3. Santa Catalina - Coiba National Park

At just after eight o'clock, we set off. By bus via Sona, change and then continue to Santa Catalina. The departure is on time, the bus is more rickety than expected but it will be fine. Shortly after departure, we cross the Panama Canal and even the locals take out their phones here for photos. A direct visit didn't really appeal to us personally. We crossed it, checked it off. The more the day progresses, the warmer it gets on the bus. It starts to get exhausting. A short stop for lunch and we reach Sona around 1:00 pm, where we have to change buses. We were hoping for a short break, but the bus is already waiting and we have to quickly board the other bus without a break. At least it's air-conditioned, but it's also overcrowded. Uli manages to get a seat next to a local girl, who squeezes closer to the little boy next to her to make 3 seats out of 2. I just sit on the floor in the middle aisle. There's just no space. We went through a landscape that reminded us a lot of the Shire. The journey takes another almost 2 hours until we arrive in Santa Catalina. At least, we have to do a short walk with our full luggage, our accommodation (Vista Coiba) is quite nice, we have a pool and a view of the Pacific Ocean. We freshen up, go to the dive center (Panama Divers), where we have booked 2 days of diving, to check everything out, and then we stroll to the village beach again. It could be nicer, but it could also be worse. We are not here for the beach, but for the Coiba National Park, where we hope to have great diving experiences. Since our accommodation is a bit outside, we have to walk from time to time. But for that, we are also often picked up by people on the pickup truck. The next day we go diving. 1 hour by boat to Coiba National Park. We also see dolphins from the boat. We have an amazing first dive, with great visibility and a lot of fish. You don't often see so many large fish. And on every dive, you see whitetip reef sharks here. Awesome. We completed 2 more dives, had a break at the ranger station on Coiba Island, and later returned to the mainland tired and satisfied. Into the pool and then dinner.

The next day we visited the other beach and were amazed by the surroundings. Everything is very spacious and a feast for the eyes. Great beach. We swam a bit and jumped into the waves, in the afternoon we just hung out at the hotel. It has to be done. Uli also has massive problems with her foot. She was stung there by a jellyfish while diving. We got cortisone cream from the pharmacy. On the way to dinner, we saw a spider with spider babies on its back. Yuck.

The following day was our second day of diving. We had more great dives and stopped at Crocodile Beach for lunch. Actually with a crocodile. The beach was awesome. Absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, we have to move on soon and can only enjoy this little paradise for a short while. One highlight while diving were definitely the dozen whitetip reef sharks (or even more) and the jacks, who were causing chaos on the reef as a complete gang. It looked really cool. We also saw turtles and amazingly, we even saw a bull shark. Creepy. When we arrived on land, we saw a snake (parrot snake - weakly venomous) on the side of the road. Once again, after 3 dives, our day ends at the hotel with a sea view and an incredible sunset!

By the way, Santa Catalina doesn't smell like bananas. More like heat, saltwater, and fried fish. And a little bit like horse manure.

We have booked a shuttle for tomorrow to the highlands of Boquete. This way, we save ourselves from changing buses three times and several hours of bus travel.