Tag: backpacking

Casa en el Agua

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For our last destination along Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Hannah and I headed somewhere pretty special. Months before we got there, when we were still in Scotland and planning the trip, we were trying to figure out a rough itinerary. Seeing as it was a long trip, two and a half months over three countries, we wanted to leave room for flexibility. The itinerary for Honduras was pretty set but beyond that, we had started to figure out where we wanted to go and a rough order but considering we were going to be travelling in low season for Central America, it wasn’t necessary to book everything way in advance.

That is, other than this place. I can’t remember exactly how I came across it but I think it was on Instagram. A picture perfect location that honestly didn’t look real and definitely not like somewhere I would ever have thought I’d be able to visit. Except, it was just a few hours from Cartagena where we already knew we would be going! Because it’s such an incredible place, it books up fast all year round. So the first part of our time in Colombia was built around the nights that we were able to book in what is possibly heaven on earth – Casa en el Agua.

Casa en el Agua touts itself as an eco-friendly hostel and is located in the San Bernardo Islands, about two hours by boat from Cartagena. Ten islands make up the archipelago, nine natural and one man-made, and Casa en el Agua is found just off the largest one, Isla Tintipán, and near Santa Cruz del Islote, the artificial island that is known for being the most densely populated island in the world (you might want to fact check that though). Almost all of the staff come from the surrounding islands. The hostel is in Parque Nacional Natural Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo and does everything it can to respect and protect the beautiful surroundings. This park holds the biggest coral reef on the Colombian Caribbean coast and you can find 170 species of fish, 52 types of coral and 25 sponges.

To get there, you have to book the boat journey through the hostel’s partner boat company, Tranq It Easy. It leaves the main pier in Cartagena at 9am and costs $70 for the return journey. You can pay this online as well as for the hostel but make sure to bring cash for your bar tab, any tours and extra food! It’s also recommended to leave your big bags on the mainland as space on the boat and in the hostel is limited. We had stayed in Republica hostel in Cartagena, partly because we had seen that they have bag storage (and it was a great hostel anyway).

As soon as you get off the boat, you’re welcomed with a drink and a snack (an empanada for us) and then we got shown to our hammocks. Upstairs, there are a number of private rooms and one dorm but running around the outside is a balcony full of hammocks. We had opted for this because the dorm was sold out and the private rooms would stretch the budget even more than we already were! I actually loved being in a hammock though – I love sleeping in a hammock, the balcony got a nice cool breeze at night and seeing as it’s literally a floating hostel, I didn’t have any concerns about leaving my stuff lying around. There is a bit of noise that comes up from the party downstairs at night that might bother you if you leave early but that’s just part of what you sign up for.

Downstairs, there are plenty of spots to lounge including hammocks, the central table used for meal times, other tables and sun beds. Hannah and I had gotten a bit confused in our research and initially didn’t think that food was included in the price but it turns out it was! Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all included which made the more expensive beds (or hammocks in this case) better value in our eyes. Breakfast was usually eggs, some Colombian pastries and fruit. For lunch and dinner, there’s either a fish or veggie option plus you can change it to fresh crab and lobster for an extra £8. There’s a bar where you can buy drinks and snacks (though the meal portions were big enough that I didn’t need anything!), all done through a wristband you get when you check in. Plus, there’s coffee, tea and drinking water available for free all day!

First things first after we arrived, it was into our swimsuits and that was pretty much it for the weekend! I found my friend Jing who I had originally met in the bus station in Santa Marta on our way up to Punta Gallinas. I introduced her to Hannah and she introduced us to a Dutch girl called Rachel and we became a little crew, not just for our time in Casa en el Agua but beyond! We met lots of great people while we were there, only a night for some of them but there’s a few that I still keep in touch with. There were Carlos and Ana, a couple from Gran Canaria, a group of English lads that I definitely stereotyped before we got chatting to them but who were actually lovely (I figured out that one of them had lived in China as well and spoke Chinese too so we baffled the group by having a conversation together!), Rachel and Evan, an English couple on a big South America trip, and a Colombian guy called Daniel.

The afternoon was basically spent alternating between swimming and reading which is my idea of heaven. It was such a picture perfect place, a photoshoot had to be had and then we sat around taking in the beautiful sunset before grabbing a shower. The showers are only available in the evening for a couple of hours. They’re not great, really just a trickle of fresh water but it’s good to wash the salt off. That’s all you really need seeing as most people are only really there for a day or two and you’re just going to get straight back into the ocean. The toilets were not as bad as I thought they would be either. Casa en el Agua has dry toilets meaning that they don’t flush or use any water so you just have a pee into it or if you have to go number two, you pour some sawdust and lime onto it which helps it decompose. It’s another part of the eco-friendly nature of the hostel.

