Bocas del Toro, Panama

Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica is really close to the Panamanian border, so we thought "why not pop over to that other side and see what it's like in Panama" and so we did.

A short bus journey and then we were there, ready to go over one of the border crossings. This is the more touristy border crossing and you get to walk over a bridge that crosses the river to get to Panama.

Bocas del Toro
We went straight from the border to Bocas del Toro, simply because we've heard a lot of great things about this province, which consists of many islands, and because it is fairly easy to get to from Costa Rica.

Isla Colón
We stayed at the main island Isla Colón in a beautiful apartment that we got upgraded to because the hostel we were meant to stay at suddenly had to close for a month. We don't have any photos from Sunhaven Apartments were the friendly owner Tomaso let us stay for 5 nights. But let's just say that this is the nicest accommodation we've had since we left England.

We had this view from the kitchen window. Not to shabby to be the first thing to see in the morning while we were having our breakfast. Oh and on the breakfast note. We are still totally hooked on breakfast á la Planet Costa Rica: big bowls of fruit topped with raisins and cinnamon.

Of course we were mostly grateful to have a great air-condition in the apartment. Honestly, I would've turned in to a puddle of sweat if we didn't have an air-con in Bocas. The heat is insane.

Isla Colon is a huge island where you'll find everything really. The little town is cute and there is plenty of restaurants and bars along the harbour, cute shops and a buzzing atmosphere most of the time (well, mostly in the late afternoon/evening/night anyway)

But it's also easy to escape the town of the island, like we did on our days here. We got to borrow a couple of bikes from Tomaso and were able to explore almost the whole island in two days, well, not intentionally. We kind of got lost the first day band didn't realise how wide the island is.

 We started at the east side of the island, went inland and ended up by the coolest village on Earth: the plastic bottle village! Which is exactly what it sounds like: a village with houses and everything, made out of plastic bottles. So cool!

In total we cycled like 14 km to get to Bocas del Drago beach on the other side of the island. It was totally exhausting in that heat to do, but we did cycle through some cool landscape where locals live and it felt like being in a jungle again.

At Bocas del Drago we locked up our bikes and went by foot a bit to reach busy Starfish beach. This is probably where all the tourist had been hiding during the day. Even though we definitely saw more people than starfish, it was a great place to hang out and we did spot starfish and even sloths in the trees behind (!) and it was nice to enjoy some coconut water after that cycling tour.

All of a sudden we got interrupted by the most crazy rain weather I've experienced, so we decided to not even try to bike back, but instead take them and us onto one of the buses that goes to town from Bocas del Drago.

The second day that we borrowed the bikes we decided to not go quite as far, and instead headed for Paki Point on the east side. We found that we didn't have to go far at all to find a white sand, beautiful, quiet beach to have a swim in. This was definitely a more chilled cycle day.

After that swim in a very hot ocean, we continued on to Paki Point which is a point loved by surfers. We loved it mosylt because of the awesome surfers bar/restaurant that's located there right on the beach, because we could chill in their lovely sun beds whilst sipping on soy milkshakes. Such a blissful moment.

In the afternoons and evenings there are lots of Happy Hours to choose from. Some places have happy hour all day, but it seems that the majority starts somewhere around 4 pm. We found a great place where a jug of Sangria was only $8 and where we could munch on patacones and shoestring fries while looking over the ocean.

Because we had a great kitchen back in the apartment to cook in, and because the Bocas prices are not the most wallet-friendly ones, we didn't eat out much at all. Instead we found a vegan friendly minimarket "Super Gourmet", located on the main street, where they sell everything you can imagine (all I was missing was vegan ice cream); soy chunks, hummus, nuts, beans, plant based milks and, of course, the winner of it all; vegan sour cream and cream cheese. I went absolutely bananas when I discoverd these lovers for only $3,50. Finally we could have a proper chips and dip night again.

Despite all the goodies in that store, we just couldn't resist to have an Indian night at restaurant Om on the main street, right by the waterfront.

For those of you who don't know my Guy, he is a major curry addict and had been looking forward to coming here for days because for some reason Om is closed on Saturdays and Sundays so we were hanging on their lock at 5pm on Monday.

Om is the prettiest Indian restaurant I've been to. Even the toilet looked awesome, not to mention the interior inside and the gorgeous view while having amazing food in your mouth.

They know vegan, but only have one dish on the menu which comes as vegan the way it is. But they seemed very flexible and could cook a Thali vegan, by making the mixed vegetable korma vegan as well. This baby was $15, but wow. So so so good. Christmas in my mouth for sure.

Isla Bastimentos
Great thing about Bocas is that it's so easy to explore the different islands. We realised quickly how easy it is to just wave down a water taxi and go off wherever you want, and even better, these taxis run all night.

For $5 each we could get to Isla Bastimentos, and got dropped off close by the popular Red Frog Beach.

This island is a national park so we also had to pay $5 to enter, but as a bonus we got to do a great little walk to the beach through jungle and spotted a sloth!

