The honeymoon. This journal isn't nearly as interesting as the journal I did for Europe, largely because instead of the travels of a lone, semi-budget concious backpacker getting into ridiculous situations over the course of a couple months, this is a journal of an exhausted couple of newlyweds relaxing in style after the wedding. Enjoy.
 6/25 Miami 6/26 Isla Colon 6/27 Isla Colon 6/28 Isla Colon 6/29 Boquete 6/30 Boquete 7/01 Panama City |
6/28 - Isla Colon, Panama Woke up to a mild rain (it had been storming all night - lightning is quite a show out over the water). The tour started a little late as we were waiting to see if the rain was going to stop, which it didn't, so we headed out anyway. The tour was just us and our boat driver/guide, Alejandro. Already drenched, our first stop was Dolphin Bay, on Isla Cristobol. Shockingly enough, we were there to see dolphins, which we did. We caught sight of plenty of them as they surfaced, anywhere from a couple hundred yards away to as close as 30 or so feet.  After a bit of driving around in circles, trying to get them to play in our wake (which sort of worked), we headed to Isla Bastimentos.
We stopped for a moment at the restaurant we were going to eat at and placed our order before hitting the water. I should mention at this point that the rain had stopped and we had not put on sunscreen that day. Even though it was cloudy, we discussed putting some on but didn't because I thought it wouldn't work applying it immediately before going in the water. File that info away for later. We went snorkeling in the Coral gardens, which turned out to be spectacular. There wasn't much variety in the fish, but the coral was ridiculous. Multitudes of bright colors, shapes, sizes abounded all around. There were also these strange neon caterpillar looking things all over the place. Most of my previous snorkeling experience was in the Virgin Islands, where they have amazing fish, but they had nothing like this. After that we went back to the restaurants and had our lunch (mmm...plantain fries). From there we went to the other side of Isla Bastimentos, to go to Red Frog beach. We went through a back entrance of sorts, which consisted of a short trail that consisted of a path cleared through the jungle. It was pretty wide and well layed out, but you got the feeling if it was left unmaintained for a few weeks, the jungle would reach out and reclaim it. We passed some small farmed areas, including sugar cane and pineapples.
Eventually, the jungle opened up to a wide beach. There were a bunch of guys playing volleyball and the waves were crashing pretty hard. We went to a lookout on the end of the beach and then played in the waves for a while. When we were drying off, Alejandro found a tree sloth lounging in one of the trees at the edge of a beach. Those suckers really are slow. On our way back to the boat, Alejandro knocked down a couple of coconuts for us to drink. Quite tasty and more than a little refreshing.
As we left for a quick stop in Bocas Town, it quickly became clear that our frolicking in the surf had become the straw the broke the camel's back on two hefty sunburns. We got the quick tour of Bocas Town (parts we hadn't seen before), did some quick shopping (I need aloe, stat!), and headed back. The rest of the evening mostly consisted of repeated applications of aloe with a break for dinner. |