GET TO KNOW THE BOCAS DEL TORO ISLANDS

by Legendary Best Man | Feb 17, 2017 | Activities, Beaches, Bocas del Toro 

The Bocas del Toro Islands Are All Unique

Just like any city has its own quirks, each of the 5 Bocas del Toro islands has its own distinct flavor and characteristics. Despite their close proximity, popping around between the Bocas del Toro islands is like going in and out of different worlds. Let’s go through them one by one, so you’ll know exactly what to expect when planning your Bocas del Toro island vacation. This is a very brief overview of the characteristics of each island, more information can be found about each island specifically on our blog.

1. Isla Colón, “The Main Island”

 

Isla Colón (named after Christopher Columbus)  is where most of the action happens in the archipelago. The international airport and all of the main water taxi ports, as well as the ferry port from the mainland, are all found on this island. What you see in the photo above is the most populated area of all of the Bocas del Toro islands, however, the majority of this island is thick jungle and is much larger than what is pictured here. It is connected by a small isthmus. Isla Colón has many restaurants, bars, nightclubs, bed & breakfasts and hotels.

2. Isla Carenero, “The Little Surf Island”

Isla Carenero is the little brother of Isla Colón, located a stone’s throw away (or a $1 water taxi) and is much smaller and more relaxed than its close neighbor. This is the least populated of the Bocas del Toro islands and is mostly known for its boutique restaurants, tiny hotels, a few restaurants and surf spots. From the backside of Isla Carenero you have an amazing view of both Isla Bastimentos and Isla Solarte. It’s a great place to get away from the hustle & bustle of town for a quick lunch or a sunset meal with a view. The interior of this small island is swamp, so there tend to be slightly more sandflies around sunrise and dusk. It is wise to carry a bottle of oil (which you can purchase locally) or some bug spray to save you from some discomfort during those times.


3. Isla Bastimentos, “The Wild Island”

Isla Bastimentos (or “Basti” for short) has some of the most developed areas of Bocas as well as some of the most wild. The Red Frog Villas development is situated here which is a large complex of 2 to 7 bedroom villas with ocean views and a large marina that can accommodate sizable yachts. It is also home to a diverse population and unique Afro-Caribbean culture complete with its own dialect called “Guari Guari”.

There are remote beaches and hiking trails throughout the interior of the island, but it is always recommended to travel in groups for safety and navigation. Some of the most stunning beaches in the archipelago are found on Isla Bastimentos. There are eco-hotels, tent lodges, and remote bungalows that can accommodate any traveler’s vibe and budget. There are also bat caves filled with wildlife and some of the rarest species of frogs to be found on Earth. Isla Bastimentos is a must-see!


4. Isla Solarte, “The Quiet Island”

Isla Solarte is a less populated area of the archipelago located directly parallel from Isla Bastimentos. Aside from a few homes and small hotels, most of this island is dense jungle. There are some unique scuba diving and snorkeling areas around the edges of Isla Solarte, and some hidden coves that have been enjoyed for hundreds of years. Christopher Columbus’s fleet passed by here in the 1500s. One of the most historical features of this island is called “Hospital Point” and is an area where those afflicted with malaria were sent to be treated. There are still some concrete tombs that can be found on this island. Currently, there are many native Ngobe indians who live off of the land without electricity or running water.

 
5. Isla Zapatilla 1 & 2, “The Castaway Islands”

The Zapatilla Islands are a popular day trip due to their remote location and picturesque white sand beaches. This is the embodiment of the “lost on a deserted island” mindset, as they are both completely uninhabited. So, what top 5 records would you bring? While small enough to circumnavigate on foot, most people will find a shady spot and spend the day watching the water lap against the shore. These islands are not always accessible when there is heavy surf, but on a perfect day the water will be flat as glass and it’s an experience unlike any other Bocas del Toro islands can offer.

