La Gruta y mas

I am writing this from an amazing location, which I will share in another post. For now, here's more about Bocas del Toro.

The bat cave will make the top ten list for sure! A short bus ride up the road and a one dollar entrance fee gets us unguided admission into La Gruta, a cave filled with a lot of bats.

We will need the prayers and protection for this excursion.

Super mama Liz carried her 4 year old through the entire cave.

This cluster of bats doesn't even begin to represent how many bats we encountered.

And really big spiders called whip scorpions.

Luis easily filled the role of tour guide.

The boys were brave and forged ahead. The cave makes a sharp left turn, so we didn't know he far it would go or if there was an exit or what. Rand this bend was a lair of bats with 2 foot wing spans. We made a lot of ruckus and they woke up and began screeching. We all imagined the horror of hundreds of bats swarming and swooping around us.

The girls needed coaxing and nearly turned around, but the boys encouraged us to keep on going.

The final passage to the exit. It was all we could do to just not look up and see all those bats.

Yeah we just waded through a bat cave. Definitely will make the top ten list!

Liz and Peter at the exit.

Sooooo beautiful.

In the afternoon we visited the Smithsonian Institute Research Station which gives free tools on Thursday and Friday afternoons.

We visited their labs and met scientists. Their main area of research is cataloging all of the marine life in Panama.

This scientist is part of a research team that is studying how bacteria affects coral. She is using a high pressure water sprayer to remove the crusty outer part of the coral to make it easier for bacteria to infect the coral. Real scientific research at the source. Fascinating!!!!

A well deserved juice break on the way home.

Location:Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro.

Isla Zapatillas

Finally by this time of night the jungle is cooling off and the evening is pleasant. We had a full day of boating and it was a blast! We shopped for boat tours yesterday so we were all set to go with Che in Bocas Town.

The taxi took us to the dock and we got underway around 10.

It's been raining off and on, but we went anyway because it's the rainy season so we won't be able to expect a fully sunny day. We packed a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, oranges, cookies, and water.

The boat was standard and sturdy and felt secure. It took about 15 minutes to reach a fine snorkeling place where we all jumped in off the boat. The underwater scene was pretty good with some technicolor coral, but since it was pretty cloudy it wasn't completely dazzling the way it would have been in bright sunlight.

We took a little detour to a dock that also had a few bungalows for rent and a small cafe. It was pretty isolated but pretty. We snorkeled around the docks because there were tons of fish.

The next stop took about 30 bone jarring minutes slapping though the waves, sometimes so hard it felt like the boat would snap in half. When you added in the driving rain it felt a little harrowing.

Isla Zappatillas is actually two lovely uninhabited islands that are part of a marine park. We anchored there and hungout for the rest of the day.

We swam and hiked the path through the center of the island.

It rained on and off of course but by then we didn't really care anymore.

On the way back, which was a 45 minute slamming ride again, we took the long way through the mangroves and cut the engine at "sloth island". Maya was dubbed the sloth whisperer because she could spot the most sloths in the trees. We saw one swinging in the branches and another climbing a tree which is pretty unusual because sloths usually just hang there and are very boring to watch.

Back to the dock in bocas town, and we were starved.

Toms was only a block or two down so we did a repeat of dinner and it was great.

After a few rounds of charades with the Jacobsens, we are all back in the tent reading and half asleep.

Location:Bocas Del Toro, panama

Waiting out the rain in Bocas Del Toro

It's the rainy season in Panama, so it comes and goes all day and night.

Nevertheless, we have hired a boat to take us snorkeling and to Isla Zapatillas for the day. We've met up with our friends, the Jacobsens from Tacoma, which makes for a relaxing and entertaining intro to panama.

We arrived in Panama at 2:30 pm and spent about an hour in the immigration line. The taxi stand was right outside of customs so we bought an expensive 55$ cab ride to the Allbrook Bus Station. At allbrook we bought overnight bus tickets to bocas for $ 27.50 each. We had three hours to kill before the 7 pm bus departure so we hung out in the huge allbrook mall right next door. We ate gross food in the food court and shopped for some bus snacks. Just before boarding the bus we purchased a metro ticket which y have to swipe before exiting the terminal to the bus boarding area. The cards are then good for use on the city buses which look easy to use, but appear very slow stopping everywhere.

We had high expectations for the bus ride. In the Latin American countries we have traveled in the overnight busses were like first class airplane seats. This bus in panama wasn't as good....hard seats that we're semi broken and didn't recline very nicely....but we survived the 11 hours just fine. Jack slept the best of all of us.

We arrived in Almirante just before dawn. You can see how joyous they are.

As usual when we arrived to the port town of Almirante there were swarms of taxi touts trying to make eye contact to get your business. Luckily I knew the fare should be 1$ per person to the boat taxi dock. It is an easy 5 minute walk down the road....but we we're tired and it was dark so I knew it wouldn't be worth it to save four bucks.

The taxi took us right to the dock where we bought boat ticketed for $6 each. The boat held about 30 people. Looked safe enough, and certainly better than some boats we have been on. A quick 30 minute ride later we arrived in bocas town on Isla Colon.

By this time it was only about 7 am and the town was still asleep. We had reservations at Camping Y La Griegaso we got in another taxi and showed up at the place....it was pretty early still and the owners were asleep. But we were tired, exhausted and hungry, so we knocked until they woke up. Even though we were super early they let us in and showed us to our tent.

Yes, a tent.

We are staying at a place that is covered wood platforms with tents. We do have a slightly more private area upstairs, but the family that owns the place, a super nice couple from Spain and their kids ages 11 and 15, also live in these tents, and theirs are upstairs too. Jack spends his nights in the hammock.

Its a basic camping tent with 3 inch foam mattresses. It's pretty rough, not much different than camping for real. I fall asleep and stay asleep because something about the jungle absolutely drains you of energy. But when I wake up....I feel old and sweaty.

A shared kitchen and bathrooms....that's pretty much it. Reminds me of our Thailand days of living in a hut in the jungle. This isn't much different at all. I am glad I experienced long term full time jungle living in my twenties, it prepared me for the realities of this...the bugs, rain, sweat, mud......yeah vacation!!!

We are lucky the Jacobsens are here! We went over to the house they are staying at and they fed us breakfast and gave us the coffee we were desperate for. We spent the day catching up....we really barely know them, but it's such and easy and unusual friendship, we picked up where we left off just like old friends.

Letter in the afternoon we all got in a taxi to town to celebrate Emma's 13th birthday with pineapple cake and ice cream. It's super fun to have a vacation birthday...we brought candles from home for the party.

We walked the town a bit, got money from the only ATM, and made our way to diner at a place called Toms.

We had an awesome dinner, real Panamanian food, for just 4$ a plate. Perfect! And right on the water. We even caught the last few minutes of the Argentina/Netherlands game. After dinner we shopped for provisions for our boat trip.

After a good nights sleep we awoke to the sounds of the jungle and crashing waves. Jack made all of us pancakes for breakfast!

Luis is very good at making Central American style coffee....

 And now the rain has stopped and we are ready to go on the boat!

Location:bocas del toro, panama