We had a nice few hours here just chill in on the beach and having strong Panamanian coffee. So strong that I actually felt nauseous for the rest of the day though. Unfortunately we missed out on seeing red frogs, but it was totally worth going here anyway.

Isla Carenero 
This is the island that is closest to Isla Colón and hence, very easy to get to. We could probably swim over if it weren't for us being scared of getting hit by one of the many speedboats around. But for just $1 we got to the other side with a water taxi.

This is a cute small island, but it seemed pretty dead when we were there. It almost felt like it was an abandoned island, almost no people in sight (but then again, we are not quite sure if we spent our time on the island on a different beach than the other tourists), but it is a really pretty island with cool buildings. Best part is of course that we found a vegetarian restaurant here; Leaf Eaters.
  

Neither of us tried the food, but the menu looked good even for vegans and we did try the smoothies which was awesome. I had a banana-coco-almond milk smoothie and it was so yum I could've had 10.

It's a really cute cafe/restaurant and it's not every day you can have a nice drink at a cafe and immediately after just jump into the ocean. So before we waved down the water taxi to take us back, we did some snorkelling there and spotted even more starfish. It's moments like these I feel like life is freaking magical.

The Caribbean side of life in Puerto Viejo

After a few chilled out days in Cahuita, it was time to venture further down the Carribbean coast some 16kms to Puerto Viejo.
Right from the start it was clear to see that Puerto Viejo was kinda like a Cahuita which had exploded in tourism/partying in the last decade or so. Having said that it still held a really funky and authentic Carribbean feel to the town and straight away we explored our new area for vegan treats.

Puerto Viejo is full of cool, quirky restaurants, cafes and bars and everyone we went pass we wanted to stop by to have a closer look at.

For brekky

We found Cafe Rico, a hidden cosy little cafe with the nicest atmosphere. It has the cutest interiour design, with the decoration giving you a feel that you're in a British garden during summertime (there's even a picture of the Queen above the bar!)

We could've sat here for hours.. They have so many books for book exchange that it's like a little library as well as a cafe in one place.

This is solely a breakfast/brunch place, with plenty of choices for vegetarians and as vegans we didn't have any trouble getting full. The fruit bowl with granola that we ordered came in big pasta bowls and was lush! For only 2500 colones we were absolutely stuffed.

We asked if they had soy milk for the coffees and received the most beautiful reply; "No.. But we have coconut milk" Ah, perfection. Finally some coconut flavoured coffee!

Cafe Rico seems to have Fridays off, so on that day we went breakfast hunting and found that the popular cafe Bread & Chocolate is a kind off vegan friendly joint. Best thing I found on their menu was of course the iced cappuccino with soy milk. So so so needed in this heat.

Other than that they have a few choices for vegans on their food menu as well, but we had to ask which ones were vegan to find out because the menu didn't say (like biscuits and mushroom gravy, sandwiches, salads, etc.). Vegan dessert however, was easy to spot straight away - dark chocolate cake (!). We never got a chance to try it, but it sounds AWESOME.

For daily activities 

We were able to rent bikes for just $5 each a day from the hostel we stayed at. This was such a great activity in Puerto Viejo area, as the most gorgeous beaches are a few kilometres away. We cycled passed the surfers beach Playa Cocles and Playa Chiquita until we reached Punta Uva.

Punta Uva was the perfect place to relax, drink coconut water straight from a coconut and have a refreshing swim.

It was easy to kill a lot of time here (Is it just me or does time just fly by when you're at the beach??), but after a while hunger made us leave Punta Uva.

Other than that, there is also an animal rescue center in Puerto Viejo. Which is the no. 1 ranked activity in Costa Rica on TripAdvisor. They take care of many different animals, such as baby sloths which of course many people want to cuddle with.

Me and Guy looked into volunteering here at Jaguar Rescue Centre a long time ago. Back then (like 6-8 months ago) they had a volunteer programme that costed $50/week which is understandable so that the rescue center won't lose money for food and care for the animals. However, during the time we looked into this and sent them emails requesting to come as volunteers, we got a reply saying that they now have a new owner and that the programme had changed.

It wasn't a small change. Now it costs $15 a day + a donation fee of  $350.. But oh, you do get a t-shirt. What a bonus eh.. Let's just say that this change didn't make us feel keen on volunteering here. Knowing about all this and learning about it more from more recent reviews of Jaguar Rescue center, makes me feel like it is just very commercialised now. Costa Rica has once made the great decision of not having any zoos, because animals are not supposed to be kept in captivity, but now it seems like Jaguar Rescue center has turned in to something that I would call a zoo. So many tourists goes there every day and I've heard that they won't actually even let the animal go even when they are not sick anymore and so they are kept in captivity even though they're able to make it on their own (they need something to keep the tourists from coming back and giving more money right?)

So no, I refused to go there to visit. If someone knows more about this or have any suggestions on what I can do about it to help these poor animals in any way - please let me know. 

