Bocas del Toro

After about 3 nights in Puerto Viejo, I made the move to Bocas del Toro - a bunch of islands (archipielago) off the coast of Panama. To get around you need to either take a water taxi or go around in a rented kayak. The hostel I stayed in was called Mondo Taitu, and was pretty damn cool - everywhere, from the toilets to the rooms, is covered by random quotes. Here are a couple of examples:

¨If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down¨
¨Beauty is just a light switch away¨


I also met some people here who were staying at my last hostel - the two Miami guys for instance - which made for a nice surprise and awesome reunion.



We did a few things during our stay here: checked out the town, rented a kayak and went to a nearby island, did a tour that included dolphin spotting, snorkelling and going on a beautiful beach called Red Frog. I´ve had an amazing time here, and definitely glad that I came - its difficult to describe, but it´s to do with the whole set up of the place. You have restaurants overlooking the sea and on stilts, you have to take a kayak to places instead of bikes and you have parties with people jumping into the sea and swimming back. Added to that is an infusion of carribean influence, so the place is really relaxed. Again, its not easy to describe how you gauge how relaxed a place is - everyone is casually walking about, has time for a conversation and are generally non-threatening.

Managed to get pretty nifty at body surfing - swimming out to a wave and then trying to surf it on the way back. Awesome fun! Heres a picture of Red Frog Beach:

Also, a couple of random things, Ive found that the countries I seem to get on best with are people from NZ and Holland. I dont know what it is, maybe the same sense of humour and culture, but those countries are definitely awesome! There are so many germans in all the hostels - trying to take over the world on the sly it seems like. Ive almost met people ´in the industry´ aka people who know what Deloitte is, its interesting how you can meet many people - and make more meaningful connections, when its in less contrived situations like Networking Events.

Next, its off to San Jose, where I¨ll stay till I go to Nicaragua. Ive had an amazing time in the farm, Puerto Viejo and Bocas so far - I would say that Bocas and the farm are my favourite so far, the problem with all of Costa Rica is that its really expensive  - so lets check out Nicaragua..