Hospital Point Pioneer Medical Center (1899-1920). The hospital, above left, and the manager's house, above right, as they appeared in 1914. The hospital mostly served banana workers and their families.

Hospital Point on the western tip of Isla Solarte was the site of a medical center run by the United Fruit Company of Boston from 1899 until it was razed in 1920 in advance of a new hospital in Almirante, on the mainland. Today, locals know it a submerged 50-foot rock wall that makes for superb underwater exploration.

Good God, Batman, it's La Gruta--the holy bat cave of Isla Colon!

©2007 Scott Doggett, Special to WhozHereNow.com

If you haven’t waded through bat poop in awhile and miss it, you’ll want to check out La Gruta, a 100-meter-long cave near the center of Isla Colón. Dueling statues of the Virgin have been placed at the mouth of “La Gruta,” which is Spanish for “The Cave” (clever, huh?). Flowing past the statues is a small creek that exits the cave and contains more crap from the vampire bats that cling to the cold hole’s ceiling than you could possibly imagine.

Starfleet Tours offers rare glimpses into the gentle lives of "sea cows."

All photos ©2007 Starfleet Tours, Special to WhozHereNow.com

Starfleet Scuba offers a very unusual tour: manatee watching on mangrove-flanked rivers inside a national park. Tourists are led up an old banana-boat canal to the mouth of the Rios Changuinola and San San, where they can snorkel or wildelife watch from a spacious platform located on the edge of a mangrove.