In the evening, the vibes really pick up and the party starts! I was having a great time, having a bit of a boogie and decided to join some of our new friends for a night time swim which was great fun! Until… I got stung by a jellyfish! Something was irritating my neck and then there was this sharp pain across my elbow and a little over my stomach and back. I knew what it was because I’ve been stung before but it doesn’t make it hurt less. I got some ice and one of the girls that works there got me some vinegar. Thankfully the pain didn’t actually last as long as the last time I was stung and the ice helped relieve it. I stayed up for a little longer having a dance and then slipped away to go to bed.

I woke up with the sun on our second day but was quite happy just chilling in my hammock for a while. Then it was bikini and shorts on, kindle in hand, ready for the day. We said goodbye to those people that were leaving after breakfast and then the day alternated between reading, swimming, playing some cards before watching the sunset again. The hostel does have equipment you can use for free like snorkels and ones you can rent like stand up paddle boards, kayaks and wakeboards as well as tours but Hannah and I were mostly happy doing nothing. We did do a lap of the hostel with some snorkels and I watched Hannah jump off the platform upstairs. I wasn’t feeling as much in the party mood that night and it seemed like most of the people I had been spending time with also opted for an early night. I quite enjoyed lying in my hammock with my book, listening to the music from downstairs.

On our last morning, I got woken up at 4am by the biggest clap of thunder and ended up watching a thunderstorm across the water which was a bit magical. Other than the faraway storm, it was quiet with most people still sleeping and the temperature was lovely and cool. I got a little more sleep before getting up properly at 6.30. I decided against getting in the water, as much as I was tempted, but I didn’t want to be damp on the boat back and it was actually a little chilly! I spent the morning reading more (why break a habit of a lifetime!) and then it was back to Cartagena to pick up our bags and head to the airport to move onto the next stage of our Colombia trip…

This was an incredible experience, I’m so glad we did it and two nights was the perfect amount of time but it is also a very expensive experience. We stayed in hammocks for 230,000COP (£46) a night and the return boat ride was $70 (£56) so a total of £148. I think the bed (or hammock in this case) price is justified because that also includes three meals a day. However I do think the boat is overpriced even if it is a two hour journey. I have no regrets but I recognise that it’s an expensive thing to do, especially if you add on tours or activities while you’re there. I was more than happy to do nothing and appreciate what we were paying for – the stunning location and the novelty of staying in a floating hostel. For me, it was worth it.

Bocas del Toro

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The second country on my big summer trip was Panama, the last country in Central America that I had yet to visit. When I was planning a trip to Honduras and Colombia, I thought that Panama would make the perfect stop on the way. At first, I’ll admit that it was a bit of a tick box exercise to ‘complete’ Central America but in the end, I was so pleasantly surprised! Panama doesn’t get as much attention as some of its neighbours but I definitely think it’s worth a visit. I’m going to have a dedicated blog to each destination we visited and I think that we had a great variety of activities in our two weeks there.

Leaving Honduras, one of my favourite places on earth, was already difficult enough but for some reason, Hannah and I decided to make it even more challenging by spending four days on buses to go from Utila, Honduras to Bocas del Toro, Panama. The reasons for this are honestly kind of blurry now but I think it was to do with flights being very expensive and awkward. This journey took us via Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and San José, the capital of Costa Rica (at this point I didn’t know how soon I would be back here!). The last part day of the journey involved crossing the border into Panama, managing to get help across the border and a cheap minibus ride to the ferry and finally the boat to the island archipelago of Bocas del Toro. There are three main islands making up Bocas del Toro: Isla Colón which houses the main town, confusingly also called Bocas del Toro; Isla Bastimentos; and Isla Carenero.

Hannah and I stayed in a hostel called Aqua Lounge on Isla Carenero. Despite not being on the same island as the main town, it is visible from Aqua Lounge, just a few hundred metres across the water. You can take a water taxi for $1 (USD is the Panamanian currency) which takes 30 seconds and really easy to flag down. It’s known for being a bit of a party hostel but because we were there in low season it was actually pretty chill. There seems to be a lot of good places to stay in Bocas and a lot of hostel bars like in Aqua Lounge and Selina (a chain of hostels you’ll find all over Central America and Colombia) are open to the public so you can still go and hang out there and meet people. I will say, because of the humidity in Bocas, I think air con for your room is a must! Hannah and I had splurged for it in our private room which was a bit of a treat in itself (although sometimes a private room is the same price as two dorm beds) but after our arduous journey we felt like we deserved it!

