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Published: February 1st 2008
Homesick
and thinking of BrixtonFig trees are the subject of various legends, curses and blessings around the world. The Panamanian version runs something like this - on the night of Good Friday, you go to your local fig tree and spread a white sheet on the ground. At midnight, the devil will appear and offer you a choice of two swords, one new and one rusty. Choose the rusty one. You then sword fight the devil and your rusty sword does you proud and you beat him. He then bows down to you and grants you whatever you desire. Although if you were thinking this sounds like a good deal - here´s the catch - unfortunately you still have to give him your soul, despite the fact you beat him (what happens next is unclear, but presumably you follow the traditional soulless path and become and estate agent - ed).
Other things we have learnt in Bocas Del Toro:
* Pepper listed as a pizza ingredient, does NOT mean ´pepper´, it is actually short for pepperoni 😞
* Just because its so sunny you feel like your face is melting now, doesn´t mean you´re not going to be knee deep in mud in
Slightly pissed
and playing with the tripod! fifteen minutes time
* Sloths do occasionally move, but only when they´re very very hungry
* Don´t get in a boat with anyone who doesn´t have a boat driving licence unless your idea of fun is spending an hour stuck in mangroves debating whether the jellyfish surrounding the boat are likely to kill you or not
* A bit more espanol. We´re getting there, slowly.
Anyway, we´ve had a cool week in Bocas, studying, meeting lots of nice folks, and slapping sandflies. We lucked out on the hotel front and found somewhere that not only had massive balconies overlooking the sea, it also served cheese and onion toasties for breakfast, mm mmm.
Bocas Town is a funny old place - quite typical Caribbean wooden pastel houses, lots of places to drink cocktails that are almost free, beautiful blue sea and surrounded by jungle - but all spoilt a bit by the huge amounts of rubbish tipped everywhere in the streets. We had brief visits to a couple of the other islands, Carenero which is tiny but surrounded by reef, and Bastimentos, which would be my tip for a place to stay for anyone heading to Bocas. This is
Playa Estrella
Can you guess why they call it that? also where we heard about the fig legend, spotted some red poison dart frogs, saw chocolate being handmade and met an opossom in a hammock, as well as visiting the most beautiful beach we´ve seen so far.
Our ability to hold our booze continues to desert us. The school has a barbecue every Friday night for all the students to get together, and after a couple of beers, going out to buy a bottle of Flor de Cana seemed like a great plan. Luckily we had lots of help to drink it, but were still suffering the next morning. Speaking Spanish seems a load easier after a few shots of rum though!
Another highlight of the week was a surf competition a few kms up the island from where we were staying. The heavens opened for most of the way there and the pleasant stroll we thought we´d have actually turned into getting soaked to the skin and having to wade through mud pools for about an hour each way. Which was fine until I saw a load of huge crabs sitting round the side of one of the pools and got a bit wary of putting my
More Starfish
Freaky little blighters be-flip-flopped feet into the mud where I couldn´t see what was lurking. Anyway we escaped with a full complement of toes each and got to see some pretty amazing surfers.
Next stop, the highlands of Northern Panama where we´re hopefully going to do some hiking to start getting our legs into gear for the Inca trail! (we´ve been pretty lazy recently). And its our last chance to spot a quetzal so wish us luck.
Hoping all is well with all of you guys
lots of love
Nat xxx
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