Bocas del Toro

We are in this internet cafe tonight trying to decide where to go next from Panama. We are debating between a serious adventure or a relaxing time. We`ve heard that el salvador is a beautiful place with good surfing and not as touristy as Costa Rica. But to get there would mean taking a 48 hour bus ride through Nicaragua and Honduras to get there. I really don´t know if I could handle that. Or we could go to a few different towns in Costa Rica and not spend all the time traveling. It`s funny, at different times, we`re both talking each other into one or the other, but we never seem to agree on the same destination at the same time.

We`ve been traveling with a really cool couple from France. It has been such a great (and very interesting) expeience for me. Their names are Nico and Charlotte and they are fluent in French and Spanish....so that doesn´t leave alot for me to talk about with them. So for the past few days, all the conversation has been in Spanish, I have gotten better at catching bits and pieces of the conversation and try to pipe in once in a while with a laugh or a `yo tambien` (me too). Ty has been trying to give me a crash course in Spanish so I can feel more included, but to not much avail. He is very good at translating for me and it has been really fun. They are so laid back and fun to travel with.

Today we took a boat tour around some different islands in Panama. It is fun to be on the Caribbean side, it is so beautiful here. The water is so clear! We went snorkeling today and saw so many colorful fish, I felt like I was in Finding Nemo. It was a little scary becuase there were alot of jelly fish in the water, but no stings so that was good! And we saw alot of fish that looked like baby sword fishes, but the craziest thing was we saw a 4 foot long barracuda! I saw it when we were about 10 feet away and just grabbed on to Ty and we swam back as fast as we could. It had some serious teeth showing, I got out of the water as fast as I could. I was pretty spooked and didn´t get in the water again. But we took a picture of the barracuda from a boat dock nearby so hopefully it turns out. I wish I could post some pictures. Tomorrow morning we are going to go stay on a different island called Bastimentos. The song 'Ooooh Barracuda' was in my head all afternoon.

The food in Panama hasn´t been much to write home about. We ordered a 'Carribean Special' for dinner tonight and it was just a few pieces of meat and beans and rice that tasted like they were made last week. But we did find a cool Indian resturaunt last night. The Island we are going to tomorrow only has 6 places to stay, 5 resturaunts and no grocery stores...so we're going to stock up on food right now!