It’s 10 am on December 9th, and there’s currently a city wide power outage. It’s no surprise, as the way things are wired here in Bocas appear to be quite shady. As we are getting close to leaving, I’m feeling pretty reflective about our time here. There have been ups and downs – we’ve definitely had our patience tested in the last few weeks. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this place, what started as a charming little island community has shown itself to have some steep downfalls.
As I’ve mentioned before, we were SO grateful to check into our ocean front air-conditioned apartment with a comfy bed and a fully equipped kitchen. That was definitely our most enjoyable time here, where we were able to just go at our own pace and read in the hammocks or do the short bike ride into town. Grant rented a surfboard from the owner of the place, and he was nice enough to take him out a couple of times while we were there. We were asked last minute if we wanted to do a day trip out to Zapatillas island, and to snorkel at a few different spots. Zapatillas was gorgeous, but we ended up spending our 2 hours there in the ocean, as it was much warmer than the air in the massive storm we got to enjoy all day. After a horrible experience at a tourist trap for lunch, ourselves and our new Dutch friends asked if we could cut the trip short. I will say we got to see a ton of sloths, which was the coolest part aside from the beach.
At the time, we were really happy with the guy we rented the condo from, as he was showing himself to be helpful and trustworthy. In hindsight, it may be just an act for his guests. I’ll come back to that.
Sometimes it’s nice to book far in advance, as you can get better deals at nicer places, but sometimes it ends up being a disaster and then you’re stuck. We moved from our cozy condo on Isla Colon to Isla Bastimentos, what we thought would be a sleepy, cute town with no cars. The vibe there was strange – it’s pretty dirty, and nobody seems to do much work there at all. Every time we wanted to go eat, most of the restaurants were inexplicably closed. Whatever – we were able to find a couple of things. The real kicker was the apartment we rented. It was basically a concrete box with a bed, and felt more like a sweltering prison than a home. The pictures don’t detail this information, it looks like you’re getting the lovely top floor. Instead, you’re stuck suffocating with zero air flow and only a Barbie doll sized fan to blow around the stale, musty air. There is also a casino just a few doors down that blared music literally all night – it was nearly impossible to sleep.
We did manage to do a gorgeous jungle hike to Wizard Beach, and have one day of sun after a lot of rainy days.
On day 2 in Bastimentos, we decided we would stay one more night and head into Isla Colon, eating the cost. 6 pm rolled around and we went to get some dinner, as we were walking and seeing zero options, I looked long and hard at Grant and asked if we could just leave. His eyes lit up like Christmas, and we promptly packed our belongings and hailed a water taxi to take us to comfort. A last minute hotel for the night wasn’t cheap, but sometimes you have to remind yourself that you worked really hard to ENJOY this trip and bite the bullet. Being honest about a situation is important, and having an open/honest line of communication in a bad situation is 100% necessary. I took a fall on the way down the hill, but I didn’t even care. We were escaping!
Do I look stoked or what?!
There will be a Bocas part 3 coming up, which will hopefully be more all encompassing of my feelings here. It’s certainly not that we don’t feel lucky to be here, but it’s a part of rolling with the punches of traveling to accept that some places just don’t meet your expectations.. which is a great reminder to always throw your expectations out the window.
Cheers, chicos!