The resort is on the private island of Frangipani, about an hour by plane from Panama City.IMAGE COURTESY NAYARA/Supplied
I’m a skeptic. Tell me about a “paradise” vacation spot and I’ll huff doubtfully. And yet, only 24 hours after landing on this remote Panamanian island, my skepticism is gone, replaced with the blissed-out acceptance of someone who has found her utopia (and a newfound appreciation for passionfruit margaritas).
Such is life here at Nayara Bocas del Toro, a luxury adults-only resort in Panama’s northwest province of Bocas del Toro, an archipelago on the Caribbean Sea. This Bali-inspired getaway sits alone on the tiny private island of Frangipani, about an hour by plane from Panama City and a world away for visitors looking to escape the grind of everyday life.
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This off-the-grid resort is beautiful, yes, but its true magic is its ability to make you surrender to it, to believe for a short time that the minor inconveniences of the world outside don’t exist.
Case in point: When we arrive at the island it’s nighttime and a fellow traveller makes the heart-sinking discovery that she’s picked up the wrong bag at the airport. My brain instantly clicks into high gear: We need to boat back to the mainland! But it’s dark out! We’ll need a cab, but then how will we navigate through airport security? While my mind whirs with logistics, the hotel manager blinks calmly and says he’ll take care of it before ushering us into the dining room for a late dinner. When the traveller returns to her villa later that night, her bag is exactly where it should be, seemingly by magic.
Each over-water villa comes with a private deck, half of which come with a plunge pool.IMAGE COURTESY NAYARA/Supplied
In the morning, the island fully reveals itself. When I step outside of my overwater villa, I see 15 more just like it dotting the shoreline. Each one was built in Bali and shipped here, where they sit atop stilts and are connected by boardwalks that zigzag throughout mangroves and lush tropical plants. Each villa has a bathroom big enough to do cartwheels in, a private deck (equipped with either a fire pit or a plunge pool) and an iPad for texting requests to eager-to-please staffers, available to you 24 hours a day. You want breakfast delivered to your deck at sunrise? Done. Staffers arrive stealthily by bike, balancing your meal above their heads in silver-domed platters before knocking on your door with a smile.
The treehouse villas are 50-feet high and have pulleys for easy room service.IMAGE COURTESY NAYARA/Supplied
Tucked among the palm trees are two 50-feet-high treehouses, built with partially petrified wooden beams recovered from the bottom of the Panama Canal. We wind up the curved staircase for cocktails one night, marvelling at the bird’s-eye view of the island. Here, guests can sleep amid the treetops, like in a scene from Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson, or sit back in the open-air living room and enjoy a cool drink. Room service is trickier business, but not impossible. Both treehouses are equipped with pulley systems for hauling up food and drinks, eliminating any need to balance trays up the winding steps.
Nayara runs almost entirely off solar power and uses rainwater filtered on-site for bathing, cooking and drinking. If the eco-buzzword “conservation” ever needed a sexy revamp, this place would do it. At sundown, the soft glow from the resort’s formal dining room, the Elephant House, twinkles off the water; inside, a couple lingers over a three-course dinner in their bare feet, a nod to the “casual elegance” owner Dan Behm is striving for.
That elegance means there’s no lobby gift shop pushing gimmicky souvenirs or overpriced sunscreen, and I can’t help but think it’s a clever ploy to help me forget that I’m a tourist. This is an all-inclusive without buffets. Instead, guests chose off menus that inform diners to talk to the chef if they’d prefer something not listed. I briefly consider putting this offer to the test, but I can’t resist what’s already on the menu. We dine on rondon bocatoreno, which is a local fish soup, ceviche, freshly squeezed juices and more familiar dishes such as risotto, lobster and grilled fish.
The resort has the world's first aerial beach, built on stilts and equipped with a tiki bar, lounge chairs and palm trees.IMAGE COURTESY NAYARA/Supplied
The island doesn’t naturally have a white-sand beach, so Behm had one built from scratch that would minimize the impact on the surrounding mangroves. Nicknamed kupu kupu, the Indonesian word for butterfly in a nod to its winged shape, this “aerial beach,” as they’ve dubbed it, is the world’s first, and it sits on stilts above the water. The result is an impressive feat of engineering, but not entirely beach-like: There are no ocean waves to be found here, and the stone steps decline into instantly deep water. On the plus side, it’s quiet enough to read a book under a palm tree and when it gets too hot to bear, I jump off the sandy platform into the cold, calm water.
This isn’t a resort where overzealous staff will implore you to do the macarena by the pool. Instead, guests are expected to stroll the island on foot, or grab a paddleboard to wade out into the ocean, or take a canoe around the island for a snorkelling adventure.
On a balmy afternoon, we take a guided boat to a spot in the water where the ocean floor is covered with giant red and yellow starfish, the biggest I’ve ever seen. (They call this place “Hollywood,” a tongue-in-check nod to the “stars.”) At sunset, we go back out on the water and our guide cuts the boat’s engine. In the quiet, we sip our Champagne and chat contentedly until we’re interrupted by a pod of dolphins that leap out of the water as if trained.
The view from an over-water villa.IMAGE COURTESY NAYARA/Supplied
The nature here isn’t taken for granted. “If we lose that, we have nothing,” Behm acknowledges as he walks us through a hidden garden on the property, where new species of birds are arriving every year.
We spend a morning visiting the Caribbean Coral Restoration Center on a nearby island, where husband and wife team Randy and Dale Cinski, both Americans, are working to revive the waning fish habitats with artificial reef structures.
These structures, made with rebar and a cement mixture, look like white statues: There’s a shark, a Buddha-like face and sea-life sculptures. Once installed on the ocean floor, the structures serve as a home for new coral to attach and develop, a process that takes about two years. The resort has partnered with Randy and Dale to showcase these structures for guests: The floor of my water villa has a glass inlay, allowing me to peer down at one, watching the fish curiously poke around it.
This is vital but heartbreaking work, Randy explains as we bob in the ocean in our snorkelling gear, surveying the coral beneath us. Sometimes the coral doesn’t take and the fish disappear, a devastating outcome for the Indigenous people, who rely on the fish for food – and for Randy and Dale, who sometimes see months of work fail to materialize. “You can cry underwater,” she tells me.
The resort's Coral Cafe.Supplied
On my final day on the island, dark clouds roll in and threaten rain. Reality has finally found me. I slip out onto the deck to savour the view before the storm. That’s when I hear a splash, far away at first, then closer and closer still until – right in front of me – a school of fish leaps out of the water in a perfect arch. It’s a wordless goodbye and a reminder that this world has so much magic worth saving.
If you go
Supplied
Villas at Nayara Bocas del Toro resort start at around $1,500 a night. To explore more of the surrounding islands, guests can book a private captain for off-site scuba diving or to spend a day in “Bocas Town,” as locals call the province’s lively capital. nayarabocasdeltoro.com
From Panama City, flights to Bocas del Toro international airport (BOC) are about 60 minutes. The hotel can arrange ground transportation to the dock, where a 20-minute boat ride will take you directly to the resort.
Travellers should be aware of ongoing protests in the country. Review the Government of Canada travel advisories before departure.
The writer was a guest of Nayara Bocas del Toro. It did not review or approve the story before publication.