The view from Aqua Lounge across the Bocas Town

For our first full day in Bocas, we had done something a little out of the ordinary for us but it ended up being one of my favourite days of the whole trip! We signed up for a tour of some of the best spots around the islands. After so many days on buses, the idea of someone telling us where to go and then taking us there was very appealing! It was good value for $30 and came with a deal on a shuttle to our next destination for $15. Our first stop was the aptly named Bahía de Delfines (Dolphin Bay). We had just seen rough toothed dolphins in Utila but the ones we saw here were grey dolphins. They come to this area particularly during breeding season, when we were there, because there are a lot of jellyfish for them to eat. The jellyfish are also why you can’t get in to swim with the dolphins here. Even though you couldn’t get into the water with them, it was so fun to be around the dolphins. They were enjoying playing in the wake of the boat, jumping out of the water and following us around for a while.

The second stop was in Cayo Zapatilla, an uninhabited island, great for snorkelling because of how shallow it is! We saw lots of fish and even two sleeping nurse sharks only 10m from the shore. We had an hour or so of free time here so Hannah and I also took a wee walk through the forest and our boat captain John macheted open a coconut for us! We stopped for lunch at a floating restaurant at Coral Cay, near another snorkelling spot called ‘The Garden’ that we would go to after eating. Lunch was included in the tour, I chose creole octopus which came with rice, salad and patacones (fried plantain fritters).

We had a quick stop at a place known as Hollywood because there are so many starfish. They weren’t very easy to see but our hostel had a lot of starfish visible from the dock anyway so I wasn’t that bothered. And then as a bonus, Captain John took us to see his friend, Pepe the sloth! We actually saw three, including a mother holding a baby! The mother was climbing down the tree and considering that sloths only do this when they need to go number two, we all know what was about to happen.

For our second day in Bocas, we went diving! I’ve never been diving anywhere in Central America other than Honduras so I was excited to see what it would be like. We went with La Buga Dive and Surf who were great (big thanks to our divemaster Anna who had actually come in from another company, Pirates, to help for the day). We headed there a little bit early because they have kayaks and paddle boards that you can use for free before or after your dive that we wanted to make use of. La Buga also has agastro market so it’s a nice place to get some food or a drink which we did after our dives. The dock area is a cool place to hang out and if you look around the edges of the swimming hole, you might spot some baby squid like we did! We also saw a porcupine fish (aka a puffer fish) off the dock!

We went to a site next to Isla Solarte first, known as Magic Wind or Buoy Line. We saw so much! A nurse shark, lion fish, two nudibranchs making more nudibranchs (if you know what I mean), two stingrays, one of which was massive, so many sea cucumbers, arrow crabs, a cowfish, lots of colourful brittle stars and some baby trumpet fish which are cute. There’s a wreck as well so we got to swim around and then through the window!

Our second dive was at a site that Ana had been telling us about before, her favourite called Sachen. It’s basically a big mound under the water but is super colourful and with lots to see. We saw another nurse shark, a couple of spotted lobsters, two scorpionfish, disco fish, fireworms, a giant hermit crab, squirrelfish and blue tangs. It was actually a really challenging dive because the current was pretty strong. To start with we were swimming against the current so not moving anywhere really fast and then it was really shallow so we were getting battered about a lot. It was better once we were able to just go with the movement though.

That covers the main things we did while in Bocas del Toro. We enjoyed the chill vibe of the islands a lot, recovering from a long journey to get there. There are a lot of nice looking cafes and places for food, some of which we tried and many more that we didn’t. Bocas can also be a bit of a party town if you want it to be. We went for a few drinks one night, crossing the water from our hostel and meeting some people at the bar in the Selina hostel. We also happened across karaoke which was fun (to watch!). One of the main attractions to Bocas though is the Filthy Friday island party crawl. It’s similar to the Sunday Funday pool crawl in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua that Hannah and I both went to when we were 18 and living in Honduras. Unfortunately, we were leaving Bocas on a Friday so we didn’t get to experience it for ourselves. I’m sure we could have rearranged things a little in order to attend but we also didn’t really want to. Overall, this trip was more chill, enjoying a few drinks at the beach, with sunset or with new friends and with only a few of what could be called big nights out.

This trip is getting further and further in the rearview mirror but writing these blogs gives me a great chance to reminisce on an incredible trip. I’ve always said that I write this blog for myself more than anyone else reading it so even as more time passes, I’m still just as keen to get it down on paper, so to speak. It’s something that I can look back on and gives me a chance to reflect. Saying that, I hope you’re still enjoying reading them as much as I am writing them!