Bocas del toro
Day 1
I woke up early and had a look at my toe, it's pretty nasty!
I hobbled up to the coffee shop to get some food before the shuttle arrives.
Back at the hostel surprise surprise, the three boring German girls who I have run into at the same hostels since monteverde are on the same shuttle to bocas. Faaaaaark.
This is one shitty arse mini bus, the windows don't open and he's cranking the worst Spanish music ever. It's going to be a long trip!
It was actually a really quick ride and then a really easy border crossing walk across the rickety bridge, stamped and welcome to panama!
Our second driver met us on the other side and we started piling into the mini bus and I mean piling in. After throwing the luggage on the roof plus 2 surfboards it resembled a wonky Mayan pyramid.
16 passengers jammed in and we are off.
Met 2 Aussies boys on the bus. Brownie mentioned they stayed at the naked tiger and went to see the monkey next door and then realized that was our hostel! He even met mum on a plane last week! So Brownie has become a sticker disciple and is going to stick our hostel pamphlets all over the other side of the island for me! Great guy and he may even come work for us at the hostel for a while.
The bus trip to the ferry was pretty fast after a quick re tie of the roof gear when a surfboard nearly flew off.
It's raining but I think I'm going to like panama alot.
We all piled onto the jetboat ferry and sped off towards the islands. The driver was absolutely fanging it, getting massive air and driving like a rally car driver! It was awesome.
We get to the main island where the sun is shining and a local called homer shows me how to get to casa verde but it's booked out. I met the owner and she was lovely and took my casa de olas sticker to put up.
They were fumigating and all the smoke came pouring out onto the street so we all started running!
Homer took me to a couple of other places but I ended up at a cool place called posada isla chica.
I hired a bike and went for a ride around the island and got some food. Sam messaged me after seeing where ide checked in and said they were just across at the other island at aqua lounge.
I caught the 2 minute, $1 water taxi over and joined them for some drinks. Met the owner of aqua lounge who is a legend and shouted me all my drinks!
About 8 of us decided to hit an Indian restaurant called 'om'. The guys picked me up at my hostel and we went and ate some awesome butter chicken. We could not stop laughing at the dead cat sitar music which reminded me of that 20th century fox flute clip on YouTube. Alex knew exactly what I was talking about!
We went to check out a couple of bars but i had to introduce everyone to the 20th century flute as we walked past my hostel i picked up wifi. Fark its a pisser, it gets me everytime! There are a few weird bars but all cool, on the water with open ocean pools out the front.
We ended up at a joint cranking gangam style. We were drinking out on the deck and a huge sting ray floated past!
I just had to pull out the flute vid one last time on the way home.......still funny.
We are all going to meet up again tomorrow to head to red frog beach for the arvo.
There's a bake sale and artist market out the front of my place
tomorrow morning to raise money for the local old peoples home. Home made carribean cakes.....hell yeah!
Day 2
Woke up to pouring rain and was sure it would clear up like yesterday but it set in.
The bake sale was lame and the arts and crafts over the top expensive.
Brooke and iain moved to my hostel but the beach day is off, no red frogs today :(
Felt a bit sick this morning, hope it wasn't the butter chicken!
I went for a walk around in the rain and dropped off some more hostel stickers but not a lot to do so I flicked on the tv. I saw that a crazy man had shot dead 27 people including 20 kids under 10 and his mum in America. I just couldn't believe it, it's the most horrific thing I've ever seen.
It's hard to comprehend.
I booked my shuttle to boquete for Sunday at midday, so I get another day here to check things out a bit more.
It was a very lazy day but I went for another walk tonight and the town is having a Xmas parade. It's basically kids and adults dressed in flashing Santa hats riding on the back of utes covered in balloons cranking Cher!
It made me smile though........felize navidad.
I also heard someone yell out my name as I walked past a hostel. It was the Dutch girl I've run into in every single country I've been to, all 7 of them!
I was resigned to going to bed when I get a knock on the door from Sam. So 6 of us head out to a Chinese restuarant for some giant wontons and cheap grog. It was cracker central with shit flying everywhere, bands, people dressed as elves! This place is hilarious.
We dropped into the reggae bar (where old mate German with his backpack complete with waterproof cover was dancing up a storm), the sushi bar (where it just smelt like sushi) and the mad bull bar where the barmaid was in a neck brace!
On the way we found all the empty crackers and these guys mean business when they set off like 50 crackers in a bundle right next to the swings in the park! We wrapped up at about 1am in anticipation of ladies night tomoz at aqua lounge!
Day 3
Went to a little cafe on the water for brekky and there's all these cute little humming birds everywhere. They seem to like water and brown sugar in a hanging feeder so I'm getting one for the hostel. They are awesome little critters!
Brooke, Iain and I went in search of a boat to take us to red frog beach. We were walking toward the dock and old mate homer yelled out "Belinda, where you going"? He said his guy could take us for $7 return.......done!
We jumped in and went across to the other island to pick sam, sam and alex up from aqua lounge and we were off.
We got to the dock and walked up toward the truck and we saw not one but two sloths cruising around in the trees! Amazing. The local guy just pointed up and said in his carribean accent "slow monkey"!
We got to the beach and it's beautiful, white sand, clear water with a few waves. Played a bit of volleyball, had a swim, went to the lookout.......bliss.
On the way to the lookout some local kids had some red frogs wrapped in leaves, they are bright red with spots and poisonous!
My poor toe nail is about a millimetre from falling off completely. I wish it just would instead of just flapping in the ocean and grossing everyone out!
We headed back to the mainland got our shit together and got a water taxi back to aqua lounge for happy hour/Ron & cola/ladies night.
Oh my, did we all get a wee bit drunk.
Sammy fulfilled a physical challenge set for her to get a pic with as many strange people's hats as possible. I think the final count was 21!
It really was a great night. Great company and free drinks = dancing, oh yes there was mucho dancing.
I sadly had to say goodbye to Sam, sammy and Alex at about
3am and jumped one of the packed water taxis back to the main island.
I ran into Brooke and Iain on my way to the golden grill for a late night slice. They said the place only had rice and bean empanadas so I went the street meat option and got a hotdog!
Bocas is a gem really. Great people, great food, beautiful islands and beaches. The whole package. This is a place I would come back to for sure.
