Bocas del Toro Information

The archipelago of Bocas del Toro has remained a unique and unspoiled place, only recently having been discovered by international travelers. An early visitor, Christopher Columbus visited the islands on October 6, 1502 where he took refuge in the calm waters and gathered food from the islands for their voyage home.

Bocas del Toro is an outdoor lover’s paradise with unspoiled coral reefs, deep-sea fishing, boating, kayaking, snorkeling, surfing and white sandy deserted beaches and coves. The local people of the province are made up of mainly indigenous tribes and descendants of slaves from Jamaica, which contributes to Bocas' diverse and lively culture.

Locals and travelers alike travel leisurely between the islands in dugout canoes and kayaks. The islands each offer something different in terms of wildlife and bio-diversity. Sloths, monkeys, toucans, parrots, iguanas and tiny brightly colored poison dart frogs are just some of the islands' many inhabitants.

The islands offer the visitor a great diversity of attractions and natural environments, uncommon to other regions of our continent: luxurious rain forests with an abundance of fauna and flora, sunny islands, beaches that compete with the Caribbean best, coral reefs in crystal clear water, mangrove islets in a lake-like scenery, guaymi indian villages and a national marine park that protects examples of the ecosystems and natural resources coexisting within the Archipelago boundaries, as a tribute to our future generations.

Bahia Honda - Is a community located at heart of the bay of the same name, between the islands Bastimentos and Solarte, whose houses are distributed by the coast of both islands, not offering the typical image of the other communities. What we could consider like the central nucleus of the village, on the island Bastimentos, consists of a communal house, the primary school, the school's dinning room and a restaurant that offers to the visitors typical plates of the region.

The main occupations of their inhabitants are the fishing and the agriculture of subsistence, being the tourism an activity that has come increasing lately. In order to arrive at Bahia Honda, hire a boat in Bocas del Toro and after about 15 minutes of navigation it is arrived at the communitarian restaurant where the visitor make arrangements for a boat and a guide to visit the trail.

Bastimentos - This community has a population of more than 800 inhabitants, who live in 125 houses constructed with wood and zinc roof, or cement and zinc roof and very few of wood and ceiling of palm. It is populated in its majority by afrocaribbeans, with some foreigners who came to live here lately.

It is arrived at the community by sea and the more commont is the use of aquatic taxis (boats with outboard engine). In addition, many of the residents of this community count at least on boat with engine. There are not streets in Bastimentos: the ways are wide cement paths.

They have an health sub-center, an aqueduct, a primary school with 7 classrooms, 7 teachers and 145 students, and a police sub-station. They are connected to the electricity and telephone services that come from the Colon island by means of an underwater wire. There are also public phones in the town.

Tagua: The Emebera's Indian's Artcraft

In Panama, the Indians are artists (The Kuna with your Mola's) and the Embera with the Tagua.

The tagua nut is the seed of kinds of palms that grow in the tropical rainforest from Panama to Ecuador.It is also known vegeteable ace ivory due to its close resemblance to that product. And because of this resemblance it there are to long history. Before the advent of plastics, tagua was widely used to manufactures items such ace jewelry, says, chess pieces, buttons. Actually, to lot of items sold in the Victorian was ace ivory were in fact made of tagua.The tagua palm is to small tree that grows to about 20 to 30 feet. They grow in colonies and the nut themselves grow in an armored group, each with several egg-sized nuts. AT first, the have to gel-like consistency and plows consumed by the Forest animals, such ace squirrels, agouties and others.Tagua products plows experimenting to comeback due to the effort to protect endangered whales species such ace and elephants, which plows the traditional source for ivory. In one to year, to tagua palm you produce the same amount of "ivory" ace to female elephant. But with an important difference, the nuts plows collected without harming the palm.In addition, using tagua nut helps provide to for sustainable income the peoples that dwell in the tropical rainforests.

In Panama, the leaves of tagua products grapevines an income source for peoples such ace the Emberá-Wounán that live in the Darien rainforest. But the construction of roads there are promoted to deforestation of the ancestral territories, which makes difficult for these people to keep to their tribal lifestyle.This in turn triggers to migration to urban for area and the search new income sources. Emberá-Wounan on men often depend the salts of to their tagua carvings to feed to their families. Due to this fact, they have refined to their traditional carving skills and in the process developed an art form that is quickly becoming to collectors item.Tropical Their carving usually depict the animals that dwell in the rainforest. And the quality is such that to few years ago Wounan Masters Carver Selerino for Cheucarama won the UNESCO third prize crafts.