Final Thoughts on Bocas del Toro

I've been out of Bocas for a few days now and I've had some time to reflect on what my time was like there. In a few words: it was the time of my life but exhausting as well.

Bocas is a party town, it feeds off of the inhibitions of the tourists that end up there. I can't count how many times I heard someone say "Who cares? You're in Bocas!", or something along those lines. This is why the 3 lies of Bocas are so fitting: #1 I'm not drinking tonight (my planned detox days didn't happen), #2 I'm leaving tomorrow (I knew a couple people that didn't leave when they said they would), and #3 I love you (I didn't go a day without some random person on the street telling me I was bontio or beautiful). There was many a Thursday I would show up to Spanish class in rough shape, mostly because I had chosen to partake in 'Ladies Night' at Aqua Lounge the night before. Towards the end of my stay I tried avoiding touristy places like the plague, the same party is only fun so many times, and did my best to hang out with people from school and those locals I had come to know. That's not saying I didn't take part in a good party when the opportunity arose. My second last night in Bocas was proof of that! All I'll say about that night is 1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila,... That was my best night in Bocas but the next morning was also the worst. Self inflicted but when in Bocas...

Now I'm sure there's a part of you thinking 'No wonder she's exhausted. Partying every other night will do that to a person!' You wouldn't be wrong either, but the exhaustion felt in Bocas is so much more than just the physical from partying, for me there was the mental exhaustion from constantly being on guard. I never once felt unsafe, but there were times were I did feel uncomfortable, being a light-haired, blue-eyed, white girl in this country puts a bit of a target on your back. At the risk of scaring a few people, there were cases of people being robbed while I was in Bocas, and right before I left for Panama a couple girls from Holland went missing in Boquete. It was a very sobering reminder that bad things can happen to good people. I am so grateful I had a good group of friends where we would look out for eachother. I consider myself lucky to have left Bocas with all my valuables and only happy memories.

On a less serious note, I can't reiterate enough the great times I had in Bocas (if you need a reminder, just check out my previous posts :P). I'm already looking forward to the next time I get to walk down those familiar streets, take a water taxi, and buy guava in the park. Bocas will always have a special place in my heart, it's the first place in this big wide world I ventured out into on my own, the first place I dove, and the first place I never wanted to leave.

Although this post may sound quite sad, the more I'm looking into what I can do and see in Australia, the more excited I am to go there! My worldly adventure is 1/3 complete, I can't wait to see what the next parts bring!

I'm going to miss this!!

 

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Scuba Groupie

My last week in Bocas was amazing! Extremely sad to be leaving but I'll give some final thoughts on that later.

I have spent more time and money than I care to admit at La Buga Dive, but every time I went there I was welcomed with open arms and a great place to hang out. My initial plan was to only get my Open Water Certification, but because I was there so much Tony and Leandro suggested to me one day that I should consider doing my Advanced Open Water. They were extremely good salesmen and the only con I could think of was that it would cost me more money, so after twisting my arm (very gently) I agreed to do it. Such a great decision! To complete this certification I needed to complete 5 adventure dives and although they were challenging, they were also tons of fun! The 5 I chose/were chosen for me were: Deep Diving, Navigational Diving, Night Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, and AWARE Fish ID. Don't worry, for you non-scuba types I'll explain.

Deep Dive: This one's somewhat self-explanatory, we went deeper than I had ever gone before. As an Open Water diver the deepest I could go was 18m, but on this dive we went down to about 30m. The coolest part about this dive was noticing when the laws of physics started to take over. By the time we reached the bottom I could no longer see the colours red and orange, I may or may not have thought a tomato was a pepper. At this depth you could really feel the water pressure change as well. I had read this would happen but until you actually feel it for yourself, there is no way to describe it. Normally I have no issues breathing through the respirator, but at this depth it felt like I had to really work to be able to breathe. That initial sensation was a bit scary but that feeling went away after a short period of time. The last thing we did down here was crack open a couple of eggs, which seems very simple but at this pressure the yolk stays somewhat solid. Watching an egg spin underwater was more entertaining than I care to admit.

Navigational Diving: So much harder than you think it would be. I needed to swim in a square and then swim straight along one heading then straight back. The first time I attempted both of these skills I failed, horribly, Leandro needed to come find me to do them again. I've needed to use a compass before but with very little points of reference underwater it was so much more difficult. Although I will probably never lead a dive myself, I now have huge amounts of respect for the dive masters at La Buga, because 9 times out of 10 we would finish the dive right beside the boat and I would have no idea where I was.

