I’m Loca for Boca(s)! (by Ella Gavin, age 10)

OK. I'm FINALLY writing my first blog entry. You saw in Jack’s blog entry that our trip to Panama started in Casco Viejo. I loved some parts of that trip but cities aren’t usually my favorite because I don’t like walking all over a city and that's what my parents have us do. So I was excited to go to Bocas del Toro, a bunch of islands on the Caribbean side of Panama! What I wasn’t excited for was waking up at 4:30 am (and that was 3:30 for us because we were still on Costa Rica time!).

Using the "travel games" book from Auntie Boo on the plane.

It was a very short plane ride to get there and after that we had to take a BOAT to our hotel (you can’t drive there). Who takes a BOAT to a hotel?

Coming up to our hotel (there are only 8 huts!)

The hotel we stayed at was like nothing I have ever seen. The ENTIRE hotel was on stilts on the water (!?!). The “hallway” was a long dock and you could see fish and sting rays swimming under you while you walked to your room. The “rooms” were little huts on the water and you could jump off your own dock out your back door and snorkel any time you wanted. We had to sleep with mosquito nets at night. There was also a big hut with a restaurant and lots of board games and kayaks. That’s it. That was the entire hotel!

The hallway kept going to a little hut waaaay down that had hammocks to sit in.

Our room (we had the big hut because it was the only one that could fit all of us!)

Moving in! This was our hut. The kids had beds downstairs and the parents had a bed in a loft.

Each day we took a boat to a different activity. You could just get a boat captain and he'd give you some ideas and take you there when you wanted to go. We did something each day but we also spent a lot of time hanging out at the hotel because it was awesome (swimming, snorkeling, playing games...). The first day we went to a beach and snorkeled a little bit. It was nice but there were weird little prickly things in the water at that one beach and they would poke you. Ouch! And now I still have a few stuck in my bathing suit that I have to get rid of! But it was still fun and then we took the boat to another beach and ate lunch and made a big sand castle and tried to smash coconuts. I was good at smashing coconuts!

Liadan and Charlie hang out at the beach.

The next day we went to a dolphin cove and watched dolphins swimming all around us. One time the dolphins swam right next to our little boat and started jumping out of the water. It was really cool! After that, we tried snorkeling at a really cool reef but the current was really strong and kept pulling me backwards. I would swim forwards but I would move backwards! All the ladies got out quickly (me and Lia and Mom). Then Jack got out and it was just my dad and Charlie still going and going. Charlie loves fish and is a fish. He can swim for hours if he wants to. It was still really cool.

After that we had lunch at a really, really cool restaurant on stilts in the water. They cooked lobsters and fish that they just caught and I had the best chicken ever (he may have just been caught but I’m not sure). The ride back in the boat to the hotel was CRAZY! There were huge waves and it started pouring so we all got SOAKED and it was a long boat ride. But I LOVED bumping up and down on the waves. It was really fun!

The next day we went into Bocas Town on the boat for a quick trip to get lunch and walk around. It was funny taking the boat back afterwards because it is a small boat and we had to squish in there with the ladies who were coming out to the hotel to cook dinner and with all the groceries they were bringing with them to cook for dinner. The restaurant cooks some things from town and some things that they catch right out of the water.

Me looking at an abandoned house on the road walking from the boat into Bocas Town.

Me squished in next to the groceries being brought out to the hotel to make dinner!

Kids were just running around the docks in Bocas Town jumping into the water off boat, etc.

The rest of the last day we spent at the hotel. We spent hours and hours snorkeling right off our dock (going under the restaurant, and near the mangroves on the shore and we saw a LOT of cool fish). After snorkeling I went with my dad kayaking. I went another day, too. I learned that I really love kayaking and my dad and I are going to go sea kayaking and camping in Maine sometime after we get back! I also towed Liadan around in the water behind my kayak. It was fun!

I let Liadan sit on my lap and taught her to kayak too.

It was also lots of fun just hanging around the hotel. Almost NOBODY was there. Just one other couple. So we got to hang around the big restaurant hut and play games like Connect Four, Monopoly and Uno. We even played Uno with one of the guys who works there. We also got to see tons of really bright stars and tons of star fish. That’s two kinds of stars!

Playing Uno with Jorge (he was a really fun and funny guy who worked at the hotel).

Jack tries to bend his knees to look closer to Liadan's height but he is still WAY bigger!

Sunset (that's our room in the background).

Every day local fisherman would come by in a long canoe and sell the restaurant what they caught that day and they would make dinner with it!

Hanging out reading before bed in the room.

That hotel was my favorite hotel EVER and I am going to remember it for the rest of my life. My family says they are going to remember it, too. It was so much fun. I love Panama!!!!!!

Family picture on the dock before we left. : (

This was our tiny plane back to Costa Rica!

A picture of our hotel from the plane as we left!

A picture of San Jose as we landed. That's the National Stadium where Uncle Patrick finished the marathon in December. Back to Costa Rica!