Bocas

So, I´m in an internet cafe and it took about an hour just to upload the pictures (you have no idea how much I hate blogger right now), so commentary is going to be sparse. I´ll add more commentary and pictures when I get back to the city. Carolyn and I are currently in the middle of our ¨vacation within a vacation¨. We started out in Bocas Del Toro. We got there taking a 10 hour bus from 8 pm to 6 am from Panama City to Almirante. I didn´t sleep a wink. More on that later. We then took a water taxi from Almirante to Isla Colon and the fun began. By fun, I mean sleep. I´m in Cerro Punta now and have been for about 4 days, but for the sake of time, I´m limiting this blog post to Bocas.

This is the lookout from Red Frog Beach. Absolutely gorgeous.

Carolyn and I chillaxing on Red Frog Beach

So... You can´t tell, but we´re in a litle dugout canoe with something along the lines of a trolling motor slapped on the back of it. We got SOAKED. This is how we got to and from Isla Bastimentos for our Zipline ride. It was an adventure in of itself.

 Wooooo!!!!

So... Ï have lots of pictures from the Zipline ride that we bought from the photographer. Unfortunately, I foget to bring the disc with me to the internet cafe, so all I have is this one from the end. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. It wasn´t only a zipline, but also a high ropes course. It was only me, Carolyn, and Rodrigo (a friend who travelled with us the first week). We had three guides and a photographer. So much fun.

Have you ever tried to take a self portrait of two people in a double kayak? Not easy. We took about five, and got two with our faces in them. It didn´t help that it was rough. We didn´t flip. Have no idea how.

I got tired and decided to sunbathe (in the midddle of the channel). Unfortunately it was a little rough so I had to do a little bit of work in holding my paddle out to give us balance. Life´s rough.

Toe's not thrilled with my nap in the ocean, but I still convinced her to try it.

Here´s Toe sitting on the dock looking pretty. It was a gorgeous day. We didn´t get many of those.

 Me chilling on the dock

So, at Red Frog Beach, a little kid came up and asked "Quiere buscar una rana roja?" which translates to "Do you want to look for a red frog". Rodrigo and I (Carolyn was off climbing things), of course, said yes. This kid proceeded to take us on a 1 hour hike. He was bafefoot and Rodrigo and I were in sandals. We were slipping all over the place, but the kid wasn´t. Figures. Anyway, he found a red frog, shows it to us, turns around and says, "Dollah". He was cute, so we gave him one. He found us a few more after that and got us out of the forest. Good thing, because I had no idea where I was at that point.

There´s one in its natural habitat. they´re tiny, but very red.

So, we were sitting on a dock and I was trying to take a picture of a jellyfish, and a boatman came up and said "they don´t sting. You can pick one up". I looked at him and said something along the lines of "you first" It seemed like a good tourist trick to me. Tell them the jellyfish don't sting, then laugh histerically when they find out otherwise. Anyway, he picked one up, and sure enough, they don´t sting. We then proceeded to pick up jellyfish. We stopped just short of throwing them at each other.

A nice boatmen let Toe drive. I proceeded to put all my water sensitive belognings into my dry bag.

I caught three little fishies. Considering I was fishing with a handline, I was glad they were little fishies and not big fishies. Check out that hair. That´s what you get after a day of swimming in salt water and boating.

Pretty shot from a boat ride :)