Panama Day 2: Exploring Bocas Town

November 4, 2011

Being fairly exhausted from the last few weeks at work and getting up at 4:15 AM to catch my flight out of town, I slept in until 9:00 AM my first morning of the trip and felt no guilt whatsoever.  I had a pastry and a great café con leche downstairs at the hotel and then headed out to see the town in daylight.

The marina as seen from Hotel Olas

A word about Hotel Olas. It has 24 rooms on three floors, is right on the water and while the rooms are quite simple, they are  comfortable and convenient; it takes all of five minutes to walk into the main part of town.  My only gripe is that the Wi-Fi does not work in my room and I think it may be because I am at the front of the hotel.  In the restaurant area downstairs and on the second floor porch overlooking the water, the connection is good to excellent.  I think I can put up with checking my email while overlooking the beautiful Caribbean!

My room had a simple full sized bed with a TV, refrigerator, shelving units and private bath.  The room might be a skosh crowded with two people especially since there are no chairs in the room, although I also had a small porch with a table and chairs overlooking the street.  The view of the neighborhood isn’t the greatest, but remember that the housing for regular folks here is still better than some of the hovels I saw in San Pedro and other parts of Belize.  Another great thing about the Olas is its location; close to the action but away from the noise.  The town electrical generator is about a block away and you can hear the humm when in the restaurant area but I can’t hear it in my room.

As I rounded the corner by the Reef Restaurant on my way into the central town area I heard a cheery “hola” as Joel called out to me.  He was waiting for the restaurant to open up and begin his work day. I had seen groups of folks lining up for a parade and found out from Joel that it was Flag Day in Panama.  Joel remarked that this is a very proud day for Panama.

The beginning of the Flag Day parade

I discovered the last time I used my snorkel gear that I needed a new snorkel keeper because the one that come with the mask had broken.  I tried using a zip-tie when I was diving for lobster with my buddy Craig in Key West, but it pulled on the snorkel in a way that caused the mask to leak around the edge – I just couldn’t get a decent seal.  Naturally I didn’t get around to getting a new snorkel keeper before the trip and was more or less depending on finding one at one of the three dive shops in Bocas.

I had asked Brittany if her shop, Starfleet Scuba, might have one and she doubted it since their merchandise selection is fairly limited.  I checked with the other two shops in town, La Buga dive center and Bocas Water Sports, but neither of them had what I needed.  So, despite what Brittany had said I wandered a bit further down the main street and the woman who helped me at Starfleet disappeared into another room and emerged with a snorkel keeper for $4.95.  Now, I remember that South Point Divers in Key West had a jar of them on the counter for $1.00 including tax, but when you gotta have it, you gotta have it!

When I checked in with La Buga about the snorkel keeper, I also asked about surfing lessons.   Unfortunately, the seas are flat so with no waves, no surfing.  As long as I am on the topic of dive shops, Brittany assured me that all three are very professional and reasonably priced.  As I discovered, all three are PADI-affiliated and right on the main street and easy to find.

One of several Bocas Town marching bands

Back to the parade.  I was really impressed by the number of participants and their enthusiasm.  I remember going to parades as a kid growing up in a relatively small town in central Montana.  This was the kind of parade I remembered; not the glitzy Thanksgiving Day parades shown on TV.  It looked as though all the schools and churches were represented and, it appeared, various civic associations.  Lots of young men beating on drums and majorettes-in-training.  Flags and red, white and blue bunting were everywhere you looked.  It was fun to see moms running into the street to take pictures of their 10-year old boy beating a drum or 7-year old girl going through a dance step and it looked like the whole town turned out.

In the shops that were open there were TVs with local TV coverage of the parade.   The central park was packed with onlookers along with vendors selling icees and ice cream.  The guys at a construction site moving huge steel beams with levers stopped to respect the flag every time it went by (which was a lot!).  I stopped at the Lavazza coffee shop for an espresso and to watch the parade for a while.  Lavazza is a cute place that serves coffee, pastries and ice cream; the windows had curtains made of burlap coffee bean bags.   I sipped on my espresso as the various segments of the parade went by and quickly concluded that this is much better than anything I have ever gotten at Starbucks and I only paid $1.25.

... and marching girls, too

I went for a walk along the main street past the Angela hotel (my other top choice for lodging) and past the sailing club.  Bocas Town is not that big and I walked through most of the town in no time.  While many buildings were in a bit of disrepair and some homes had junk strewn about the yard I had to remind myself that this is not an antiseptic American suburb; the standards are different.

I called Brittany and we agreed to meet at Casa Verde for dinner where a friend of hers was having her opening night as the chef of her own restaurant.  Jess had been at other restaurants and is leasing the facilities at Casa Verde.  The menu is pretty basic, but she serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and the food I had was done perfectly.  A couple of items on the menu I had never seen before were fried green beans and ñame fries.

Over dinner Brittany remarked on the number of Panamanians on vacation.  I admit I was surprised by the number of “locals” here for the holidays.  The bartender for the night turned out to be a woman from Bozeman, Montana.  It isn’t every day I run into someone from my home state and even less likely in such an out of the way location!   I noticed that night that I got bit by a few no seeums, but still not what I was anticipating and not much to get excited about.

After dinner Brittany and I went for a walk down the main street and had one last beer at the Book Bar; a book store (the only one in town) run by American expats who eventually turned it into a bar.  I met one of the owners, Nancy, and we chatted a bit about the business climate in Bocas Town.  She said that the most important thing to realize is that if you are catering to tourists and even expats, volume is more important than quality; this is such a big backpacker destination that there just is not money to be made (yet) in high quality merchandise or services.   I ran into another woman who had a restaurant in Bocas but gave up trying to do business there because the local government was just too difficult to deal with; she now leases out the property and does not have the headaches of running a restaurant.  I would not take this as a sign that it is difficult to do business here – after all, I have no idea what her patience or competence level is.

All in all, it was another good day and I wandered home in the fairly dark streets without a care for my safety. At no time did I feel uncomfortable while in Bocas. The people are very friendly and accommodating, even to a Gringo who speaks barely a dozen words of their language.