Islands – Sydney Schavietello

When we crossed the border into Panama things felt different. There was a weight to it, and for whatever reason Panama seemed much farther away and more exotic than any of the places we’d been. Our excitement was palpable as we walked across a rickety old railroad bridge and found a shuttle that took us to a water taxi headed for Bocas Del Toro; a chain of Islands off the Carribbean Coast of northern Panama. Bocas felt like a daydream, a sleepy little island town where the transportation of choice was either boats or bicycles. The peak of our sloth obsession, which started while still in Gracias and continues to this day, occurred when we saw our first real live sloth near the Playa Rana Roja (we were giddy with excitement people…positively giddy). It felt like a much smaller, much slower, Latin American New Orleans. I dreamt of staying, of making a life that allowed me to live in those sleepy islands forever. But we had more to see, so we went… Bocas Blues