90. Bocas del Toro, Bastimentos Island (Panama)

23.04.22-29.04.22

From Isla Colón we are now driving to our next hostel on Isla Bastimentos!

Katja and Uli, who are staying on Colón, accompany us for a day and we set off together to discover Bastimentos..

First we walk about 30 minutes through the jungle to the lonely Wizard Beach - on the way there we are warned not to take any bags with us and there are signs warning against theft..

From Wizard Beach we continue through the jungle to Playa Redfrog. The paths in the jungle are often hardly recognizable, the mosquitoes besiege us and we are glad to have escaped the green wilderness after about an hour.

Already on the first way to Wizard Beach we discover a strange man in camouflage colors who is watching us from the bushes and later on the lonely Wizard Beach two angry looking men with machetes come towards us - luckily we are only reading the many reports about robberies with machetes the next day!

We had a great day together! But now it's time to say goodbye - see you in Nuremberg in December! ❤

Bastimentos is a strange island. At first we had the wrong impression - when we arrived everyone seemed happy, music was playing everywhere...but gradually we realized that nobody was really in a good mood here. There is no greeting, no smiles, everyone is sitting around bored and there is a tense mood! And from the afternoon onwards everyone gets more and more drunk and you can hear loud arguments and shouts from every corner!

When the Panama Canal was built back then, the workers came from different countries and developed their own language - a mixture of Spanish, French and English - which has remained to this day and is only understood here.

We visit the small island of Carenero twice. Here everything immediately seems friendlier and more open, somehow completely different.

The beaches are beautiful

the village simple but very relaxed and friendly,

and there are lots of great starfish.

The weather continues to go haywire, raining every night and often during the day...kind of fits the weird vibe of Bastimentos!

Finally, we have to say that hostels with communal areas are not for us. We were really annoyed by all the other guests the days - never say hello, just look stupid, block the mini communal kitchen for hours and just be stupid! Apparently we're really too old for this shit!