Bocas Del Toro & Boquete, Panama & back to Costa R

After a few years I decided to describe the last part of this vacation . Looking back the islands of Bocas del Toro was probably my favourite spot of the whole vacation. Nature wise at least. So beautiful! We went to do a boat tour leaving on 2 small boats with our group to go through the mangrove. Amazing. We went to a floating restaurant where a few people stayed while the rest of the group went snorkelling. This was a bit of a letdown to me.. very strong current which made it very exhausting plus the coral has degraded so much over time. Sad. Still nice to be in the water though! After this we went back for lunch at the floating restaurant and afterwards we all went to an island where we went on land. After a short walk we reached a beautiful beach. Some people went looking for more animals to take pictures of and others went swimming. Very nice spot!
Another thing we did on these islands is taking a short bus ride and then walking to Star Beach! You can go there by boat or walk along the beach/water to get there. I went walking. Super nice. The name of Star beach is because of the Starfish. So many big ones, you can see them clearly. Relaxing on the beach with a beer, what better way to spend your vacation!
After this visit is was back on to the main land of Panama and a bus ride to Boquete. Very different as this place is quite high up in the mountains. Much colder as well. Pretty location of the hotel. Funny to be sitting at a fireplace with Christmas socks hanging there! Strange to think it’s so close to Christmas while you’re in a warm country on holiday. During our time here we could do an excursion to a coffee plantation. Very nice and very yummy coffee!
On the travel day back to Costa Rica we first went to the city David to do some grocery shopping. Local rum of course! And snacks for on the road. Crossing the border again which takes a few hours in total but again no major issues. Always a good thing. Now we’re on the west coast of Costa Rica again, in Playa Dominical. Here people could do an excursion to Corcovado national park. I was exhausted from all of the travelling and to be honest at this point all national parks looked the same to me.. so I skipped that excursion and instead just walked around near our hotel. Walked to the beach and to a few shops for some tourist shopping. Hanging out at the pool and relaxing, that’s about it. The final part of the organized tour was the drive back to San Jose and a last afternoon there. Back to the same hotel as in the beginning. This time we went into town and I went to the Gold museum. Pretty nice. Strolled around town to the shopping market for some last tourist shopping. Always good.
Then saying good bye to everyone! As I was staying to go do some volunteer work for protecting turtles! I’ll save that for the next & final story.