Night Diving: The only skill I needed to perform of this dive was swim away from the group in one direction and then swim back to the group. Farily simple and once this was complete it was diving like normal. This dive was fairly boring to begin with but then all of a sudden we saw tons of marine life. We saw tons of fish I'd seen before (big pufferfish, trumpetfish, drummerfish, lobster, crabs), when we happened across a sea turtle! I was so excited to see it, I didn't even think our lights would disturb it until Leon turned off my flashlight, we had woken up the little guy from his sleep. We followed it (I'm fairly certain it was a hawks-bill) for a little bit using a red light and there were more than a few envious people back at the shop when we got there. Highlight of my diving in Bocas, quite possibly.

Peak Performance Bouyancy: The goal of this dive was to only use your breath to control your position in the water. Any use of hands and you had to start the skill over. Some of them were quite easy for me, hovering in place and swimming through a hoop, but others were extremely difficult. Trying to touch your mask to a stick on the bottom of the ocean or look at a piece of coral close up, while not using your hands for balance, was the most difficult skill I had to do throughout both dive courses. I was glad I had somewhat mastered this skill though, as during this dive, Leandro found the tiniest little seahorse hidden among the coral. If I would have had a pocket to put it in, I would have...

Fish ID: This dive was fun because I got to learn all the names of the common fish that I had seen everytime I went out diving or snorkeling. On this dive I learned that male parrotfish will change their sex if there is a shortage of females, Mother Nature does some crazy things. I discovered that I would personally rather look at the fish and watch what they are doing for curiosity's sake rather than to gain information, way more entertaining that way. The last new creature we found on this dive was a spotted eel, was kind of gross looking, but still neat to find.

Sometimes the best things in life aren't planned. It didn't even cross my mind to do my Advanced Open Water but I am so glad I did. I got to see a couple animals I have loved since I was a child and living in a land-locked province, it has always been on my bucket list to see these animals in the wild. Diving has definitely become my new addiction!

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Under-Appreciated No More Part 2

As it was a fairly quiet week by Bocas standards, time for Part 2 of things I will never again take for granted!

#6 My Own Transportation: Another inanimate object I'm going to hug when I get home is my car. Most days I don't mind the walk back and forth to school, but when it's pouring rain or I'm just feeling lazy it would be so nice to have my own vehicle. I also need to catch a water taxi 2 times a day. At night it's not a huge deal, you just walk up to a dock and there's always a plethora of boats. This is a completely different story in the morning. Luckily for us, our dock is located along a common boat route coming from Bastimentos Island, the issue lies in whether or not a boat happens along, there's room for a couple more people, or if the boat captain happens to see us waving them down. Nothing like an adventure first thing in the morning.

#7 Cool Summer Nights: I have never sweat so much in my entire life, thank God for air conditioning! During the day the heat is awesome, you can cool off by going to the beach and swimming, but at night it doesn't cool off much. This is mostly due to the outrageous humidity (80%) everyday. I know I shouldn't complain about the heat after that awful winter we just had in Saskatchewan but this is a case of too much of a good thing. My favorite part of summer is having a fire on the beach after dark, and it's weird that I haven't been able to do that yet. We would probably melt if we tried!

#8 Afternoon Naps: So far my list has been entirely about things at home, but there are things I will miss down here! Almost every other day I'm able to take an afternoon nap in my hammock. They have been some of the best naps I've ever had in my life as I am not stressed about homework or work related things. It's the first time in a long time I've had no deadlines other than the ones I've made myself and having the chance to completely shut off my brain is fantastic.

#9 Pleasant Rain Days: It has rained a lot here, but unlike at home, rainy days are not cold. With an umbrella you stay relatively dry but I can still walk around in shorts and a tank-top. Besides having a wet taxi ride back to the island, I've had some of my most relaxing days when it rains. It cools off (just a little bit) and you can spend all afternoon listening to the rain on the roof. These are good catch up days for me, I spend time uploading pictures from my camera, writing for this blog, or general housekeeping things I've put off because I've been busy doing beach things. These are also days where I read the most. I've finished 3 books since I've left Canada and I'm so enjoying reading for pleasure again.

#10 No Deadlines: Now I do have a few deadlines, but I don't count flying to a new country as a super stressful. For as long as I can remember I've had deadlines for school or work, and this is the first time where I've been able to work with my own schedule. Having that amount of freedom is so refreshing and I am doing my best to enjoy every minute of it!

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Water World

Well I have just about come full circle with my time here in Bocas del Toro. I say this because last week was the first week where the activity board at school did not have an event I hadn't done already. Which meant I went and visited my favourite places!

Way back on June 1st, I went Catamaran sailing with almost all my classmates. We stopped at Dolphin Bay again and stopped at a couple awesome snorkeling spots. It was such a nice change of pace from the everyday go, go, go of Bocas. Most of us were able to take naps out on the front, it was so relaxing to hear the water trickle by the boat. The snorkeling itself was pretty cool as well as I had never snorkeled along a mangrove island before. It was so neat to be able to look in through all the roots and see tons of baby fish hiding out in there. I saw my first baracuda while underwater here as well. Although it wasn't that big, it was still one of the scariest looking creatures I've seen underwater. I'm not sure what I'm going to do that first time I see a shark!

