“Bocas! Bocas! Bocas!”

Written by Emily from Seattle, Washington.

Old Bank, Isla Bastimentos, [Bocas del Toro, Isla Colon District] Panama

It is 7:00AM in the village of Old Bank, Isla Bastimentos and the water taxi drivers are calling their destinations to the sleepy heads trying to shake off their late night calypso frenzy. The sun is already baking this seashore community and greetings back and forth in the native Gali Gali can be heard when we open our hotel room door to allow in whatever breezes might be blowing.

Two weeks earlier I had retired from Fortune 500 America and now find myself in what I term the ‘outer reaches’ of Panama – and my outer reaches of travel adventure. Any further and I’m turning back!

I got to Old Bank, along with my vagabond husband, via a full day drive/ferry trek that started in beautiful, botanical Boquete, Panama. Our driver for the day, Arcesio Hernandez, picked us up at our hotel, the luxurious Boquete Garden Inn and drove us over a spine of mountains toward the Caribbean Sea and the ‘port town’ of Almirante. Generously, he stayed with us until we were tucked onto the 20-person open canopy water taxi that jetted us from Almirante to Isla Bocas del Toro. Arriving Almirante boys on bikes escorted our driver’s car from the entrance to the town to the ferry dock, currying for tips in exchange for information and luggage handling. We were happy to have had the assistance of Arcesio, who owns the Boquete Visitors Information Center. (If you are in Boquete, Panama he and his Cuban-American wife, Lizbette Rodriguez, will become your instant travel friend. They are both wonderful, generous, open hearted people.)

Because my husband and I had opted for the luxury of a driver, not a series of buses to get to Almirante, we still had the spunk and energy that day to keep going as we hawked for a water taxi to get us from Bocas del Toro across one more hop of water to our hotel on Isla Bastimentos – the Caribbean View Hotel in Old Bank, Isla Bastimentos. Arriving in Bocas del Toro was one thing. Grabbing a final water taxi to take us out to Isla Bastimentos was entirely another thing. No one had heard of the Caribbean View Hotel until Chuck and Wanda, owners of JamPan water excursions caught the attention of one of their experienced taxi pilots who knew of the hotel and was ready to whisk us away from Bocas del Toro to what awaited us.

The internet photo of the Caribbean View Hotel was taken, maybe, five years ago. And the photo depicts a lovely, breezy, Caribbean style hotel floating over serene and comforting waters. Since the photo shoot a rough hewn two-boat dock and open-air kitchen and bar has been added; as well as blue tarps to shield from the sun, fluttering tattered in the breeze. The canopy covered Caribbean View Hotel water taxi is now faded and tattered as well. We were leery when we landed at the hotel’s dock; but sported on.

Up the dock into the back door of the hotel with our luggage we ventured toward the front desk in hopes of a reassuring welcome. No one around; no guests, no management. After five minutes [which is nothing in Latin-time, relax!] a ten-year old boy scooted through the hotel office from the sidewalk out front and called upstairs to alert the housekeeper of our arrival.

The voice floated down to the boy from upstairs, “Number Nine!” The child plucked our hotel key off the peg and motioned that we should follow, taking my luggage into his possession as an incentive.

Although the outside of the Caribbean View Hotel had ‘worn’ since the internet-posted photos were taken, the tiny state room sized sleeping alcove was actually charming (and a deal at $50 a night!). It was adorned with crocheted doilies and lace curtains. Envision a state room on the African Queen, with polished teak paneling and fluted light fixtures. So far our experience was getting mixed reviews.

The room was too small to languish in, so after dropping our bags we ‘headed for town’. The face of Bastimentos that was “changing rapidly” … and would “completely transform the face of the island” that the current issue of Lonely Planet described was nowhere in sight. We did find Lonely Planets’ warning, “Old Bank is very poor and devoid of any real sights…” to be spot on! As we ventured from the confines of our hotel, out from the wrought-iron gated enclave to the wide-sweeping sidewalk that ran parallel to the lapping waters of the Caribbean we were as alarmed at the garbage and poverty as at the vulture infestation. Yes, “vulture infestation”.

The four days we stayed in Old Bank we were strikingly the only European tourists in Old Bank. In fact, for the four days we were there, we were the only guests of the hotel – an unsettling feeling as the owner locked up the hotel each night to return to his home across the sidewalk. During the day the village youths who were “just hanging out”1 were agape as we strolled up the sidewalk from the hotel to the little park at the crest of a hill which provided a territorial view of the Old Bank ‘harbor’.

If there is anything that Old Bank, Isla Bastimentos needs it is not development of boutique eco-hotels, or Red Frog Beach expansions. It is a waste management system and clean faucet water for the huts and homes in Old Bank.

I would estimate that 1/3 of the residents take advantage of the Monday morning garbage barge that picks up bags of garbage collected at the end of some of the docks facing the Old Bank ‘harbor’. However, if one resident practices waste management; but his neighbor throws Clorox bottles, meat scraps and diapers in the water from the dock of their domain that garbage laps at neighboring docks until it sinks into the waters off Old Bank.

One morning I spent twenty minutes watching as a man four houses up from our hotel brought his wife a bucket of water in a large paint bucket and she proceeded to wash and rinse dishes by pouring a cupful of ‘clean’ water onto hand-soaped dishes. By contrast, our hotel had filtered water and after the first day we felt comfortable enough to brush our teeth and drink from the faucet with…err…good results, actually!

There are a number of accommodation choices on Isla Bastimentos that you can throw your money at: The Point, Garden of Eden, and Red Frog Beach among them. Some of these choices are rustic (though expensive) eco-tourism themed hotels; some of the accommodations are rooms in beautifully appointed homes. Stay at these out-of-Old Bank hotels if you are looking for a serenity get-away.

If, however, you are looking to organize an in-service vacation, along the lines of Mercy Corps or Peace Corps. The village of Old Bank is a cauldron of garbage, vultures and non-stop thumping-loud reggae music – only the music should stay.

I’d promote contacting the mayor of Old Bank and assist this village in realizing their potential as a clean, healthy community first – and promote tourism for the village only after this first vision is realized. The owner of the Caribbean View Hotel may be a man ahead of his time.

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