Writings By Date| Tranquility and Diving in Bocas del Toro | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
The town reminds me of San Pedro, though it's clearly different. There are fewer streets overall, but they're wider and better maintained — some are even paved. (A truck with a steamroller keeps going back and forth spraying water on the main road; we can't figure out why.) The main drag is about six cars wide, though we have no idea how many "lanes" there are supposed to be. (Ed.: We found out the next day: there used to be a grass-lined median and sidewalk going down the middle of the street some 80 years ago.) There's also a small park in center of town, and plenty of "real" automobiles. It seems odd that this town is smaller in size than San Pedro, but it appears to be bigger in bustle (probably just the fact that there are cars at all, versus San Pedro). Despite that, there are no discos, no loud music (just a few bars and their jukeboxes), and no late-night drunken partygoers keeping everyone awake. That makes for a much nicer vacation spot in my book.
The people are also an interesting dichotomy; many of them are of English-Caribbean descent, so although Spanish is often spoken, the "native" tongue is almost always English. Small wonder, then, that there are a lot of Americans and Europeans hiding out here, too.
 |
| "Botel" Las Brisas |
Our hotel is kind of interesting, as well. Actually, it's called a "botel". We don't know what that is, but that's what the signs say. It may have something to do with the fact that it's situated partially over the water. You can actually have water taxis pick you up from the deck just outside the rooms (leading us to suspect "botel" is a cross between hotel and boat). In fact, several rooms, including our own, are actually situated directly over the water. If we look down in the shower, we can see it emptying into the ocean. That alone is a little bit disturbing, considering what the chemicals of our soap, shampoo, etc. are probably doing to the reefs around here, but the overall concept is pretty neat. You also have to wonder how bad this place gets when hurricanes rip through.
It's also the first hotel we've been in that offered DirectTV and Pay Per View. And all for just $30 a night.
We found a suitable dive shop pretty quickly, and set up a couple of dives for the next day. Having gotten our main errand out of the way, Erin had the idea that we should go sea kayaking. Some woman who may have been a guide of some sort (not sure what her purpose was, but I probably was supposed to tip her) caught us on the street and asked what we needed. When we asked about kayaks, she walked us down the block to a place that rents them. We got a double, and set out for a couple of hours.
 |
| Swimming at Sandbar |
The water is extremely calm, and is only disturbed by the vast number of water taxis cruising around the archipelago. Another island lay just a hundred meters to the east, so we paddled over there, and around it, looking for a good, quiet swimming beach. We eventually found a rocky sandbar a hundred feet or so from the shore, so we tied the boat to a nearby dock and swam out to the little area. The water never got more than about six feet deep, and I could actually stand most of the time; nevertheless, just to verify that I could do it, I swam the whole way. It was only about a hundred feet, but for me, that's about five miles, especially with current. Hanging around out there was beautiful, with several types of tiny fish swimming around the rocks, and a couple of 'em swimming around our feet just over the super-fine white sand.
