2,5 days in Boquete, Panama

We left a very, very hot Bocas in the morning to go to what felt like a completely different planet; Boquete in the Panamanian mountains

We arrived to a very rainy Boquete in the afternoon with an old American school bus, put on the ponchos and had a wander around the cute little town.

It was awesome not feeling sweaty all the time, and so weird feeling cold again. 

We found that the view from one of the bridges that crosses the river was stunning and we could clearly see the volcano Baru in a distance. Just next to the bridge was the cutest little souvenir shop where a very friendly man worked so I couldn't help myself from doing a tiny amount of shopping.

That just woke up my souvenir-hunting-mood though so we continued through town to look in some of the nice shops and found a cool little market with many local handmade items.

There are unfortunately no vegetarian restaurants in this small town. The first thing that popped up when we googled "vegan Boquete" was the restaurant/bar Big Daddy's Grill where they supposedly served vegan burgers after a vegan requested them to remove eggs in the burger pattie. All cred to Big Daddy for giving the vegan pattie a go and for sticking to it, we thought and headed to this little gem when we were starving in the evening. 

The burger was really, really good and the service amazing. And it was vegan, we just had to make sure that they removed the ranch dressing and coleslaw that came with it (unfortunately they don't have a vegan sauce or dressing to offer, just balsamic vinegar, and the dear old ketchup and mustard of course)

On the mornings of day 2 in Boquete we jumped into a small bus after breakfast up to the start of the hike Sendero Piedro de Lino (Lino Rock)

It wasn't the easiest hike we've done. It started up easily with a gravel road, but pretty soon it became more challenging. Because of Boquete being a very rainy place, the muddy steep path was very slippery and we had to climb with both hands and feet at times to get up to the top. (On the way down we both fell on our bums X amount of times, but it kind of made it more funny)

But then again, coming up on the rock to see this view was so worth the sweat and dirty shoes.

Chilled here for a bit and thanked Mother Earth for being so fantastic, but it didn't last long until we saw the big grey rain clouds and heard thunder in the distance and this was the cue for us to start walking back before it would be impossible to climb down without not just sliding all the way down (which I guess could be pretty fun aswell..)

We made it back to land before the first raindrops hit, but decided to take a use of the rain ponchos again and walk the hill down back to Boquete downtown.

Back in town we found the juice bar Juice Mi where we could have a refreshing smoothie. So perfect after a hike like that. We came back here the next day and had the most amazing soy milk frappucino with Oreos. Vegan happy dance for this place for sure.

Boquete is known for its climate and good soil for growing coffee in particular. Because it's famous for its coffee plantations we thought it would be rude to miss out on a coffee your here. 

So on day three we went on a tour to learn more about the history of coffee and about coffee beans, flavours and everything really. 

The tour was a disappointment though. Don't know if it was just the company we booked with but for $25, all we got was a 5 minute bus journey to a coffee plantation where the guide showed us around and told us all the stories which were hard to focus on when we got constantly bitten by mosquitos. The best part of the tour was the animals there, the cute little goat, some birds, dogs and cats.

In the end of the tour came the moment we'd been waiting for; the coffee tasting. We thought that we were gonna be able to try different coffees, see the process of making the coffee or something but apparently all that was included in this your was one espresso cup of coffee each. (Okay it did taste good and to be fair the guide was friendly and fun, but it just wasn't enough to make it a good tour)

Before heading back to town in the bus, they dropped us off at a little honey store, because apparently this is not just a coffee farm, it is also a bee farm which we had no idea of when we booked this and it made me feel really bad knowing that our money probably contributed to the bee hives. Not only were we put into a honey shop, but the woman in there also offered honey tasting, if we paid for it. She was no friendly lady at all. Let's just say that me and Guy walked out asap and just waited for the others.

So a shout out to my fellow travelling vegans: if you decide to go on a coffee tour in Boquete, do more research beforehand so you don't end up on a bee farm.

The day turned to the better though, when we found a cute local restaurant where the waitresses were super helpful when we explained that we were after vegan food.

If it's something I've learned after travelling through south and centralamerica as a vegan, it is to always at least ask local restaurants if they can prepare vegan food because even though it's usually not anything on their menus, they can usually be flexible and fix you something and best part is of course that it's much cheaper than other westernised restaurants and that you usually get something really yummy, like we did at Restaurants Las Orquinas on this day.

For about $2 each we got stuffed from the carrot rice with beans and fried plantains that also included a delicious lemonade.

After that we went on to the sports bar jus ton the main square of Boquete, because my English man of course couldn't miss the England-Russia game.

So despite Boquete being somewhat harder to get to than maybe Bocas, it was so worth the visit. We are so happy that we made it here so that we were able to experience two completely different sides of Panama. Because of its location, we could also cross the border back to Costa Rica from the town of Paso Canoas, which is a border crossing that is not as touristy as the one with the bridge, hence, no pushy people trying to "help you" just to get your money.

So to sum up; go to Boquete if you get a chance. If not for the coffee, then for the beautiful nature or for getting a break from the heat of other parts of the country.

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.