Make sure to pack a lunch and plenty of water as there is definitely no restaurants or shops here – it’s just two tiny islands in the middle of nowhere. Zapatilla 1 is where most tours typically stop, so Zapatilla 2 is even more remote. Although you’re still in Bocas, a day trip out here will make you feel lost at sea.

ONE STEP CLOSER TO MY PANAMANIAN PARADISE

 by Gary Stamper,  Sept. 23, 2020

Were it not for the COVID-19 virus, I would already be in Panama. That said, I am also intensely aware that so far 200,000 of my fellow Americans have died of the virus and related causes, a much worse outcome than not being in Panama. Perspective, Gary, perspective...

One of the people I've met here in Texas doesn't believe that the virus has killed 200,000 people in the U.S. or that's it's a serious threat.  They told me they'd much rather catch COVID than the flu, and I mentally wished them good luck with that and Fox News.

Yesterday I bought my airline tickets for my exploratory visit to Panama, Panama is scheduled to open to tourism again on October 12th and I'm leaving on November 2nd, the day before the election, providing Panama doesn't have a relapse in cases between now and then, requiring them to re-enter lockdown. 

The people of Panama have conscientiously worn their masks, socially distanced, and endured extremely strict curfews, which is why they've had better results and fewer per capita deaths than say, the country that has the leading COVID death rate in the world, the U.S. 

I'll likely be there from 10 to 14 days. I bought a round-trip changeable ticket with trip insurance so I could change my return date if needed, or get a refund should I not be able to go, and even with that my airline tickets from Houston were less than $400. 

I'll be spending the first two days in Panama City, a modern bustling city by any standards, playing tourist (Hey, you gotta see the Panama Canal and other attractions, right?) and meeting with my immigration attorney about a permanent resident Visa. I'm applying for the world-renowned Pensionada Visa, created to entice ex-pat retirees with a minimum guaranteed-for-life pension of not less than $1,000 a month. 

Panama has put together the most appealing program of special benefits for retirees you’ll find anywhere in the world today…and the program is open to foreigners.

In Panama, resident pensionados or retirees are entitled to:

• 50% off entertainment anywhere in the country (movies, theaters, concerts, sporting events)
  
  
• 30% off bus, boat, and train fares
  
  
• 25% off airline tickets
  
  
• 25% off monthly energy bills
  
  
• 30% to 50% off hotel stays
  
  
• 15% off hospital bills*

Plus a lot more perks.

After two days in Panama City, I'll catch a smaller commuter plane to the "Isla Colon International Airport." The airport is located in the provincial capital of Bocas Town, the tourist center of the group of islands and my final destination. The airport is only about 1 mile west of the city. 

Bocas Town, where I plan on living, is a bohemian, waterfront town on Isla Colón. It's the largest and funkiest town in the Bocas del Toro archipelago and is visited by travelers from all over the world. Hotels, restaurants, gourmet grocery stores and other tourist facilities crowd the small town, making it one of the most popular places in all of Panama. It's particularly popular as a destination surfing town and also well known with hikers, the club scene is hot and heavy into the late hours and the whole place is supposed to have a light Jamaican vibe, an I've got my eye on a local reggae band that might need a singer.

I'm traveling light with my phone, a computer bag and a backpack carry-on containing one pair of pants, 2 pair of shoes(sandals and tennis shoes) a small grooming kit, 3 pair of shorts, two shirts, some assorted t-shirts, and my Soul Train Cruise ball cap. While there, I'll be looking for a downtown storefront for a business idea I have and connecting with a realtor I'm already talking with, meeting with a new friend who is the editor of the local paper, "The Bocas Breeze," who is also a musician and artist, connecting with the local ex-pat community, local Shamans, local artists and business people and anyone else I can talk to make sure this is where I want to live.

Does this photo look like someplace you'd like to live? I'll also be connecting with a local Spanish school, Habla Ya, as they trade Spanish lessons for volunteering in their organic gardens, a win-win for all since I'm an organic gardener and I'll learn the peculiarities of organic gardening in the tropics.

