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Published: March 5th 2012
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Dolphin Bay Hideaway is the name of the place we are staying at. It is located on Isla San Cristobal, which is one of the smaller islands in the group. It feels like the end of the earth here.
Everything here comes by boat - people, food, water, other supplies. Bocas town on the main island of Colon is the "big town" where Erika and Jose (the owners of the B&B) do their shopping, and "big town" is a stretch! Guests like us are picked up in town, and Erika always sends a list with Jose of things she needs him to pick up. Erika is Hungarian, and speaks spanish and English perfectly; she runs the show. Jose is Indigenous and knows or is related to just about everyone around the islands. He speaks spanish and English. They have two really cute little children, a chocolate lab named Sweetie, and a small green parrot named Mickey. Sweetie only barks at things in the night - I assume things that shouldn't be on the property. Good dog. Mickey is somewhat grumpy, but tolerates the guests in the morning so that he can steal a bite of fruit off of
our plates or out of our fingers. We don't mind.
Jose's family (and I assume extended family) help on the place by looking after the kids, cooking, and cleaning. They are very quiet with little English, but friendly and helpful. Meals are served family style with everyone at the table at once and you eat what they serve. The food is simple, but good. Wine and beer is included. But no dessert 😞 Except the first day we arrived, which was one of the other guests' birthday so Erika had picked up a cake in town. We told her that Steve's birthday was in a couple of days - the day we leave - so we sang happy birthday to both of them.
The place is beautiful. Nature rules here. Rain water is collected and used in the taps and toilets. We are asked not to flush the toilet paper, so I assume that a septic system is in use (as was the norm in most of Costa Rica as well - only in the fancy hotels were we allowed to flush the paper). Energy is used sparingly - lights have very dim bulbs
in them, only one the the plugs in our room acutally works as the others are connected to a generator, there is no air conditioning, and we need flashlights to light our way down the path after supper to get to our rooms. No TV, no phones. Not even a good signal for cell phones. But great Wi-fi connection (surprisingly!?). So, we feel environmentally responsible while we swelter in our rooms at night. The temperature varies only slightly from day to night, and the humidity must be 100%. The fan above our bed is the only thing that allows us to get any sleep at all. Blankets are not needed.
We never see any mosquitoes, so it doesn't seem like we need repellant, but we always have several red and itchy bites at any one time. We are so hot and sticky the idea of more sticky repellant is, well, repellant. And anyway we reason, both days we are there we are spending quite a bit of time in the water, so it doesn't seem to make sense to apply repellant as it will just wash off.
We went snorkeling in their "secret spot"
amongst the mangrove roots. it is calm here and not too deep. Little minnows swarm around us and the occassional larger fish hides in the roots. The various kinds of corals and grasses are colorful and amazing. And the water is so warm. We are so hot thatiIt feels really nice to get into the water to get wet so that we can cool off when we speed off to wherever we go next.
On the way back in the evening, we see dolphins in the bay. There are at least a half dozen that we can be sure of, maybe more. One is a baby with his mother. They don't come too near to the boat, but don't seem afraid either. We stop the boat and watch them until the sun goes down.
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