Here we are ! We have found our tropical island with turquoise water and wood houses ! Granted, we also have a party next door and a few mosquitoes, but nothing can ever be perfectly perfect, and we will feel very good here ! We can see the sea from the wifi-hammock space and we hear the frogs from our room, which is inexpensive and still has, hold your pants, a mosquito net, a fan and a multi-socket !
We started this morning by a last breakfast in the common space of our forest-hostel, talking with travelers and volunteers. This place was really super-nice and I think we’ll miss the company (and the themed evenings at the bar with ridiculously cheap cocktails).
So we took another bus with limited reliabiliy and we arrived at Almirante, main harbor of the Bocas del Toro archipelago.
From there, a lancha with a roof took us to the islands, and by this incredible coincidence the captain was at the front of the boat AND we were much less shaken by the waves than we were in the San Blas, and as a consequence, the ride was much nicer. Bocas-Town (capital of the archipelago, on Isla Colon) seems like a touristy and festive city, and since we won’t be sleeping there, we took another boat.
We arrived on Bastimentos islands around sunset-time and got to our hostel, in which we will stay for a week. The city is separated into two parts by the only street, along which you find only pedestrians and bikes, since there are no cars on this island. The lower part of town is at the edge or on the sea, and the higher part is in the forest, yes, landscape change pretty quickly around here ! All buildings are on stilts, and since tourism only developed recently and towards eco-tourism, you can only find rain-water and solar-power. For electricity, it’s hard to check for now, but every building has a few huge water tanks connected to the gutter-system, so we confirm about rain-water.
Our principal activities for next days will be tourism for one, like saying hello to corals and observe endemic endangered red frogs, and resting : we need to do laundry and maintenance of our stuff, but also needle-work, because our backpacks are getting old faster these days, and some craft and drawings would be welcome, it was complicated lately…
We also noticed that, even if we could find some cheap accommodations, it’s another story when it comes to eating. We arrived a bit late and found some tasty burgers, in a Belgian-owned hostel, but the prices were a bit discouraging, so we will try to cook ourselves, with what we have here, which isn’t much.
That’s all for tonight ! Kisses !