Today we woke up to an adventure of the American kind. My credit card went shopping on Black Friday with someone other than me. Thankfully we brought Nathan’s cell phone with us and Sprint allows us to use it. So I called Chase, where they were able to cancel the card, but authorize its use only in Panama. When we leave the country, we have nada. But Panama + nada is better than nada × 2 if you know what I mean.
After sorting out that mess, we were a few minutes late for breakfast. We quickly ate, packed a bag, and called a taxi for Bocas. We had errands to do. First stop was to the dive shop to give Hector his much deserved tip. Next stop, ATM, and then groceries. Our purchases in hand, we headed back to our home on this leg of the trip. We quickly packed our backpacks with our beach regalia, made our lunch and waited for Umberto. Umberto and Ray arrived promptly a la once (11) to take us to Isla Bastimentos.
Introductions made, Umberto hopped off the boat and Ray drove us to the drop off point. So Bastimentos is a fairly large island, and our destinations were on the northern shore. Ray dropped us off at the southern shore which freaked Nathan out a bit, but you need to pay the entrance fee of $5 per person and walk across the island (5 minutes) to get to Red Frog Beach. Normalment. A wise woman once shared with me the concept of “not my first rodeo”. Everywhere we go, it’s our first rodeo, but not theirs. So relax and go with the flow, and assume the locals know how its done.
We walked to Red Frog Beach, where the red caution flags of “swim if you want to die” were at full mast, and we promptly walked to Polo’s Beach. It was 30 minutes of walking through the beach and jungle, but so worth it. There is a reef breaking the wave and protecting Polo’s beach, and not many tourists make the trek. Here we ate our picnic and snorkeled the afternoon away. At 3 pm we started the trek back, and made it back to Red Frog Beach for some frog hunting. (Found! And so tiny)
We had arranged for Ray to pick us back up a la cuatro (at 4 pm), and he was there waiting for us as we walked out of the jungle. In Dominican style, we didn’t pay the driver for either leg of the trip til he drops you back off on the second leg. Guarantees he comes back for you and it worked in DR, and it works here.
Back at the house, we cleaned up, and walked to Bibi’s across the island for happy hour and dinner. Easy walk, but to get back now in the dark…As I sit here at Bibi’s writing this, rays are swimming in the water right below us! Wow.
Mañana, another adventure, yet to be decided.