'Bocas Days', or,, I wish I had my camera!

Last week was a holiday week in Panama. It was a kind of 'washing machine' week of holidays. Perhaps 3 or 4 on different days and the country was shut down. Here it is Monday and in 'Bocas Del Toro, Panama', it's 'Bocas Days'. ( This country spends half the year on holiday )

I didn't take a camera but let me try to explain it.

First, you take a fairly large Caribbean Island Town, in this case 'Bocas Town' in Bocas Del Toro.

Now the fun part,,,,, Imagine a middle American town celebrating the 'Fourth of July' with all the pageantry and color. The center of that being a street parade taking 3 hours that is a combination of a 'Military Marching Band', the 'Grateful Dead' and 'Bob Marley'. On both sides of the street is the the entire town's population including all the X-Pats drinking beer and partaking in local culinary delights from the street vendors.

There were drums, there were horns, there were 'xylophones', there were 'marimbas', there were 'steel drums' and there were street acrobats. This wasn't just in the bands but all the little children lining the streets had musical instruments that were given to them by their parents.

I walked along the street in search of the 'Judges Stand' ( had to be one ) and on the way passed a vendor blasting out Bob Marleys 'I want to love you, and treat you right'. Somehow,, the Bob Marley song and the marching band's were on the same wavelength as everyone was on the same beat and it all worked.

People were dancing on sidewalk and life was good in Bocas today.

Anyway,,, it was weird and wonderful. You had to be there.