The Islands of Bocas del Toro

The Islands of Bocas – the beautiful tropical archipelago of Bocas del Toro has nine major islands, 59 smaller islands all with names and a myriad of unnamed mangrove cays with a total population of 89,300. Here is a little more information on the most interesting.

Colon Island

Bocas del Toro town is on Colon, the largest of all the islands of not just Bocas but in the whole of Panama. The island has a fixed population of around 5000, is 61km2 and has only one paved road with no traffic lights anywhere!

The town has a hospital, a pharmacy, a bank, a couple of ATM machines, hardware shops, two gourmet shops and a number of grocery stores, The town sells inexpensive wine and has many great restaurants (with a whole range of food from Caribbean, Thai, Indian, Italian, Mexican, American as well as the local seafood) and a few bars as well as hotels ranging from cheap & basic to super luxury.

There are companies selling fishing trips, kayaking, diving and snokeling as well as estate agents selling property of course! You will find a beautiful modern marina here too for all the private yachts – which is full most of the year. There are bicycles and scooters for rent but as yet no car rental.

The town is a wonderful mixture of old and new, modern people in floral shorts tapping away at laptops with indians from the Guami and Kuna tribes in colourful native dress. Transportation is by car, electric buggy, taxi, water taxi and a few buses which go from Bocas Town to the beautiful beach at Bocas del Drago.

Hotels in Bocas del Toro and the Islands

There are many hotels to chose from on the islands of Bocas – there are romantic eco lodges, rambling old houses with wonderful wide verandas and some new style condo types (not so many of those thank goodness) as well as some marvelous unique wooden properties often on stilts over the water. Depending on whether you want simplicity or total luxury, bed and breakfast or all inclusive, prices range from $30 a night for a room to $300.

We love the Hotel Angela down on the waterfront near the airport. It has rooms from $40 including breakfast, the owner Claudio is extrmely kind and helpful, as are his staff, the food is good, they do great Mohitos at happy hour for $2.50 and the view from the restaurant and dock is beautiful. Dolphins swim by, herons fish on rocks low in the water and egrets swoop down on fish in front of your eyes.

For more on Hotels in Bocas
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Restaurants in Bocas Town

Most retaurants are found on the main street, some are in hotels.

Lemon Grass – Thai style

L’Ultimo Refugio – Eclectic and really well prepared

The Om Café – Indian

Da Claudio (Laguna Hotel) – Italian, German & Caribbean

El Pecado – Thai & seafood

The Reef – American hamburgers and sandwiches

Bahia Hotel – Italian

Bocas del Toro Hotel – American, Caribbean and seafood

Alberto’s restaurant – Italian

Buena Vista Bar & Grill – – American, Caribbean and seafood

Liki Tiki – Mexican, caribbean & seafood

Don Chico – mixed buffet

Bumper’s Bar & Grill – Clam Chowder & fish

For more details on Restaurants in Bocas

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Bahia Honda (Islands of Bocas)

Bahia Honda is a community located at heart of the bay of the same name, between the islands Bastimentos and Solarte, part of the group of islands of Bocas del Toro. In the centre of the village, on the island Bastimentos, there is the communal house, the primary school, the school’s dinning room and a restaurant offering local food.

The main occupations live by fishing and subsistence farming moving more towards tourism as a more lucrative source of income..

To get to Bahia Honda, hire a boat in Bocas del Toro and in 15 minutes you will arrive at a restaurant where you can make arrangements for a boat and a guide to visit the trail of the sloth!

Isla Solarte (Islands of Bocas)

Isla Solarte is the name of a planned community on the islands of Bocas being built by an American developer next to Bahia Honda. Shepard Johnson is the developer and he is fulfilling a dream of an idyllic planned island community in the beautiful Caribbean. Just in the last 2 ½ years, 100 plots have already been sold.Their website is www.tropicalproperties.com

Bastimentos (Islands of Bocas)

This little community in the islands of bocas of around 800 inhabitants lives in 125 homes constructed from wood and zinc, or cement with a zinc roof and a few of wood and palm. It is populated mostly by afro-caribbeans, with some foreigners who came to live here more recently.

You have to get here by sea. The most common way is by aquatic taxi. Many of the residents of this community have a boat. There are no paved roads in Bastimentos.

It does have a health clinic though, an aqueduct, a school with 7 classrooms, 7 teachers and 145 students, and a small police dept. The residents get electricity and telephone from Colon Island by an underwater cable. There are also public phones in the town. There are several high-speed internet cafés, as there is all over Panama.

There is a great Thai restaurant up on the hill and you can vitit the boutique chocolate factory here making chocolate from locally grown cocoa. You can also buy the raw cocoa from the Indians which is fabulous for cooking.

Boca del Drago (North, on the Island of Colon)

When Christopher Columbus arrived in Panama from Costa Rica, the first place he visited was the islands of Bocas, specifically Boca del Drago, entering what is now known as Admiral Bay (or Caribaro by the Indians) via the channel that separates the main land from Colon Island.

Today, this region of the archipelago is an attraction for tourists. There are beautiful beaches at the tip of the island and shady trails to walk. Coral reefs beyond the beaches attract snorkellers and divers. You can get there by boat or by small bus from Bocas Town.

There are about 300 Ngobe Indians that inhabit 25 houses on the island, most of them dispersed along the road between Bocas del Toro and Boca del Drago.

Boca del Drago has a primary school with more than 45 students. They don’t have electricity and the water comes from a creek. They are essentially fishermen, growing also vegetables and farm animals. Some of the members of the community are employed in Boca del Drago.

