First Day of Spring Break

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After arriving at the delightful hour of 4:45 AM in Almirante, the mainland entrance to the Bocas island area, we caught a taxi in the dark, sketchy town to the water taxi dock. We waited with the other sleepy people from our bus for the first water taxi at 6 AM to come take us to Isla Colon, the largest island in Bocas with Bocas Town on it. On our way there, it started to rain, which up to this point in my travels has not been a problem, because it is the dry season. Dry = no rain, but not this morning. The town had been getting steady rain for the past few days, which is unfortunate as there are only a couple paved roads. Since every hostel/ low-budget hotel I had called earlier said that they couldn’t tell me if they’d be full until the morning of, we had no reservations. So the first order of business was to put the “morning of” rule to the test, and wander around, hoping there was room somewhere. Carmel had a bed to stay in at the room of friends who were coming in later that day, so Paige and I only had to worry about two beds. Luckily Hotel Olas, one of the hotels I had contacted earlier, had a double available, and since the couple before us had left super early that morning, they said they could make the room ready for us right away. In the meantime, we went to the upstairs deck and passed out for an hour. After numerous reminders on our part, they cleaned the room so we could dump our stuff.
I want to take a moment to thank God and any buena suerte we might have had, because after consulting numerous groups of IP students who were also staying in Bocas, Paige and I realized we had gotten the best deal. Clean, private room with private bath, hot shower, accommodating hosts, and free breakfast (whatever we wanted, which happened to be the best banana pancakes ever) for only $21 per person a night. Hahaha, we won.

So Tuesday:
Also due to some lovely Mardi Gras celebratory intervention, the sky cleared around 11, so that we could experience the beautiful views of the water from sea kayaks. We rented them for an hour, and took them out to ride some smallish waves that were breaking on the reefs in the local bay. One lost shirt overboard later, we came back salty but happy.

In the evening, this last day of Carnival brought out “los diablos” which you can see in the pictures. They all carried whips and went after the local guys who stepped in the center area of the crowd. These guys were ready with sticks to defend themselves, but some still got hit pretty hard. When a group of IP students went to Portobello to be scuba-certified, they had run into this too, getting pushed into the circle so that they had nice bleeding and bruised welts on their legs to take home as souvenirs. Luckily the devils in Bocas seemed to only go after those who purposely came after them.
There was loud music being played, both live and through giant speakers all up and down the main road. There was a tanker truck full of water spraying it down upon the group of kids gathered in the street. We got squirted by many a squirt gun too. The three of us met up with three other IP students for dinner and hanging out at the local surfers’/hippies’ haven, called Mondo Taitu. Hostel/bar/board rental place, it was full of every 18-30 -year-old on the island that night. Three street performers came and swung fire around in very impressive patterns (reminiscent of Key West, for those of you who were with me on that adventure).

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Photos

Bocas harbor
The view from the back porch of our hotel, which was much prettier as the sun came out.

Sleepy Friends
Paige and Carmel smile for the camera before we all went to sleep on the couches, because this was taken at about 6:30 AM.

Olas Mural
The city was full of painted murals, but this one outside our hotel was one of the most colorful.

Our hotel
I recommend this one for other travelers, since it is difficult to know from hostel-finder websites which of the dozens in bocas is a good deal. This one is.

Inflatable Flamingos
So this was not only a tourist town, but one of many surfers and hippies. Thus some of the shops were a little eccentric, leaning more towards the flowy beach shirts that said more "Bonnaroo" than "Native Indian handcrafts". This was on the roof of one of them, and I liked it.

Weird head on top of café
Continuing the trend of taking pictures of quirky Bocas decorations... the view of the head sticking out its tongue would be better from the water, but I didn't notice it until after we were done kayaking.

Los Diablos
This is one of the guys with the whips - don't make eye contact, our you'll get thwapped. The young boys in the town were whipping each either (and the local dogs- Paige was about to take them out for that) for the next two days after this.

Más Diablos
Here's one of the ring leaders.

Los Diablos
This is one of the guys with the whips - don't make eye contact, our you'll get thwapped. The young boys in the town were whipping each either (and the local dogs- Paige was about to take them out for that) for the next two days after this.

Queen of Carnival de Bocas
My camera takes horrible night pictures, but here is the best I could get of the queen of bocas. Each town in Panama choses a queen to head their carnival, which basically entails dancing in the parade with little clothing but lots of feathers. Beyond that, I'm not really sure. But even though Bocas has a really tame carnival compared to Las Tablas or Penonome,there was still dancing and music in the streets that night.