Chilled tried to go to a party was dead until after we went to bed, shelf fell on graces head
Day two explored the island met Sophie and co. Grace’s taxi got lost Went for lunch and a swim came back, party was already happening had a really fun night free drinks very thirsty
Day three more chilling
We decided to try and do our own cross border transfer to Bocas del Toro as the busses in both Costa Rica and Panama are reliable and a lot cheaper than the very expensive direct mini buses. We had a two hour bus ride to the border and had no issues getting our passports stamped out of Costa Rica and into Panama. Entry into Panama did require a scan of all of our fingerprints and a front and side profile photo, so we had the added bonus of feeling like we were on a police show to liven up the crossing experience! On the other side of the border we saw minibuses collecting people to take the rest of the way to Bocas del Toro, we managed to haggle a seat for $20 USD a person, on the agreement we didn’t tell any one else on the bus we were paying €100 less than them! We could have gotten two local busses the rest of the way as planned for even cheaper but the direct route would be a lot quicker, so we decided to splurge out. Once we reached the Bocas del Toro port, we had to board a taxi boat that would take us the rest of the way to the Bocas del Toro islands.
We had chosen to stay on one of the smaller, quieter islands. The island itself took about 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other. It had two restaurants, a hostel and around 20 houses. The Hostel and houses were all built half on the sand and half protruding out into the sea on stilts. The sea was absolutely beautiful blue and filled with fishes and starfish.
We arrived in the late afternoon and decided to walk around the island, after walking end to end we decided to stop for dinner in one of two bars/restaurants on the island. The did tasty pizzas and even tastier cocktails. After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel. We saw adverts for a party that evening, starting at 10pm (we complained how this was far too late for a party to start and then realized we are getting old!).
We got ready and headed out to the bar for 9:30pm in the hope of getting chatting to some people and making friends but the whole place was absolutely dead and remained that way until midnight at which point we gave up and headed to bed. After we had taken our makeup off and gotten into bed we heard taxi boats arriving on mass around 1am but decided we couldn’t be arsed at that point once we were already comfortable in bed.
The party continued until around 3am and although we were in the dorms furthest away from the bar, it still felt as if we were trying to sleep on the dancefloor it was so loud. The wall Grace’s bed was connected to vibrated so much the large wooden shelf above Grace’s bed fell off the wall and onto her head. Not wanting to appear older and grumpier than we already probably seemed, Grace didn’t complain and just sobbed silently in bed, which probably succeeded in not making her look grumpy but instead probably made her look slightly mental!
The next morning,Grace and the new egg-shaped bruise she was spouting, headed of scuba diving. I stayed at the hostel and got chatting to a girl and a group of six guys she was traveling with, who had all met while working in Lapland at a Santa’s grotto experience over Christmas. They were super friendly and invited me to join them on a bar crawl around the islands that would finish at our hostel. As Grace had just texted me she was on her way back and wanted to go get some lunch, I declined their offer and told them we would meet them back at the hostel at 5pm when the bar crawl would arrive on our island.
Grace’s taxi boat should have only taken two minutes to drive from the island she was on over to our island, she could have probably swam it in 5 minutes. Yet somehow she took an hour to arrive. Her driver had insisted on dropping everyone else on the bus off first to various different islands, then had needed to stop to get fuel, then had gotten lost! But eventually she arrived back safely and hadn’t been kidnapped as I’d feared/hoped!
We went to lunch at the same place as the previous day and afterwards had a lie in the sun and a swim in the sea. I tried to combine the two by laying down in the shallow water at the seas edge. As soon as I sat my bum down I felt something concerningly large move beneath it, I then thrashed about screaming in the shallows, retreating from a crab who had already had the worse end of our encounter after being sat on and then screamed at.
We headed back to the restaurant in case the crab had any ideas about revenge…and also because I was really thirsty after all the shouting and thrashing about. I wanted to get a soft drink but grace convinced me to get a nice cocktail. Five minutes after delivering our cocktails the waiter came to check on us and remarked, after seeing my empty glass, ‘wow you a very thirsty girl’. To which Grace fell about laughing and continued to use every time I drank anything or appeared slightly drunk!
At 4pm we decided to head back to the hostel so we could be ready by the time the bar crawl arrived for the afternoon party. But it turned out we were already far too late, the party had arrived early and was already in full swing. Luckily the dress code seemed to be swimming costumes (and sunburn), one of which we already had and the other we were hoping to avoid anyway.
The hostel was absolutely heaving with people and it was a really fun evening, even if all of the music we knew and enjoyed most was labelled as ‘old school’ and ‘throwback’ songs. Nothing like a party aimed at 18-20 year old to make you feel old! Grace even got a lift on Patric, one of the guys I had met earlier’s, shoulders. Seeing as Grace is tiny and Patrick is a huge 6ft+ northerner, this was not an issue. However, his friend Jamie, who was the same height as me and probably only 2/3rds of my weight, then tried to do the same to me. That was less successful and eventually after 5 minutes of him shouting ‘Ive nearly got it’ and me shouting ‘let me down!’ and trying to jump off, he gave up. But not before a crowd had already gathered to cheer him on, just my luck! He insisted he be allowed to try again and this time I shouldn’t try and get off as apparently that’s what was stopping him being able to lift me… But seeing as I like having all of my front teeth (and what was left of my dignity at this point) intact I declined the proposal.
The party at our hostel ended around midnight and we headed to an after-party at another hostel on a different island and we saw some cool fire jugglers and danced a bit more before heading home to bed. After seven hours of dancing we were absolutely knackered but I returned to find a girl asleep in my bed! After waking her and helping her into what I hoped was her bed I could finally get to sleep.
The next day we were treated to a free breakfast at the hotel as an apology for nearly killing Grace with a shelf. We spent the rest of the day chilling out and recovering from our hang overs. We did however take a swim underneath our hostel and saw loads of cool coral that was growing on the supporting legs of the structure.
The following morning we headed on to our next stop, Boquete. Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x