The Longest Day

Trip to Bocas

The goal: San Jose to Isla Bastimentos in 1 day.

We got on the bus Thursday morning at 9, all our luggage including the surfboards fitting just fine in the cargo, for a 6-hour ride from San Jose to Changuinola, on the coast in Panama. We crossed the border easily but never actually got to Changuinola: stormy weather (uh oh!) was preventing the boats from leaving Changuinola to the islands of Bocas so a shuttle brought us to another harbor, Almirante, where we got on the boat.

The boat, a wood with fiberglass motorboat meant to fit about 16 people, was packed with 20 people and their luggage. And so we embarked… on a Disney ride that painfully lasted a little over a half an hour… the motor of the boat was very powerful, and the sea VERY choppy. About midway through the ride, the guys in the back were getting so wet that the tarp protections had to be brought down around us from the canopy… so we did the rest of the rollercoaster ride enclosed in the dark!! It’s really lucky that no one got sick in that musty atmosphere…

We arrived safe and sound on Isla Colon – the main island – but we still needed to get to our final destination: Isla Bastimentos. By then, it was dark already and I wasn’t all that keen on doing the rollercoaster ride in the pitch black night but Paul didn’t want to lug our stuff around another day… so back on the rollercoaster we were, in fresh air this time, and only for 10 minutes…
The only slight issue remaining was that the storm had damaged the underwater electric cable linking Bastimentos to Colon and so the island was pitch black with the exception of a couple of stores with generators. So we found our hostel and room at the light of a key chain flashlight!! (and if it weren’t for Paul’s all around readiness, I would have been crawling on all fours up the stairs to find the place! :D)

But we made it! Ten hours after leaving San Jose we were on Isla Bastimentos, from the capital city to the island with no cars….