The shoreline around Bocas del Toro is a display of colorful buildings on stilts.

It’s rainy season again and that means a break in tourism for us. We decided to take a break ourselves and journey on down to Panama and visit an island off of Bocas del Toro called Bastimentos Island. Bastimentos park is located here and is one of a few protected areas of Latin America that preserve, simultaneously, the wildlife and habitat of beaches, coral reef and mangroves. We rented a house on the southeast side of the island called Salt Creek where a small Indian community of some 300 inhabitants live in houses on stilts made of jira (a type of palm thatch for the roof) and wood.

This is also the beach where they filmed Survivor Panama (which we only found out about afterward, this was not a selling point for our vacation, lol).

We admit we are being “Total Tourists” taking this picture 

We rented a house along the beach (one of five for rent in this little enclave) where beyond the beautiful homes life thrives as it always has here, native style. The Ngobe Indians still live in communities and small villages beyond the mysterious mangroves inland surrounded by rain forest. Their main occupation is fishing and lobster catching. You will see many boats paddling the shore in search of lobsters and fish along the coral reef that encircles the island in this area. Tours are also available for the community of Ngobe Indians at Salt Creek, 300 residents, as well as a guided hike into the rain forest. The hike does take several hours as a side note.

Michael our tour guide and host with Holly as we enter a Ngobe village by kayak through the mangroves.

Three typical structures: homes on stilts, metal, palm frond and plastic canvas roofs.

Ngobe children posing for a picture. They loved seeing their photos on the LCD screen of our camera.

The homes for rent although different in style all utilize similar sustainable practices to be as eco friendly as possible to this protected area. We were impressed with the various things they have implemented such as rain water catchment systems that supply them with all their household water needs. There is even an ultraviolet water purification system providing drinking water. Solar power, self composting toilets, low wattage refrigerators and DC ceiling fans round out many of the practices implemented in these eco friendly homes

A variety of tours that benefit the indigenous people, protected park and reef areas for snorkeling (Zapatilla Islands on Michael’s Hobie cat, two thumbs up!) or miles of shoreline to explore is all waiting for you at Salt Creek Bastimentos Island.

Michael and Christine are your hosts and they are both wonderful people and will help to make sure your stay is as comfortable as possible in this remote region off the grid.

Our beach home for 5 day.

You can find more photos of our vacation in the photo album section of the blog. We’ll end this article off with the picture below.

Artsy shot, dusk along the shoreline.

Thank you for reading our post,

Sincerely,
Dan & Holly Pesta
www.sabalolodge.com