"Bocas del Torrible": Water, water everywhere and not a beach to swim on

Where is Bocas del Toro?

"Bocas" is a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama:

The culture faces as much out to the Caribbean as it does back to the Spanish speaking hinterland.  The local dialect, "Guati-Guati", is a mixture of Spanish, French, English and Indigenous languages.

What is Bocas like?

Readers of this blog will know by now, that not everywhere we visit is an unqualified success.  In a way we do it to ourselves.  When you allow for my wife's taste for adventure, my frugality, and the fact that we often book at the last minute, it is not too surprising that things do not always go according to plan. 

Our visit to Bocas was a case in point.  The plan was that my energetic better half would study Spanish, while I got in some serious beach time, paddle boarding, swimming and snorkelling.  The good news is that she made steady progress with her Spanish. 

Also to be fair, there is a lot to like in this part of the world.  It is not too hot.  There are no bugs.  I have not run into any tummy troubles.  The Panamanians are helpful and almost painfully honest.  Unlike Mexico, there are no peddlers hustling you with trinkets.  Nor do the locals expect a tip for the slightest favor.  They largely keep to themselves, but treat you with every courtesy.  All this makes for a super relaxed place to stay, even if there is not much to do in terms of beach time.

It is easy to see why foreign visitors, tend to take root and rust away in the tropical weather:

January may be "Drier", but it isn't dry

I am not going to blame my travel agent for sending us to a place as wet as this for a beach holiday - as she might divorce me.  Also to be fair, if you look at January on the graph, it does not look too bad.

This could be one of those situations where it helps to read the small print.  Underneath the graph we are advised that:

"Bocas Del Toro has a tropical climate. There is significant rainfall throughout the year in Bocas Del Toro. Even the driest month still has a lot of rainfall. About 2,945 mm of precipitation falls annually."

Conditions could have been better.

Visibility for snorkeling was not great.

Admittedly that was a construction site, but the beaches were not that much better:

Termites never sleep

Thankfully the place did not have bed bugs.  We had termites instead.  Their assignment was to chew through the bamboo ceiling.

Working day and night, these guys made ants seem lazy by comparison.  Their efforts produced a sandy residue on the floor that had to be constantly swept up.

But the worst of it was that when you woke up, the sheets felt as though they were covered in sand.

The Mekong Delta

Our "resort" (let's be charitable) was right on the water.  If you go to the website, the pictures are very inviting:

I got the first clue that the reality might be different. when I asked if I could swim off the dock.  The manager's reply was uncharacteristically vague..."grey water...might not want to spend too long in the water...good idea to have a shower afterwards".

  

What the adverts do not show, is that there is a Mekong Delta type shanty town next door, stoutly resisting the encroaching gentrification.  The suspicion was that the sewage took the most direct channel to the ocean.

Bottom line, it was easy to pass on the swimming.

Saving the planet, one private jet at a time

Most of us get to Bocas by a small Air Panama turbo prop.  You can imagine the buzz generated by the arrival of a private jet in this one horse airport.

Turns out that there was a ceremony to honour the outstanding scientific contribution of an aimiable octogenerian Brit, called Anthony Coates, at the local Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ("STRI").  He was flown there for the occasion, in the private jet of one of the two Smithsonian billionaire board members - either Steve Case of AOL fame, or David Rubinstein of the Carlyle group.

We went on a free tour (no tip!) to see the work that STRI is doing.  It is one of the only professional operations to document the incredible biodiversity seen in this part of the world.

On our tour, we were told that, due to climate change, water temperatures had risen four degrees over the last forty years.

The inconsistency of private jet owners trying to save the planet is of course not confined to the Smithsonian.  The annual World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland, sets the standard in this respect.  The Guardian reported that 1,500 private jets flew in for last year's event.  To her credit, Greta Thunberg called out the disconnect.  Last year CNN reported her saying:

"I think it's very insane and weird that people come here in private jets to discuss climate change. It's not reasonable"