The landscape here is outstanding! it feels like we are part of a film! And even if we mostly chose to come here to learn Spanish, we can not deny the beauty of the place. Bocas del Toro is not a beautiful village in itself (there is, for example, no regular garbage collection and the service is pretty pricey - well, you can draw your own conclusions...) and the beaches are quite disappointing if you like relaxing and basking in the sun. But what a beautiful set with all the islands around! Every time you want to go snorkelling you have to take a watertaxi! That's so cool! The sea is so clear, so blue, and the mangrove is stunning! So far we only saw one dolphin, very close to Bocas and fishing at dusk, but we heard that there were lots of them further around.
The Carenero island is the closest to Bocas and it only takes 3 minutes to get there. It is a very beautiful island which attracts retired Americans as well as surfers who usually get dropped by boat in the middle of the waves. In search of a beautiful place to chill out, we decided to spend a few hours over there together with Bram and Mandy. And then it was time for some new surrealistic adventures!...
Instead of settling down on the first beach, we thought that we could find an even better one. It was never good enough, if you know the feeling. Why is it that we always think that it can only get better the further we go?! Anyway, after walking for half an hour in the boiling sun and through some parts of the mangrove, we reached the point where we either had to jump in the sea or go through some kind of jungle. Well, what do you think happenned when 2 guys and 2 girls are looking for some excitement? The girls usually say "No, no, seriously we don't need to go further, anyway the first beach was from far the best, and it's totally mad to go there... there is NO way I am gonna go there... and honestly, if you ask me, I really don't want to go AND I WANT TO GO BACK RIGHT NOW!!!", and then the guys, playing it super cool "Come on, that's a piece of cake, it is surely better on the other side, and don't be such a chicken, that's adventure, hahahahahaha!!!! I will hold your hand, there's no problem, noooooooo there are no snakes, anyway they are more afraid of you that you are afraid of them". So, guess who won?
There we were then, trying to get up a muddy slope, with wet strap sandals (of course), slipping down all the time, walking inbetween vines and branches, trying to get hold of something man-friendly to help us up. The guys in front, of course. The girls behind, checking every tiny creepy beings and trying to keep smiling. And then we got stuck again. We were in the middle of nowhere, with no sign of any path anymore, cooking like lobsters and feeling very small. Fortunately, we eventually wisely decided to turn back and I very politely left the guys go first ;)) But what happened when you have to go down a muddy and slippery slope with the same very wet strap sandals?... Well, you surely twist your ankles a few times and land in a couple of unfriendly bushes and branches. It was sooo much fun that Mandy suddenly decided to take a short cut and ended up in the middle of some very tricky vines. I was looking at her wondering why on earth she thought it was an easier path when she suddenly started screaming like a mad woman! God, I can tell now that the scene was hilarious ;)) Poor old Mandy waving her arms in all directions, slipping down and screaming that she was trapped in a spider's web! When she got out of the bushes, turned back and saw what kind of creature was responsible for her panick, I can tell you that she had some very good reason to start hyperventilating!...
We women should be so lucky to travel with men :-)), they are always there to remind us that we are "softies" but they also always stand ready to sooth the pain of being one ;-)
We had such a laugh after Mandy's stunt and the coolest thing about creepy adventures is that we can always refer to them as a very special moment.
After the jungle's short episode we headed back to the first beach to have something to drink in a kind of very typical restaurant resting on the sea. The walk was really beautiful. But I soon enough found out that it was too good to be true : apart from the chitras that were feasting on us we got tiny tiny kind of needles in our feet! No idea how they got there, but they had definitely found their way into my sole! What a pain! I could not walk anymore amd the craziest thing was that I could not even find anything in my feet. Eventually, Mandy did and extracted some kind of very sharp needles looking like tiny pieces of coral. Well, nothing really serious, but God! that hurt! At least I could really enjoy the beauty and exotic charm of this place. What a beauty it is, and what a luck we had, once again, to be able to get there...
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