Seb's round-the-world tour: Life's a beach @ Bocas

Bocas being an archipelago of 9 islands and many tiny ones, although there is no direct beach in town, it is quite easy to reach one!

Local house... separate hut being the restrooms...

Houses on the coast and mangroves
So as I had said in the 1st Bocas post, all the town waterfront is built up, and when you trip around the other islands, it's quite striking that most of the local houses are also built on the shores.

The houses look quite basic… but at the same time, it’s probably quite nice to live in those! At least you can quickly “shower” and have quite a view waking up.

Piers on the coast

There are also boat piers all over, to access houses and island land.

Aqualounge hostel over the water

Then between the houses, or on the rest of the hundreds of coast, except the beaches, the forest is actually a mangrove directly dipping into the sea.

This provides great & original views, and is very enjoyable if you like nature. I am posting few pics below before to talk about the beaches ;)

Island & forest view from Carenero beach

Aqualounge beachclub

This is a place you hear about even before to set feet on Bocas… famous for its night parties, this hostels is right on the water, opposing the Bocas town, and has a deck with pools, swings and a tranpoline to enjoy the sun during the day… and have fun with the bar inside too ☺.

The deck & pools over the water

Spent few afternoons there, as an easy getaway place after the Spanish lessons, accessible with just a 2mn / $1 boat ride… and even worked a bit my Spanish, amazingly!

The swing lines... you can jump from them :)

Carenero beach

Located 5mn from Bocas, and just in front of the “black rock” surfing spot, this small beach has nice views and is really a small sand patch along the mangrove coast.

Taxi boat waiting between Carenero beach & black rock surf spot

A house on a pier

Drinks at BB's after a tough beach afternoon

Pier to grab the boat to Red Frog

Red Frog beach
With a 15mn boat-ride, you can get to the Bastimentos island, which host the Red Frog beach, where a real big white-sand beach welcomes you.

I went there Saturday July 6th.with a dozen of Bocas friends, relaxing under the sun, having fun in the big waves, and enjoying a non-pretentious but good lunch oveviewing the beach. Cannot complain, great afternoon! ;-)

Boat ride with the girls ;)

Fishermen in the middle of the bay

The Red Frog beach

Waves

Discussions under the shadow

Good chicken wraps with Marten

Sunset on Red Frog

Zapatilla beach

Zapatilla beach view

Just as it wasn’t enough, the archipelago also features 2 virgins islands, Zapatilla, where there is only jungle, white-sand beach and turquoise water. Tough! This is located about 1h away from town, so not an every day escapade, but the trip there through the islands and the final location is worth the effort.

We’ve been there to escape a rainy Sunday (July 7^th) in Bocas town, and while it wasn’t a great blue-sky, being in a beautiful place like this with friends just makes a great day.

Off the boat

Arriving there, we hop off the boat then cross the jungle to reach the bigger sand beach tip of the island.

I was barefoot, quite fun to walk there like this… just don’t think to much about the spiders, snakes and other stuffs probably crawling and creeping all around… ;-) Oh, and mosquito are so crazy, barely entered they attack you like we were fresh meat (well, we are actually), despite the repellent.

Then, we just lied down and enjoyed the beach, sun when it popped up, and having fun doing pictures.