Playa El Istmito

We woke up late in the morning, and it did take us a while to get motivated and move out. It was close to 10 by the time we left the hostel and made our way down the main street. Since we enjoyed our dinner so much the night before, we returned to Om Café to have breakfast there, which needless to say was delicious. It was a bit sad since it was Tristen’s last day in Bocas, and we had been quite the traveling team since Puerto Viejo. After we ate, we returned to the Backpackers place so that she can finish packing. Since she had to be at the airport by mid afternoon, we didn’t have enough time to take a water taxi to some of the beaches on the other islands, so we decided to take a walk to Playa El Istmito, the closest one to the city.

We were a bit disappointed once we got there; even though the location is great, the beach itself was less than pristine, covered in garbage and dead seaweeds. Not, by any means, the type of Caribbean paradise that I had envisioned. It was especially surprising since there were a number of restaurants lining the beach at the adjacent road. We all wondered aloud why the locals wouldn’t start a neighborhood clean up program, since they would all benefit from the additional number of tourists visiting the beach. Nonetheless, we walked all the way until the end and back again, stopping to admire the views of the Chitras Bay. After about an hour and a half, we returned to the hostel for Tristen to grab her bags and then headed to the airport.

The airport in Bocas is nothing more than one building, with the waiting room area taking up the majority of the space. As we waited for Tristen to check in, Kellie made a new friend, a child who we saw playing at the beach on Isla Carenero a few days before. He was waiting for the same flight to San Jose with his father and the nanny, who was too preoccupied with her cell phone to keep an eye on the kid. Luckily, Kellie kept him and us entertained by joking around and playing with the kid, who had to be one of the most spoiled kids I had come across, never knowing the meaning of the word ‘no’. The security at the airport was also laughable; there was one security guard checking the carry on luggage, after which passengers were supposed to sit in a separate area, designated with orange pilons. Kellie and I were laughing that it formed an invisible barrier that should not be crossed, though many people were doing just that. Come to think of it, Kellie ‘snuck in’ to sit next to Tristen, and if she wanted to, she probably could have even boarded the plane.

It came time to say goodbye to Tristen (a whole half an hour later than scheduled), and with promises to keep in touch and share pictures, she boarded the small twin engine plane. We walked outside the airport and stayed by the fence until her plane taxied down the runway and took off towards Costa Rica. We then turned around and walked back to the main street, where I went to the internet café while Eric and Kellie stayed outside, debating whether to take the diving course that we had talked about previously. I had heard about diving and getting the open water certification in Bocas from a number of travelers I had met along the way. Everyone recommended not only Bocas but Starfleet Diving Adventures as one of the cheapest and best schools in Central America. Apparently Panama and Honduras have the lowest prices when it comes to diving.
Once both Kellie and Eric decided to join in on the adventure, we walked over to Starfleet, where we got all of our questions answered, signed up for the course and signed our lives away. We got our books and the homework for the next day, along with all the indemnity forms one can think of, then we went to grab some dinner. We had seen this white van parked right by the central park for a number of days now. On its side was a bright painting of two rasta guys dancing on a beach with palm trees in the background and the text: Caribbean Burgers. We decided to try them out, and as soon as the darkness fell onto the city, the side door swung open and a line up formed right away. Apparently this place was popular with both tourists and locals, and we learned why once we placed our first order. Not only were the burgers really good and really spicy, we were shocked at how much change we got back – a burger was only $1.25! At that price, we had to go back for seconds…After dinner we headed back to the hostel, where we realized that we had quite a lot of reading ahead of us, the first two modules from the diving manual, complete with homework. A good 120 or 130 pages later, we were tired and went to sleep, knowing we would need to have a lot of energy for the next day, where our first underwater adventure was awaiting us.