We arrived in Bocas del Toro yesterday evening, had dinner, then after a cerveza on the balcony, we were off to bed. Traveling is tiring!
The morning was pretty dry out, so after breakfast, we headed out to explore the town. I’m not sure Bocas is quite our speed – it’s apparently got nightlife, and there were quite a few restaurants, but it has a weird mix of touristy vibes and a run-down feeling. I suspect people who like Cancun enjoy coming here to “rough it.”
We walked the half-dozen blocks of the main town, got some coffee, I made a call, and then we had lunch. It poured on and off all day, and so we killed time at the lunch restaurant for a bit. Around 2:00, we arranged a water taxi to pick us up to take us to Isla Bastimentos, the next island over.
Carmen, the proprietor of the place we were going to, told us to have the proprietor of the place we were leaving explain how we could get to “Richard’s dock.” “Go down the street toward the tall building and turn at the grocery store” is what we were told. Literally none of those words aligned with what I think they mean. The tall building was 3 stories tall, the grocery store was labeled “mall” on the outside (and I couldn’t see any goods resembling groceries being sold from the store windows), and then there was the unsaid part about walking down the skinny alleyway next to 100 electrical meters to go behind the store to locate the actual dock. Thankfully, we ran into the BnB proprietor in town and she redirected us because I would *never* have found this otherwise.
Since it’s been raining hard all day, the seas were choppy and thus the boat ride was choppy. The driver did as good a job as one can do getting around the biggest waves, but we still arrived soaked through (but we didn’t capsize, so I’ll take the win!). We couldn’t appreciate the place we were staying at right away given the downpours, but once the rain calmed and we had a chance to look around, we could see just how gorgeous this space is!
We are basically staying in a hillside treehouse/cabin in the jungle, right above the ocean.
The proprietor here was a professional chef, and her cooking is seriously amazing. We had homemade tomato soup and focaccia bread for a starter, some fish that they caught yesterday, salad, potatoes, chicken with pineapple, and broccoli and bok choy egg muffins. It was simply phenomenal! While we ate, they told us about how they picked this location to immigrate to (they are both Dutch). It was a lovely change of pace from restaurant dining.
There’s a lot of benign wildlife on this island. Apparently there are things called night monkeys (I can only describe them as owl-raccoon-lemurs…go ahead, Google them), opossums, armadillos, geckos, boa constrictors, and bats. OK, boas aren’t truly benign, but as compared to a Black Mamba (which we’ve been warned about repeatedly when traveling in Southern Africa), they are definitely not scary.
If it doesn’t pour all day tomorrow, we hope to get out for some snorkeling. Dolphins, rays, starfish, parrotfish, a broad array of other tropical fish, and nurse sharks all frequent the area. Until then, we are ready to fall asleep to the sound of the rain on our metal roof. And maybe the sound of the weird owl-raccoon-lemur monkeys, too, since they apparently also like to play on the roof.
Vacation Days 