This and more, my trip is all about making connections and firming up if this is where I want to be. Tourists can enter Panama with a passport and a ticket out and stay for 90 days before they have to leave. 

I may or may not come back. Everything I'm not taking with me now will be ready to ship at a phone call, and, if need be, my daughter can sell my car...probably my last car...It partly depends on whether I can get my Pensionado Visa this first trip or not, and how I feel about Bocas Del Toro. I've been all over the Caribbean during the past 20 years, and I know I love the laid-back Caribbean vibe... I'm going to find out if Bocas Del Toro is the right place in the Caribbean... 

I'm pretty sure it is, and I'm really tired of moving. 

WHY I'M LEAVING THE U.S....and Moving to Panama

by Gary Stamper

I’ve been writing about going to Panama for three or four months, now, but I've been dreaming about it longer than that. I’ve had several people who have asked “why Panama?”, but up until the last couple of weeks, no one has asked me why I’m leaving the U.S.

It's a great question!

It was my daughter Tanya who asked “why” a couple weeks ago.

I’ve been writing about collapse, climate change, broken systems, and political corruption in the U.S. and the world for a lot longer than the last few months, and well before the creation of this blog in early 2006. I’ve regularly attempted to call attention to the various aspects of collapse and how we can change ourselves, our communities, and the planet.

In the early days, this blog was consistently a journey of self-exploration,  primarily diving into the mind-expanding intricacies of Integral Theory and the developmental psychologies of Spiral Dynamics and later applied these concepts to my teaching and real-world events surrounding and fleshing them out.

In 2008 I wrote an article on this blog called “The S***'s Already Hit the Fan: Here Comes the Shift,” that said that we were entering a shift in thinking because of all the things that were happening – things like the collapse of the financial markets – and that the cognitive dissonance it created would force us into new ways of thinking, and that people would rise up and demand change.

I was wrong.

Around 2011, I began to talk about collapse in present tense even more as I began realizing we had passed the tipping point of climate change where nothing we could do was going to fix and reverse apocalyptic climate change and I could see that all systems - economic, government, and society, and climate - were breaking down as a result of what we had unleashed.

I also addressed these issues in my 2012 book, “Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior,” written to assist men in transitioning from the Mythopoetic to the Transpersonal level of development.

Later the same year, I penned an article called “There’s Something Seriously Wrong With Men In America,” which asked “Why haven’t we come to terms with the crisis of modern male immaturity or toxic masculinity?

In 2016, I created a massive website and forum called “Collapsing into Consciousness,” that covered every aspect of collapse I could think of. Much of it was based on my efforts around creating systems that would help me and my family and anyone else who could hear my message get through what was coming and is now happening.  We even tried to create and put into place the kind of local community, economy, food systems that we’ll need once the larger systems collapsed as they are now doing. I misjudged how many were interested and after three years of work, finally closed the website down.

For whatever reason, people just have not believed how bad it’s going to get as these systems continue to break down en masse. We’re getting a taste of it now as Covid-19 reveals how bad things are, as already broken systems have been further stressed and exposed, and we’re only now beginning to get a glimpse of how much worse it’s going to get.

Still, we remain in denial.

The U.S. has become a failed state, collapsing faster and faster into a third-world country where the only difference I see between the two candidates is how fast the collapse happens. One candidate is bad, and the other is very, very bad. I'll vote for the lesser because slow collapse is better than sudden collapse.

I’ve tried to warn others about the consequences of ignoring the problems we face, and some listened… most didn’t,  and,  as bad as 2020 has been, now things are - as I point out above -  about to get a lot worse.

