Bocas Del Toro

Bocas are a group of beautiful island off the coast of North East Panama and Bocas Del Toro is the town that EVERYONE goes to. It is a great chill out drinking town. It is wierd, we are almost bored of people telling us that places are chilled out, we have layed on beaches, chilled out in hammoks and generally sat around doing nothing for a long time now, we want parties, drinking till dawn, falling over (Stu has been filling that quota a lot he is still not used to the flip flop life and keeps tripping up, it keeps me amused anyway) drunk. This might be the place. Bocas is renound as a bit of party island. We head to Mondu Titu the hostel recomended as the partyist of the party hostels and it is full we so we head down to it´s sister hostel Heike. It was a nice hostel but we have now added another requirement to our hostel choosing, a good chill out spot. Heike was lacking in this department.

It is really important to have somewhere that you can just hang out, read, figure out what you are going to do that day, if anything. So many hostels that we have gone to have just been the basic here is you bed sort of place, putting no effort into it. No orginised nights, no communal area where travellers can meet and discuss what is going on ask the top five questions, and get some insight on where to go next. I would love to own a hostel and if I ever did I would hope that I would put a little extra effort into it than some of the ones that we have stayed at.

Saying that every night at 7 all the staff left our place to go to Mondu to man the bar where they had a different drink special/theme every night so off to Mondu with us all too for Grannies home made punch which was lethal, apple flavor huccas, spirits for $1 and other ridiculas drinks offers.

The morning after Grannies punch was a bit of a wash out so we decided to have a quite night and book a beach and snorkling tour for the next day. The island that we are on has no beaches itself but the surrounding ones have so you need to get a water taxi or go on a tour to get out to see them. Up bright and early the next day and the first stop is Dolphin bay to see yes you guessed it Dolphins. We are amoung 4 boats wating for the Dolphins and as soon as a fin is spotted the boats go zooming over the them and circle them. I started feeling a bit bad for the poor guys.

Every one on the boat is poised with their camera to get THE picture seeing life through the view finder, missing the real thing in favour of the timelessness of a photo, almost capsising the boat as they all pile on to oneside. Intrupting the daily life of the culture/animal they have come to see. It is a really annoying cycle that you notice when you are travelling somewhere like this. In Utila (the diving island) the reef is in real danger because tourists come to see the reef and fish, the local fishermen fish to feed the tourists, they over fish the species that are needed to keep the reef alive and keep the tourists coming, shitty isn´t it?. But any way here is my photo of the dolphins!

Just as out boat was pulling away we noticed that 3 dolphins have started riding our wake. It was brillent they were jumping and playing and following us in circles for ages. The part that was the BEST was that the 3 of them went under the boat, just thinking about it now makes me a bit giddy. They buzzed the boat so tightly that you could see their big black eyes under the water. I don´t think there have been many times in my life that I have accually gasped (seeing Ali in her wedding dress was one) but this was so wonderful seeing these creatures look at you it was just so cool.

We had two snorkling sites to visit after that we saw a huge barracuda and loads of black snapper. We docked at Red Frog Beach where little boys were waiting for us and for the princly sum of 25 cents they would show you their red frogs. There were 3 little boys none of them older than 5 with leaves with red frogs on them. One of them the youngest who could have only bee 3 1/2 lost his frog but we gave him money anyway cause we are just that nice! They are so funny they love looking at photos of themselves as soon as you take a photo they are up pulling at you, one of the girls we were with thought they were looking for money but they just want to see the photo. It is funny that something that we find so normal like a picture can be such a big thing.