We had a tour booked for today to a place called Islas Del Rosario. It had been suggested by the travel agent in Panama but we really did not know much about it nor what to expect. But as instructed we were waiting down in the lobby of the hotel at 8:00 am where after a while we were picked up by a bus containing a number of other tourist and taken to one of the tour docks near the old city. Eventually we got seated in an open boat with seating for 30-40 people, issued life jackets and told that we had a ride of about an hour to the Islas.

As we found out, Islas Del Rosario is a national park made up of a number (something like 37) coral islands. The tour took us to one of these islands where we spent an hour snorkeling on a coral reef, another hour having lunch, and an hour to simply laze in the sun or shade. On the way back we stopped at a second island for an hour for more swimming and lazing in the shade. Throughout the day we were constantly being offered various types of trinkets and souvenirs by local vendors - after a while it got annoying.

On reflection we had mixed feelings about the tour. From one perspective it was poor, we did not see much of the island complex, the place where we had lunch and snorkeled was run down, the vendors were annoying after a while and we spent 2.5 hours bumping in a boat. But on the other hand the snorkeling was great and the fish simply splendid - I realized I have never snorkeled on a coral reef before, we saw lots of local kids and even some adults going about their daily business, met and talked to a number of tourists, and got to practice a little bit of our Spanish. The tourist group was made up mostly of latin people, from various parts of South America with a few of those now living in the US. We may visit one of the families in Bogota if we decide to try our luck in that city.