For dinner

On a more happy note. Food. With it being low season many of the vegetarian and vegan food places around Puerto Viejo were closed when we were here. It was very disappointing finding all these cool sounding places on Happy Cow, and then looking for them to find out they were closed for the month. I can imagine it being very easy to eat out as a vegan here during the rest of the year though, because some vegan friendly places even popped up around Punta Uva/Playa Chiquita area (like Alice Ice Cream, where they have vegan ice cream!!!)

In town you have Como en mi casa Art Cafe and Chile Rojo (which actually was open when we were there but a bit too pricey for us, but they have plenty of vegan options like sushi and on mondays they have all you can eat sushi (!) gaahh, I wish we would've been there on a Monday!)

But because of the lack of good vegan food places and because we wanted to try to protect our wallets a bit, we went to the supermarkets for some vegan treasure hunts. Bio Mercado food store has plenty of vegan items, such as seitan and much more.

In all the regular supermarkets we also found that there is a bakery that has a section which seems to be a vegan friendly bakery, they had a range of vegan items such as banana bread, pita bread, wholewheat bread and vegan oat cookies. Aaah-mazing.

The best vegan food in Puerto Viejo was found at Soda Guetto Girl One Love (located just in the beginning of town from Cahuita way). It is easily the best and funkiest soda in the country.

The woman who runs the place is so lovely! Speaks English very well and is really easygoing. There is no menu here, so we just explained our food preferences and it wasn't a problem at all. Instead she served us the biggest and tastiest food feast we've had in a long time.

Because she cooks everything from scratch when you order, it took a while for the food to be served but I think that's a good thing because we sure needed a big appetite to be able to finish the plate of coconut rice, veggie stew, beans, salad, patacones, patacones filled with refried beans and guacamole and plantains. I think I died here and went to vegan heaven.

For evening activities

With it being a bit of a party place, we did't have to go far to find good deals for happy hour. Our favourite place is the reggae bar Salsa Brava, where they have lush ginger rum cocktails and you sit right on the beach with the sunset infront of you and reggae music in your ears.

Puerto Viejo isn't too shabby.

The Caribbean side of life in Cahuita

Going to the Costa Ricas Caribbean side is one of the best decisions we've made on our travels. It is like another world in comparison with Santa Teresa and the west coast of the country. We fell in love with the Caribbean coast straight away when we arrived to the little village Cahuita. This is where you'll get reggae music and reggae nights, nice beaches, amazing wildlife, lots of chocolate tastings and amazing food. A vegan doesn't have to be hungry around here. Almost all sodas (the local restaurants) and food places in general serve coconut rice, grilled veggies and veggies in coconut milk sauces, smoothies with coconut milk or blended with your choice of fruit and water. Yes, I found this to be the heaven of Costa Rica.

As I mentioned, Cahuita is a small village and most people come here for a day to visit the national park. It's also a great place for snorkelling, as it has a huge coral reef surrounding it. We visited during low season, which meant lower prices for accommodation than usual, but we think that it is still cheaper than Puerto Viejo next door. It is so tiny that there is only one main street with a few restaurants and bars, and there weren't many tourists around.

We stayed at a lovely guesthouse called Cabinas Cahuita. It is a family business and the man in charge is hilarious! We had some funny chats with him and his mates that were hanging around sometimes. Being in Cahuita and the heat made it almost mandatory to have an AC, so we were very thankful that our room had one. We even had our own hammock and tiny beach outside our room!

Unfortunately there aren't any vegan or vegetarian restaurants in Cahuita, but one does not have to be hungry around here anyway with some choices in the few restaurants around. Since we had access to a kitchen, we continued to cook our basic meals there most of the times but went out for breakfast to one of the sodas in the mornings. Ever since spending time at Planet Costa Rica, I am addicted to having that big fruit plate in the morning, even though the ones I've ordered from the sodas here are usually like 1/4 of the size we were served at the farm..

Both days we spent in Cahutia, we spent in the national park after breakfast. It is such a great national park if you want to be sure to see some wildlife! I think this national park is way better than Manuel Antonio, because this one simply doesn't feel commercialised yet.

We only had a 3 minute walk to get from our accommodation to here, and it is just off the main road. From this entrance they don't charge any fees either, they just happily receive whatever donation you are happy to give.

We saw many monkeys, cool and scary insects, racoon, and thanks to a local man who must have the best eye sight - two sloths being lazy up in the trees!

Even if it gets really, really hot walking around and trying to spot animals it doesn't matter, because in here we found the most gorgeous beach to have a break and a much needed swim in the silent ocean. After our first day here, we went straight to the supermarket to buy some swim goggles, because we realised there is lots to see under the water here.

Besides visiting the national park, one can go and visit the animal rescue center Tree of Life, but unfortunately for us, it was shut for the low season. It looks really cool though and they even have volunteer opportunities!

To entertain ourselves in the afternoon we went to Coco Restaurant for some happy hour coconut drinks and had some seriously tasty Patacones. I will miss these fried plantain patties so so so much when we leave. They are lush and they are almost in every restaurant you'll find around here, usually served with guacamole or refried beans. Yum!