June 3rd was my convocation day back home in Saskatoon and I celebrated in style! Steve and I went out to visit Emma at the Blue Coconut (are you noticing a pattern yet?) and had a fantastic afternoon. Steve and I took a couple paddleboard out expecting to just go around a couple of the mangroves. What we found was so much better! Thinking there might be a path to the other side of the island, we cut through an opening in the trees and ended up finding a cove full of hundreds of jellyfish! Not a place you would want to fall off the board but it was so calm and quiet, there was no fear of that. And that wasn't the only cool part of our afternoon! Once we got back to the restaurant we went snorkeling through what had to be thousands of sardines! Never in my life have I seen that many fish in one spot together. Watching them move as one while swimming through them was so facsinating at one point I forgot where I was and accidently rammed my head into a paddleboard floating by the dock! Again the hospitality was second to none and I'm not sure if was that or the smack to the head that caused my head to ache in class the next day...

I did my first night dive during this week too! It was one of the craziest and coolest experiences I've ever had. We weren't in the complete dark, we all had flashlights, but you could see nothing beyond the circle of light. We dove a spot called 'The Wall', aptly named as it is a wall of rock and coral, so there was nothing below us or to our backs. It was so freaky to look away from the light and see complete blackness, knowing that there could be something out there looking at you but you can't see it. As always we saw some pretty neat marine life: octopus, toadfish, a giant grouper, a piece of coral that was absolutely covered in arrow crabs, and lobster. At night, the marine life is way more active so most of these animals were out in the open, at one point I came across a crab that opened up a shell fish and ate the insides as I was sitting there watching it. On this dive I learned that the lionfish in the area are pests and doing a ton of damage to the coral in the area. As we had 2 dive masters with us (Tony and Leandro from La Buga), a spear was brought along just in case we found one (I thought it was for protection, go figure). Tony found one and pointed it out, all of us diving for fun were watching it when, suddenly, Leandro comes from the back and spears it! Appartently, they make a good ceviche. For the last part of the dive we stopped on the bottom, covered the lights, and stirred up the water to see the bioluminescence. For my first time night diving it was pretty exciting!

Bit late on my weekly post, but I'm working on Bocas time, so really, I'm right on time! :P

A relaxing cruise.

Those black patches are all the sardines!

This was my Convocation Day!

 

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Under-Appreciated No More

After living a solid month in Bocas del Toro, I've come up with a list of things that I will do my best never to take for granted for again as long as I live. Some are everyday things, some are quite commical, and other's, well, others you may need to think a little outside the box to understand. Hopefully this will give an idea of my day to day living as it's not just all fun and games! Also, this list will be by no means complete so consider this Part 1.

#1 A Washer and Drier: Oh my god! Anyone who's traveled for an extended period of time will agree with this. Cause I'm cheap I've hand washed everything down here as I've needed it but everynow and then every article of clothing I own needs a wash. I now appreciate how hard women all over the world and in the past work to keep everyone looking their best.

#2 Flushing Tiolet Paper: Island septic systems aren't always the best at handling all that's thrown at them so most places here just have waste recepticals by the tiolets. I don't have a huge issue with this but it's a bit unnerving to do your first couple times in a public place. This is probably my North American standard of cleanliness coming out but sometimes this just seems gross.

#3 Mother Nature's Tiolet: You'll have to bear with me here, but while we're on the subject, this has something I've considered while on some of the other islands. Now while at the lake or camping I have no problem doing my business in Mother Nature, I almost prefer it as outhouses can be quite unpleasent. At some of the beaches, places have bathrooms but you must pay to use them, and you take one look at them and think "not a chance in hell". Usually I'd do what any camper would do but nature here is so foreign to me I'd rather not take the risk of distrubing a crab, toad, or worse, solider ants.

#4 Consistent Supermarkets: Shopping is always an adventure here. I never realized how great I had it at home where I could go into any Walmart and find almost exactly what I've been looking for. I kid you not, I have spent at least an hour walking around, checking out every supermarket in town trying to find specific items. A travel coffee mug was one of said items and fresh produce is always a little difficult to find down here.

#5 Hot Water: Boy do I miss hot water on demand. I am quite lucky as the apartment I'm in has 'hot water' on a good day, most places down here are cold water only. Most days a cold water shower is necessary (30 degree heat plus humidity, yea I like to cool down sometimes) but after 3 hours of scuba diving, I nice warm shower helps get rid of the chill. The days when I get hot water are a little bit like heaven.

This concludes part one. Welcome to everyday life in Bocas!

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