Welcome to this Panamanian paradise! We’ll meet you at the airport in Bocas Town. After your arrival via boat to Tranquilo Bay, you’ll be led to your cabana and home for the week. As our group settles in, you can relax, explore the island, or jump in the water. We’ll gather shortly before sunset at the 100-foot-high observation tower with views that stretch for miles over Bastimentos National Marine Park to watch at eye-level as hundreds of birds head to their roosts. Then, at our first group dinner, we’ll receive an official introduction to Tranquilo Bay and have an overview of our exciting week ahead.

We’ll take off by boat in the morning toward the Continental Divide of the Talamanca Mountains, one of Panama’s premier birding and wilderness areas. Today we will focus on the area known as Umbrellabird Road—the best area to find Umbrellabirds, a near-mythical bird! Fortuna Forest Reserve, established in 1976, is a species-rich area and part of BirdLife International Endemic Bird Area Costa Rica and Panama Highlands. The distinct avifauna in this globally important area includes many regional endemics and restricted-range species. Throughout the day, we’ll see a wide range of tanagers, hummingbirds, raptors, warblers, and more, plus some major icons of the rainforest like toucans, barbets, manakins, and motmots.

We’ll take our time on the relaxing boat ride back to the lodge to check out frigatebirds, tropicbirds, boobies, terns, Bottlenose Dolphins, and whatever else we encounter. We will arrive at the lodge in the early evening where we will chat over appetizers and drinks on the veranda followed by our locally-sourced dinner.

Each of the islands in the Bocas del Toro archipelago has interesting wildlife and high levels of endemism. Isla Popa is the second largest island in the chain and has diverse species of birds and wildlife due to its proximity to the mainland. This morning, we’ll explore this dense gallery forest surrounded by rich mangrove lagoons. We will first bird in this phenomenal area by boat, peacefully enjoying flights of toucans, parrots, woodpeckers, kingfishers, crakes, and one of our main targets: Snowy Cotingas. This mangrove lagoon has some beautiful Turtle Sea Grass where we can have good looks at sponges, starfish, urchins, and Upside-down Jellyfish, and once we step onshore, we’ll search for tiny and colorful poison dart frogs.

We’ll head back to our cabanas at Tranquilo Bay for the afternoon where you’ll have a choice of exploring on your own, a guided hike, or a siesta. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to dip into the mangrove boardwalks to sit peacefully with the three-toed sloths for a spell.

After dinner, we’ll grab our flashlights and head to the trails for a night walk in search of mammals, herps, and owls. If we’re extremely lucky and the waters are active with bioluminescence, we’ll hop in the kayaks and turn off our flashlights to be guided instead by a natural glow!

We’re taking off in the morning to Cayos Zapatillas. These two pristine white sand islands are covered in coconut palms, tropical hardwoods, sea grapes, and almond trees draped in a collage of bromeliads, ferns, orchids and other epiphytes. It is possible to walk around these islands while stopping to explore the white sand beaches and reefs covering the entire circumference. Snapper, barracuda and vivid tropical fish abound on the beautiful reefs surrounding the area, and these islands are essential ecological sites for the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtles that nest on their shores.

In the afternoon, we’ll swim right off from our docks at Tranquilo Bay for a snorkeling adventure (or hop in a kayak if you prefer!). We’ll close out the evening at the observation tower and have dinner in our usual spot at the peaceful ecolodge.

Today’s full-day adventure takes us to the Soropta Canal. At the turn of the century, the canal was used to shelter banana barges from the open sea on their way to the shipping port. Today, the canal is part of an important wetland reserve called the Humedal de San San Pond Sak. A unique collage of fruiting trees and habitats lines the canal, making it possible to see 100 species of birds in one day.

After a refreshing picnic lunch, we will bird the mouth of the Changuinola River by foot. This is an excellent area for shorebirds, spoonbills, terns, and nighthawks. Manatees can be seen here on occasion.

Given favorable conditions on our way back, we will stray just offshore to a basalt outcropping known locally, as Bird Island or Isla Pájaros. This surreal island serves as a rookery for frigatebirds and boobies and is the only known nesting site for Red-billed Tropicbird in the Caribbean’s southwest region. After ample time to take in the spectacle, we’ll return to the lodge for a well-earned evening meal.

We can’t get enough birds, right? We’ll continue our weeklong exploration of diverse habitats as we head to the mainland to bird the lower elevations where habitats converge and diversity abounds. By now, we’ll be familiar with some of the more common species around, and we’ll be able to observe familiar birds more closely, collect more photos, and seek out new species and additional wildlife.

Our week is nearing its end, so we’ll take in more of Tranquilo Bay independently in the afternoon—whether soaking it all in means walking the trails, visiting the canopy tower, getting more photographs, or heading to the water for swimming, snorkeling, or kayaking. After dark, we’ll take one more night hike, because each time we venture out after dark is a unique experience!

Following a leisurely breakfast, we will head by boat up a creek beneath the canopy of both mangroves and rainforest to a local indigenous farm which we cross to access a terrestrial section of Bastimentos National Marine Park. To access the trailhead, we will leave our kayaks on the creek’s edge. As we enter the trail, the dense rainforest canopy is full of tropical vegetation. Wildlife sightings may include white-faced monkeys, two-and three-toed sloths, green iguanas, lizards, poison dart frogs, butterflies, and a plethora of bird species. The trail leads us to Cave Nivida. Our tour of the cave will unveil the region's geological history, showing us the transformation that this part of the Earth has undergone over the years.

We return to the kayaks and the boat for a refreshing swim before heading back to Tranquilo Bay. In our final afternoon and evening, we’ll enjoy our choose-your-own-adventure routine one last time. Then, we’ll gather together for a farewell celebration and meal.

We’ll take in the stunning views of the islands one more time after breakfast as we depart Tranquilo Bay and head to the Bocas del Toro airport. Until next time!