4 Best Sights in Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro Archipelago

As the best beach on the island, Boca del Drago is part of a tiny fishing community in the northwest corner that overlooks the mainland. The water at the coconut palm–lined beach is usually calm, which makes for good swimming and snorkeling. It's a popular destination for boat tours and makes for the quintessential photo of orange starfish beaming beneath clear, shallow waters. There are several food vendors and the small Yarisnori restaurant on the beach serves decent seafood with plenty of cold beer. Amenities: food and drink. Best for: snorkeling; swimming; walking.

The nicest and biggest beach on Isla Colón is Bluff Beach, a 7-km (4½-mile) stretch of soft golden sand backed by tropical vegetation and washed by aquamarine waters. It's a great place to spend a day, or even an hour, but it has virtually no facilities, so pack water and snacks. When the waves are big, Playa Bluff has a beach break right on shore, but it can also develop rip currents, so swimmers beware. When the sea is calm it's a decent swimming beach—always exercise caution—and the rocky points at either end have decent snorkeling. Leatherback turtles nest here from April to September, when night tours are led by members of the Grupo Ecológico Bluff, a local Ngöbe group. If you're lucky, you may find baby turtles on the beach between June and December. A taxi will charge about $20 for the trip from Bocas to Playa Bluff, but be sure to arrange return transportation since this area is rather isolated. Amenities: none. Best for: surfing; walking.

Swan's Cay is a rocky islet off the north coast of Isla Colón that is commonly visited on boat tours to Boca del Drago. The swan it was named for is actually the red-billed tropicbird, an elegant white seabird with a long tail and bright-red bill that nests on the island in significant numbers. The rugged island has a narrow, natural arch in the middle of it that boatmen can slip through when the seas are calm, usually September and October. The surrounding ocean is a good scuba-diving area.

Two New Kingdom (1550–1077 BC) temples were relocated to safety on this shoreline, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from their original sites. Amenhotep III constructed the smaller, earlier temple, using both freestanding and rock-cut elements, which Ramses II later added to. The temple, consisting of a sanctuary, court, hall, and pylons, was dedicated to a Nubian form of Horus and later rededicated to Amun. In Arabic, Wadi es-Sebua means Valley of the Lions, so named for the Avenue of Sphinxes leading to the larger and more dramatic Temple of Ramses II. As in Ramses II's other temples, towering statues of the pharaoh demand attention. Early Christians plastered over the reliefs, ironically keeping them in a well-preserved state when the plaster eventually fell off. Look out for the odd scene of Ramses II offering flowers to St. Peter.