Life in the Caribbean is quite a change of pace for me. Days go by at such a slow rate that you loose track of time and forget when you arrived at the place you're staying. Sometimes it's even difficult to speculate where you were prior to arriving. Days of the week? Forget that, every day might as well be an endless Saturday in the middle of summer.
The neighbors in Cahuita were a rowdy group of howler monkeys whose wild uproars would wake me in the night. On the way back to my hostel one night I tripped over a creature the size of a house cat, that turned out to be a land crab with pinchers the size of soup ladles, raised and ready to take on anything. Geckos scamper across the ceilings and dart into cracks in the walls. I'm quite content with this company though, as I've seen more wildlife in just a week here than anywhere I've ever been. Sloths lounge in the trees and uncountable species of birds sing songs I've never imagined could exist. While snorkeling in Cahuita National Park I saw three nurse sharks, a couple sting rays, lobsters and a wide array of star fish, sea anemones and coral.
Puerto Viejo is a beach town with a laid back Caribbean vibe. Rastas stroll around the street to an unheard beat selling fresh fruit and tossing fishing lines in the water from the beach. The main drag only spans about five blocks but is littered with eateries serving delicious Caribbean dishes made with coconut milk and a wide array of spices. For breakfast and lunch I devour mangoes, guzzle chunks of pineapple and slurp the milk and scoop out the meat of freshly cracked coconuts. There's nothing more refreshing on a scorching hot day in the Caribbean where it hasn't rained for days and the sea is so calm that the water near the surface is too warm to be refreshing. But it makes for great snorkeling, which has been almost daily activity for me.
I've crossed the border now into Panama and I'm currently staying the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro. The lush, green islands that make up this archipelago are covered in mangroves, swamps and dense jungle. Picture the Everglades if you've ever been there. Motorboat taxis will shuttle you from island to island, some of which are so close that you could probably swim if you were daring enough. On Isla Bastimentos, beautifully colored clapboard houses line the coast and extend up into the hills.
The people here are lively, open and hospitable. At any given point in the night you can hear latin music blasting in the bars and restaurants; salsa, merengue, cumbia, bachata and reggaeton. The town of Bocas del Toro, which is the capital of the province of the same name, was celebrating its African heritage yesterday with festivities from 10 am to... we'll just say very late. Hundreds of people filled the streets and watched the performances on the stage, which happened to be right in front of my hostel. Dancers dressed in their traditional clothing put on a array of different acts that I enjoyed from the balcony above. As I got back to my hostel late last night, the party was still going on everywhere you looked in the streets.
But this scalding, humid climate is starting to wear on a man from the mountains. The sun wakes me abruptly every morning around 7am, and even naps are difficult in a town where the music never stops. Plus, I'm constantly covered in a sheen of sweat, which flows out of my pores at a steady drip, drip, drip. You get what I mean. So I'm heading to the highlands, the town of Boquete which is near Panama's only Volcano and highest point - Volcan Baru. Some of the country's best coffee is produced here, and I'm on a mission to get to the source.
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