Honeymoon Inspo: Panama
From the photographer: I am Hannah, a photographer, and I travel around the world with my fiancé, Vincent. We don’t just travel to see a pretty place and relax. We travel to experience a place, a culture, a group of people. That means we live and work with locals. We stay in a city for a month at a time so they can learn the way of life and form relationships. Out of the 17 countries we have traveled to, we found Bastimentos, Panama to be the most gorgeous, the liveliest, and the most welcoming.
Bastimentos is a charming island in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Bastimentos is the best of both worlds, with small-town warmth but endless places to explore on this huge island. It is a place unlike any other; the Caribbean vibe here is contagious. Reggae and Latin beats never stop and are played loudly over each other. Life is slow and easy in Bastimentos. Here your feet are your car, the women sit outside and talk while the kids run up and down the street or fish off the dock with just the line in their hands. The older ones tote around their young siblings on their hip or in a small stroller. Sometimes they come swimming off the dock in their undies using a block of Styrofoam as their flotation device. I often see children barely old enough to talk, bringing their quarters to the market counter for a snack. The men gather in “The Hole” playing dominoes or watching futbol and drinking at all hours of the day. When things get exciting I can often hear the riffraff all the way down the street.
The people of Bastimentos are one of the last Afro-Caribbean cultures in the world. They are a boisterous community full of color in every sense of the word. In Basti, the sense of community is strong. Here they greet each other by hugging and saying “love”, “respect”, or ” ya ya Rasta” which is more or less a greeting meaning “peace”. They say goodbye using “bless” and call everyone- even someone they don’t know on the street, “my friend”.
On Mondays, tourists and locals alike gather at Bubba’s place to dance to the sounds of the Rasta men banging their drums. Here, there is no worry about what to wear or how to do your hair. Here you come as you are and you let your body swing to the rhythm of the music. Strangers grab each other’s hands and dance until the sweat on their foreheads glistens in the moonlight.
Bastimentos is a magical place. Not in the sense of a fairytale land. Life is hard when there is no air conditioning or running water. The magic comes from the people and the beauty of the land and sea. It comes from the warm hugs and cool rains. The ginormous grins and home-cooked meals. The sights the sounds, the touches. It is a place that forces you to feel and be engaged with your whole mind and body.
There is nowhere on earth that could compare to the heaven that is the Caribbean. The only way to understand is to experience it yourself.
Location: Panama
Accommodations: Hostal El Jaguar
Photographer: SunRae Photography, LLC
