After a 1.5 day mission in various packed mini-vans and a water taxi we made it to Bocas del Toro, an island chain on the Carribean side of Panama. Bocas has a repuation as a party town but we were here to surf and learn Spanish... with maybe a little bit of partying (Carnival was due to start at the end of our week of Spanish school so we could hardly avoid it!).
The surf in the Carribean isn't very consistent or even predictable so you have to get lucky to score it. If you do get lucky it can be absolutely great. We weren't lucky in the first week but got through 4 hours a day of Spanish school AND both managed to complete scuba diving courses! We had a busy week actually, doing 12 hours per day of studying with a few scuba dives. Jack got his Open Water certification (finally) and I got my Rescue Diver (and had fun exploring all the coral and shipwrecks).
Friday night kicked off 5 days and nights of partying for Carnival. Great fun. After a huge bbq at the Spanish school we headed into the main street which was full of hundreds of people dancing with drumming groups and dancers parading around and $1 beers! Thanks Nicole and Jenny for letting me steal your photos. Luckily our hostel was away from the noise so we could escape whenever we liked. There are also plently of bars and I ended up out later than planned quite a few nights in a row.
We'd booked our hostel through to the end of Carnival but it looked like a swell was coming so we extended a few days to try and catch it. Bocas has a bit of a reputation for people staying longer than planned but it was too easy for us with quite a few friends in town from the Spanish school, cheap drinks every night and a hostel that backed onto the water. We had a few surfs in average conditions, a couple more dives, a few more nights out of varying magnitude and explored a couple of the neighbouring islands. Oh and I saw a couple of sloths in the jungle! (sorry Jack)
Finally the swell turned on. The last couple of days absolutely pumped and we got our fill proper overhead reefbreak waves. The winds are weird here, they actually stay light and offshore all day so when the surf is on you can really make the most of it. Would love to see this place firing for a more sustained perioud but the swell dropped almost as soon as it came, time to head on to Costa Rica...
We had a great time in Bocas, met lots of cool people (quite sad to part ways in fact), had some really fun nights out and spent lots of time in the water (even if lots of it was scuba diving). Fairly cheap too, lots of nights in the bar I only spent $10 and most of our meals were $3 a pop for a massive plate of chicken, rice and veg (we're going to miss Chitre, the best cafe ever). We had to leave though, I ended up with no voice and a headcold due to lack of sleep!
