Sun bathing stories from Bocas del Toro-Panama

After 3 weeks in Costa Rica, we headed south to the Panamean border to our first stop in Panama: The archipelago of Bocas del Toro. Crossing the border between Costa Rica and Panama in the dusty little town of Sixaola (50km from Puerto Viejo, 90min by public bus) was quite an adventure. The border is located on a rusty bridge where it seems easy to fall down from, if you check the pics below you´ll see what we are talking about. On the other side of the border, a pretty agressive bloke was waiting for tourists to charge them a higher taxi rate and of course as we were not too awake at 8 am, we could not say no and went with his taxi to the city of Changinola where we had to take a boat to the main Island of Bocas: Isla Coloñ. All in all, it took us 4h to reach Bocas and cost us 20$ each (which is 8$ less than the touristy shuttle mowhahaha).
The city of Coloñ is quite touristic (many american tourists) and most of the businesses and shops are tourists oriented. It´s of course a beautiful place with many green islands (full of jungle or mangroves) floating on an emerald water (emerald if sunny). There are not too many beaches and to reach them it´s necessary to take water taxi: pretty cool but not that cheap. We took a boat tour yesterday (with 2 Americans) with which we could discover more the area: we spotted a dolphin and enjoyed snorkeling around the Zapatillas Island. It was really amazing and we felt closer to Nemo and SpongeBob´s world.
Today we took a boat to go to an other island to go to the beach:the Red Frog Beach. It´s a beautiful beach (fine golden sand, emerald water, funky waves and surronded by the jungle) but this all area is subject of controversies as it got bought by an investment company which will transform it in the classic gigantic tourist complex. Despite Bocas del Toro is the main touristic destination of Panama, there are not yet any big hotels or big complex..so well it´s definetly time to visit it before it looses its charms but we would like this place a bit better if there would be less mosquitoes..I feel that my nights and legs don t belong to me anymore:(