Bastimentos

It is rain season in Panama. I already noticed it in Boquete, where you had to finish all trips around 14:00 (when it starts to rain). Here in Bocas it is the other way around. It is raining every morning. But no matter how bad the weather seems, in the afternoon the sun comes out. Could be worse

My cousin recommended to visit the island of Bastimentos just 20min away by motor taxy. Indeed I found a very nice hostel directly at the water (Bubbas House). There is actually a small village on the island that exerts a very Caribbean flair. All inhabitants are Afro-American and dressed in this stereotypical Jamaica-reggae style. They make a big effort promoting their own stereotypes. Every guy I talked to here offered me some kind of drugs (usually marihuana or cocaine). Seems like an everybody's side business. However they are really nice and helpful people and I had a great time (just) having a some beers with them.

The big plan for today is walking to the famous Red Frog Beach on the other side of the island (the islands here are much bigger than in Guna Yala and covered by real jungle). I have read that there is a path leading through the jungle and then you could walk along the beaches until you arrive there. It made me wonder that nobody at the hostel had ever done it or could even give any information. They all used a water taxi to get there. You also have to pay 5$ entry tax for the beach itself. All they told me was leaving my valuables in the hostel, since there was some robbery going on near that path. If there had only been some German people around. I am sure they would have known all the details :D

I started walking in my flip flops, carrying only some water and dollars for the boat back with me. The entrance to the path was easy to find and led through some isolated houses in the middle of the jungle. When it went increasingly uphill, I soon realized how rarely it must have been used it was more a path for wild animals, half overgrown, too steep to walk upright and sometimes so muddy that you had only a chance walking barefoot (the thorny branches made every step even more delightful :P)

I didn´t take long after I reached the beach and started walking easts towards the Red Frog beach. There were absolutely no tourists here, According to my information I should be walking for about 1h. However, after 10min the beach ended and there were rock formations and trees in the water that you could not easily climb. After some search I found a little “path” leading into the jungle just next the end of the beach. Path is actually highly exaggerated. I should better call it “educated guessing of the way somebody else has taken before me”. The next 90 minutes were a mix of comfortable walking along the white beached and pathfinding though the forest. Sometimes you would sink into the mud knee deep. Since I had to walk barefoot I was quite scared to step or touch something that would leave me with a bleeding wounds (surely not the most healthy thing in a jungle). However, the amount of shoes and boots sticking in the mud around me assured me that I was on the right way. And indeed, after 90 min and unharmed I stepped out of the jungle and reached a beautiful beach, populated with quite some gringo tourists and many restaurants for refreshments.

I didn´t have my camera, so here some web pictures

Red Frog Beach

Here I made some new friends from the UK. They stayed at the same hostel so we could share a motor taxi. I bumped into these 4 guys again and again the next days and hopefully I get some pictures from them :P (who knows where Darby is).

lobster meal at the hostel