Keanan and I went on an 8 week adventure during the summer of 2014 that saw us take off 9 times (that bit I’d rather not repeat – too much time in the air), from 4 continents.
Looking back, I’d stay longer at one main destination, with some time at a smaller stepping stone of a stop.
Our big thing that summer was going to Latin America for the first time. Panama was our chosen destination – purely on the back of a passing comment from Karl Haddad, who responded to my thinking out loud about visiting Costa Rica with this: “Costa Rica” he said “is for tourists. Panama is for travelers.” And that was that – I took his word for it because he’d spent 4 years traveling the globe and had been to both countries. The only thing is, Karl is a single young strapping lad who I’m sure isn’t short of a party invite wherever he lands. I am a mother who was traveling with a 7 year old and wanted to escape the heat, and am not much of a beach bum. I say this because Karl highlighted Bocas Del Toro as ‘the’ place to go. I beg to differ. Verdant Boquette, courtesy of adjacent volcano – Baru – gets my and my son’s vote.
As well as taking in the sights, I decided that we would immerse ourselves in local culture and learn Spanish too – learning Spanish is on my ‘to do’ list, plus I thought it would get Keanan to ‘feel’ some of what his adopted brother (we were still in limbo as to who we’d be welcoming into our family, but were committed to adopting) would be going through when he joins us – his English wouldn’t be up to scratch, if exist at all – plus I thought it’d be a wonderful, unique way of getting to know the place, its people, culture, mannerisms and more.
How wrong I was.
First came the burning fever, poor Keanan really suffered, then the stomach parasites. We both went down with giardia. I believe it was the lady of the house who inadvertently infected us – she was headmistress of the local primary school – I shudder to think of how many hands she came into contact with that had not been washed properly.
Not only were we horribly ill, but the place we were staying at lacked the charm of a life more simple, rural and pure. You can read more about that here.
You can find out what we got up to in a series of posts in this section. Bottom line: Decide whether you want to just wonder and explore, whether there are specific sites you definitely want to visit, or if it’s more a case of terrain and weather that’ll dictate your itinerary.
Looking back, I’d opt for Boquette and not bother with Bocas Del Toro. I’d stay there for much longer and use it as a base to explore that region. It borders with Costa Rica, which at that time had more convenient and much much cheaper flight connections with the US – so I’d make an adventure out of flying into or out of there with an overland journey to or from Boquette.
