Review of Carmen's place 3*

This beautiful accommodation is run by warm and caring hosts About the hosts…. We had the most amazing stay at Carmen's Place the past 10 days. The Dutch hosts, Carmen and Marcel are perfectly welcoming, ready to help you and very knowledgeable about the area. They made my husband's 50th birthday the most memorable one to date! About the place itself…. If you need a hair dryer when you are on vacation, don't stay here. In all seriousness, it's a eco-friendly accommodation so everything runs on solar (there is a generator as back up) to provide necessary lights, a water filtering system and hot water showers. There is no TV but excellent Wifi. Breakfast comes with your stay. It's a hardy mix of yummy pancakes, eggs & toast with super fresh and tasty fruit. Carmen cooks a dinner and it's optional if you partake. Her cooking was excellent — we ate dinner there just about every night! Some of her mouth-watering meals were unique pizzas, excellent fresh fish, vegetable lasagna, scrumptious rice and pasta medleys and savory sides of vegetable plates. What to do…. When we were there, there was always a nice breeze. We found out that the rainy season in Bocas Del Toro lasts a little longer than other parts of Panama so we had a fair amount of rain. That said, we had great beach days at Wizard Beach and Red Frog Beach. Both have to be accessed by boat — and for Wizard Beach, it's also a 25 minute walk each way (yes you need more than flip flips, especially after it rains on the trail). On rainy days, we relaxed and read at Carmen's and had fun just exploring the area around their place. There was plenty of wildlife (butterflies, caimans, red frogs, sloths, colorful birds including hummingbirds and shoreline to take in. One day, Marcel took us fishing by charter. He is an excellent seaman and fisherman. He took us to all of his spots and showed us all of tricks. The sea was beautiful, though there were rather large swells to get through going out of the pass. Apparently it's much calmer at some times of year like March, April, Oct and Nov. About the location…You need to be aware that you need to take a boat to get to Carmen's Place and to access surrounding activities, you need to take a short boat taxi ride. But getting a water taxi is no problem. It's fun to just wave a flag off of their pier and a taxi comes from Old Bank or Carmen can call to set up a water taxi to farther destinations.