Isla Grande
On Friday we decided to take off for Isla Grande for a night.
Isla Grande is a popular place in Panama that people simply know as "La Isla" (The Island). The island is inside the Portobelo National park, just 5 minutos by motor boat from the small town of La Guaira on the main land that makes its living out fishing and tourism.
Isla grande has a population of about 300 inhabitants and its surface is mostly covered with plants and trees and its shoreline is surrounded by coral reefs. It is one of the favorit panamaninan turist destinations and on holidays it receives visitors that fill its small beaches and its narrow town roads.
We headed out at noon on Friday with the 2 kids and Ziggy, our new puppy. We took the highway until the turn off for Colon. The total trip should have taken no more than 4 hours BUT we hit traffic and construction on the road to Colon. There were a couple of times we were at an absolute standstill for at least 30 mins. We finally arrived at the boat dock for Isla Grande 6 hours later. Long time. The weather was decent that night and we decided to stay at a place called Sister Moon. Unloaded our stuff and headed into town - a short 10 minute walk - with the whole crew.
The town is definitely a laid back Carribean-style setting. We ordered hamburgers for the kids and seafood for us. The food was decent as was the price. I think the 4 of us ate and had drinks for $20.00.
Headed back home for the night. Everyone was exhausted. No AC in Sister Moon but it was a cool rainy night and with a fan, we actually were quite comfortable. Everyone fell right to sleep but I have this problem. I guess it's from watching too many Tsunami video clips and this happened to me on the San Blas Islands as well, but if I can hear the waves breaking and they're basically underneath me or the structure could slide into the water, I can't sleep. I woke up at least 12 times thinking for sure we were all going to die while everyone else snoozed the night away.
Woke up the next morning at 5am because the kids were ready to go. Headed to the pool for a quick swim and then into town again for breakfast. Luckily some places start serving at 7am. We hadn't gotten halfway through our meal when the clouds started rolling in. I asked a local if the rain was coming and he said not until much later. I didn't buy it. Those dark clouds were rolling in too fast. And sure enough the rain came and it came in sheets. We hung out for about an hour and it started letting up but then it came down again.
By 9:30am, we had decided enough was enough. The rain wasn't going to stop at least for half the day and we decided to pack it up. We packed our things, took a boat back over ($7.00 total) and got into the car. We could hear the Howler Monkeys as we headed towards Portabelo for the Fort ruins. And the trip home was less than 4 hours with a stop to McDonald's in Colon.
We had a great adventure and I would do it again, but I think I'll wait until the dry season.