A few days ago on September 10, 2020, Chris Hedges posted an article on Salon called “American Bloodlands: In a deeply polarized nation, mass violence is not far away.” Here’s a quote from the article:

“The tinder that could soon ignite widespread violent conflagrations throughout the United States lies ominously stacked around us. Millions of disenfranchised white Americans, who see no way out of their economic and social misery, struggling with an emotional void, are seething with rage against a corrupt ruling class and bankrupt liberal elite that presides over political stagnation and grotesque, mounting social inequality. Millions more alienated young men and women, also locked out of the economy and with no realistic prospect for advancement or integration, gripped by the same emotional void, have harnessed their fury in the name of tearing down the governing structures and anti-fascism. The enraged, polarized segments of the population are rapidly consolidating as the political center disintegrates. They stand poised to tear apart The United States, awash in military-grade weapons, unable to cope with the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, cursed with militarized police forces that function as internal armies of occupation and de facto allies of the neofascists.”

Mind you, this is all happening amid a pandemic that is closing in on 200,000 U.S. deaths, while our connected economies collapse because of our greed,  ignorance, and incompetence, while wildfires rage out of control in much of the west due to climate change denial and our unwillingness to accept responsibility for modern civilization’s mismanagement of the qualities needed on this planet to sustain human life.

Last, as all this is unfolding before us as I’ve been predicting since 2006 when I “woke up’ to these possibilities amid scorn that ranged from being called a fear monger, to hearing “science will fix this” to “the aliens will rescue us” to “God won’t allow this to happen,” to the spiritual-bypassing of The Secret which claims we create our own reality,  it come down to we’ve never actually taken responsibility and the Sixth Great Extinction and the end of the “Anthropocene” is upon us.

A very real possibility is that while all of the above is happening, it will be impossible to properly decommission – it takes up to 10 years to deactivate one properly - the 400+ nuclear reactors on our planet, and that their meltdowns will result in our final demise even earlier.

Back to the question posed by my daughter at the beginning of this article: “Why am I leaving the United States?” which begs the question, why aren’t you? Millions of Americans are leaving. Ex-pats who may or may not give up citizenship, with the wealthy ones buying (fast!) or earning (takes a lot longer) a second citizenship which gives them a second passport and more freedom.

The government recognized this was happening years ago and put limits on how much people could take out of the country

For me, I don’t want to stay and watch this country as it descends further into chaos and civil war and the ensuing suffering, starvation, and destruction it will cause.  Again, the U.S. is a failed state and I’m as much to blame as anyone, growing up in White Privilege, and not “waking up” until my mid-fifties. I’ve tried and failed to set up conscious communities to….what? Put off the inevitable death from the Sixth Great Extinction?  We all die, and I feel immensely fortunate that I’ve never had to go to war or kill another human being and I don’t want to start now.

I’m leaving because I’m lucky and can and there’s nothing more I can do here. If you’re one of the very few people who will likely read this rant, I invite you to join me. Maybe not in Panama, because while the white sand and turquoise waters of Panama’s Little-Known Caribbean Gem Bocas Del Toro call to me, they may not call you, but If you can, get out. I hear Ecuador's nice and cheap!

Photos of Bocas Del Toro

I’m leaving because I still believe in possibilities, just not here.

I’m leaving because, even if there were better circumstances here, I can experience a better standard of living there than I can here.

I’m leaving because I’m 75 years old, in great health, I’ve had an amazing life, and I want to experience one last great adventure before I die.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Caribbean and have always wanted to live there. Panama has a healthy economy, a stable government, no army, low taxes and no hurricanes or fires and is rated the number one retirement location in the world two years running according to International Living Magazine. Panama offers several generous Visa Programs to help ex-pats from all over the world make the move even more worthwhile.

Panama is scheduled to completely reopen to tourism and air travel by October 12^th, and if that happens – I’m also prepared if they have the same results we’ve had while trying to reopen - I won’t be far behind. Friends and family? Come visit me in my Caribbean paradise!

I'll still be as close as social media and I'll probably still be ranting about injustice and corrupt politicians in the U.S. as I'm also writing about my move and my adventures which started with my Great American Pandemic Road trip.

I'll send you a digital postcard.