The coast is beautiful on the island and there is a restaurant, some cabins for lodging and several private houses that are used during weekends.

But there are other attractions here: just a few minutes away by boat, towards the open sea, is Swan Key, a bird sanctuary that attracts the funny looking boobies. (I guess birders like to look at boobies, too!) You will also see the graceful frigates, as well as many pelicans and seagulls that make the cay their place of stay! To protect the birds disembarking on the island is not allowed.

Should you still have time cross over to the main land and make the short trip up the Soropta Channel: a passage built by the banana planters to transport their products along the coast. Today this channel, which goes through the San-San Pond Sack Natural Reserve, is used only by locals and tourists.

Bocatorito (Islands of Bocas)

Of all the islands of Bocas, Bocatorito is an important tourist spot, in the northern part of the island. It is a labyrinth of mangrove islets leading into a large calm sea water lagoon surrounded by more mangroves and islands.

There are also dolphins here. Many tours come to this place, also known as Dolphin Bay, to show people the playful marine mammals which are often seen with their babies.

Bocatorito also has a Ngobe Indian community on the island. Their houses are located in two villages: one, with better conditions, around a restaurant managed by locals, and the other, poor, off to the left of the first one. There are 150 inhabitants that live in around 30 houses, most of them made of wood with a palm leaves roof. They have a small school don’t have electricity or a health center and they have water that comes from a creek. Life for them is basic to say the least. Some of the women make handicrafts to sell to tourists. The men in their dug out boats often sell fish and lobsters to the growing community of gringos living in their new homes on the water front.

Carenero (Islands of Bocas)

This key within the islands of Bocas del Toro is just 5 minutes and $1 water taxi ride away from Colon,right in front of the Bocas del Toro town. It is a small key inhabited by people of afro-antillano origin, mestizos, native ngobe and foreigners in ever increasly luxury homes right on the waterfront.

Again the locals live in houses that are constructed from wood with a zinc roof and a few of wood with palm. Newcomers have constructed hotels, restaurants and houses using the local materials mimicking the local style.

There are a couple of good beaches and it is a great place to be for a beer at sunset. We like the Tikki bar of the Picked Parrot best.

The origin of the name is the word careneer that means a place use to repair the ships. It is known that Christopher Columbus, during his 4th trip in 1502, stopped in this island to fix his ships. Later, many other navigators, pirates and Spanish conquerors use this place for the same task.

More recently, Carenero was first a fisherman colony and today is a prosperous and beautiful site of several tourist businesses: beach hotels and restaurants offering their services in this magnificent environment.

The roads are in part paved. Carenero has a primary school as well as electricity, telephone and potable water, all of them originating in Bocas del Toro town.

Restaurants

Sunset grill – Mexican, seafood and steaks

Pargo Rojo – Middle Eastern

The Buccaneer – seafood & Caribbean

The Pickled Parrot for the Key West experience!

Cayo Agua (Islands of Bocas)

The village of Water Cay (Cayo Agua) is probably one of most colorful of the Archipelago, with most of its houses built with wood, over the sea, seated on columns of wood.

Apart from tourism the main activities here are fishing and the extraction of lobsters and crabs, with a small amount of agriculture and cattle. The community has a primary school, public telephone and electricity generator, but it depends on the wells and collected rainwater to satisfy the local water requirements.

A great thing to do here is walk down the trail that takes you all round the coast. The landscape is incredibly beautiful. Another option is to contract a local guide who takes you to the interior of the rain-forest or gosnorkeling in the neighboring coral reefs between Cayo Agua and Popa islands.

Another attraction, particularly if you are interested in geology and paleontology, are the ancient deposits of coral and clams in the northwest sector of the island, on the beach of Punta Limon. There are fossils of more than 3 million years old in a vein running through the cliff just before the beach, and in the rocks on the same beach.

Colonia Santena (Islands of Bocas)

Between Bocas del Toro and Bocas del Drago there is the small village of Colonia Santeña – a name that came from the first inhabitants of the Panamanian province of Los Santos, on the Pacific side of the country.

Following their original occupations, they settled here to grow cattle and do some agriculture. Today they are the providers of meat (beef and pork) for the Bocas del Toro town market.

The principal attraction of this small village is a natural cave, known as “The Bats Cave” full of stalactites and a small creek as well as hundreds of bats. It is impressive to see the bats leaving the cave as the night start to fall.

At the entrance of the cave there is a statue of the Virgin Mary (the place is also called The Virgin Grotto), of special significance for Catholics, who come here to prey. The only service for visitors here is a small grocery, on the road, where you can buy a soda or a beer.

Coral Cay (Islands of Bocas)

Coral Cay or, as it is really called, Crawl Cay, is a tiny island surrounded by mangroves, located in the channel between the islands Bastimentos and Popa. It is a great place to see coral hence the new name! The island is beautiful.

There is a small local community here as well as two excellent restaurants specialized in seafood and a group of lodging cabins. In one of the restaurants, a small stairs takes you down into a fascinating marine world.

Restaurants

Coral Cay – great seafood (no credit cards)Adonis Alfonso

Loma Partida (Islands of Bocas)

Loma Partida is a small key located between Popa Island and the mainland, just at the entrance of the Chiriqui Lagoon. This island is an important eco preservation area as you can find beautiful coral reefs, mangroves and rain forests all in the same place.

This beautiful community is inhabited by more than 300 people that live in 40 houses, most of them over the water, made of wood with palm leaves or zinc roofs, set wood or concrete stilts.

The center of the community is on a hill with a magnificent view.

Along the coast there are a few small grocery stores that sell food and other supplies.

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