten the shit out of you at first. We checked out the Panama Canal which was really interesting to see in a nerdy kind of way. We watched 2 or 3 big ships go through and then called it a day.
We have made plans through our hostel to get out to Carti on the coast so that we can join up with a sailboat to sail from Panama to Cartegena! Very exciting :-)
