There’s almost no point in me talking about Boquete because I did absolutely nothing whilst I was there. I wanted to do the big waterfall hikes, but I was very silly and booked a hostel that was brand new to Hostelworld. Other than the lovely family who owned it, I was deadass the only person in this place and I didn’t feel very confident nor comfortable heading out on a hike like this alone, (I’m a big true crime fan, iykyk). I was properly beating myself up and could really feel the weight of solo travel as a whole settling on me. As a serious perfectionist and chronic overachiever, I had to remind myself that I have quite literally never ever done this before, so 1) it’s fully okay to make mistakes and, 2) I am bound to make more, so I had better get over myself.

I managed to stop spiralling and made a new plan – head to Bocas del Toro early and go to Filthy Friday. This was the absolute best decision but, my gosh, was it a mission to get there.

There were protests across Panama at the time, about what I’m still unsure, but it meant there were road blocks heading up to the coast. Instead of a straightforward bus and boat situation, it was a bus, another bus, a taxi, a car, another car, another car, yet another car and then finally the boat. This was less than ideal with my big ass rucksack in the Panamanian heat but it was so worth it when we pulled into Isla Colón. Bocas del Toro is the umbrella term for the group of about 9 islands north of Panama. I spent one night on Isla Solarte but the majority of the ‘stuff’ is on Isla Colón so I’d recommend just staying there the whole time – that’s where you’ll find the bars, restaurants, the jump off point for most attractions and, of course, Filthy Friday.

Filthy Friday is a day party, island hop situation which was just so.much.fun. I met up with the girls I had met on the Panama City walking tour and their friends. We spent the day drinking, dancing, doing embarrassing backflips into the water, (well, I did), swimming and vibing at the various stops on the club hopping day. I’ve said it many times and I will say it many times more, shaking ass can truly solve the worst of problems.

After Filthy’s though, annoyingly the weather wasn’t on my side, but when it wasn’t raining, the rest of my time was spent on Starfish Beach, celebrating the first win for the Bocas baseball team in 14 years, which was a really big deal, eating and generally lazing around in the hostel. On my final night in Bocas, we did a Bioluminescence tour. I feel like as a adult, having new experiences, (that are good), are few and far between so I was sat on this boat, in the dead of night, looking at glow-up plankton, really and truly ‘ooohing’ and ‘ahhing’ and ‘wowing’ the entire time.

At this point in the trip, I had been away for 3 months and I could feel myself getting tired. In hindsight, this probably would have been a good place to come home and I think if I were to solo travel again with no friends or family or group trips booked, 3 months would be the max., but in this case, I had the rest of Central America to explore.