Red Frog Beach

After a lazy morning waiting for the rain to stop we got ready and walked to the docks...only for it to pour down again so we waited in the tiny shelter for it to stop.

The boats were charging $10 each return to Red Frog Beach however a guy we'd chatted to yesterday offered to throw in some snorkelling on the way which made Anna very happy. We stopped via his house to pick up a snorkel for me (he turned down $3 million from developers for his 35 hectares of land). Then he dropped us off on the other side to the beach and we paid our $3 entry fee. It was a 10 minute walk through the jungle to the beach but took us longer as we scanned every tree for sloths and monkeys - alas, they were all hiding...we need you Alejandro (Amazon tour guide). We had a fruitless search looking in the trees along the beach too.

For the first time in Bocas, the sun actually came out and transformed the rugged, wavy beach into a thing of beauty. Our joy was short lived as it soon started to rain and we took shelter under a huge tree. It dried up enough to lie on the beach for half an hour but it was hardly sunbathing weather :( The water is notorious for riptides so we couldn't go swimming.

We headed back, still unsuccessfully searching for the elusive sloths and met Roberto who took us to a tiny clump of mangroves in the sea for snorkelling. It had started to rain again and I had seen all the starfish from the surface earlier so I couldn't be bothered to get wet. Anna went in though and enjoyed the numerous starfish, sea fans and urchins. Meanwhile I chatted to Roberto about life on the island and he saw a manta ray flying out the water - to shed parasites, a very common sight apparently.

We headed back and read for a while on the deck then headed nearby to Tom Tio's, another guesthouse, and shared a huge pizza for $10. Not the best in the world, but a lot cheaper than our hostel. Again, we could only manage half, leaving us the rest for lunch tomorrow.

Back at Bubba's, we sat on the sofas on the deck to play chess but got distracted talking to Jenni and Heidi (Aussie), some lovely girls living in LA. It turned into one of the nicest evenings we've had. There was a HUGE storm - absolutely torrential rain, the roof was leaking everywhere onto the deck, and the sky lit up with lightning constantly for hours - some of the best fork lightning I've ever seen (even better than on the boat). The lights in the hostel went out for an hour or so making the lightning viewing even better. We sang happy birthday to Heidi for tomorrow. Some drunk English girls took a group photo and we got chatting to everyone else - a proper backpackers hub. We didn't get to bed until gone 1am.Read more