Bocas del Toro.

My list of favorite places is getting really long. And my list of places to go, even longer. Myself and 9 other brave souls journeyed to Bocas del Toro Panama for 4 days of mayhem! It was awesome. Highlights and of course lots of pictures!!! We spent lots of time in boats, in the aqua blue and unbelievably warm water, eating delicious bread and sandwiches (neither of these exist in Costa Rica), living it up at the bars with the flocks of travelers, and playing our favorite card game Maui.



The first day after arriving we spent the day at Aqua Lounge...the most amazing hostel ever! It's entirely over the water. Complete with a ocean pool, diving board, swings into the water, water trampoline, and delicious food and beverages. This might be my dream house- minus the bunk beds.



Day 2 was equally amazing as we hired a boat to take us to an isolated beach on one of the islands. We got dropped off at Red Frog beach which looks like one of those computer generated screen savers. We made friends with some local kids by letting them play with our ball. They found cool critters to show us, like polka dotted frogs and translucent crabs. They left me with great memories and some Spanish practice and I left them with my yellow ball as we hiked on to the next destination, Wizard beach. Our boat picked us up here after 6 hours of sun, sand, and awesomeness.



The last day was a bit gloomy on the weather side. But we spiced things up with a catamaran snorkel trip! One of the best things about traveling with 10 people is that it becomes cheaper to go on excursions. We had the boat to ourselves and an awesome captain to provide us with food and beverages.



We went snorkeling twice. Arguably the best snorkeling I have ever done! There were jellyfish in the water that were amazing to watch and the reef was national geographic beautiful. We got to play with starfish and sea cucumbers and of course took tons of underwater photos! We came back from the trip with almost 400 photos, which I have kindly narrowed down for your viewing pleasure!



So all in all, the trip was amazing and wrapped up an awesome birthday week! Panama was country #25 for my 25th birthday! Although, as we were counting countries, an ongoing debate emerged...are England, Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland all counted separately? Or as the UK? and if separate, what about Gibraltar, Puerto Rico, etc... We started asking around to fellow travelers and got mixed results. But for the sake of country #25 for me and #50 for my fellow Vancouverite AJ...separate it is.

Today it was back to class! I just started a three week endeavor in Environmental Conflict Management. Should be sufficiently interesting, depressing, and challenging all at once!