"Bocas del Clos" – an adventure in cheap wine and tomato salsa (and Spanish lessons)

Upon arriving at the Spanish school (escuela in Español, just to prove that I learnt something) I met Philipp and introduced him to one of my beers. Soon Franzie, Jane, Philipp and I were off out for dinner. This would prove to be one of the most memorable weeks of my trip so far. My classe consisted of Franzie, Philipp and I. Though their spoken Spanish far exceeded my skills, and the mix of Swiss-German and Spanish being spoken was a heady mix and certainly enough to confuse my already stretched brain, my Spanish was improved at the end of the five days.

The best thing about the Spanish school was the people I met. I was glad to have the opportunity to improve my language skills, but five days is simply not long enough and there is not enough opportunity to practise (¡praticar!). Also, in my head I had a vision of the school; rightly or wrongly, I considered the “Spanish by the Sea” school to be just that: by the sea. And I guess it was, except I couldn't see the sea from my cave of a room (no joke, no windows, no light) and the beach was really a bit of a walk away or a boat trip. I realise that on the website, it says nothing of sitting on the beach whilst you chat idly away in Español, I added all those bits myself. Still, I could not help being slightly disappointed.

Bocas the town was busy, lots of tourists as Carnival was fast approaching. Meaning that each evening whilst I was there, locals gathered in the streets in all manner of wacky costumes and began whipping men with sticks. It was quite a spectacle. It was hard to explore the neighbouring islands to any degree during the week, as our Spanish classes ran 1pm – 5pm. Most of the good islands were about a half hour or forty five minute boat trip away, sometimes costing as much as $10 per person return. Spending that you really need to have the whole day on the island.

One day we made it to Bastimentos, the fabled island of the Red Frog and Wizard beaches that everyone at the escuela had been talking about. A group of us took the boat to Red Frog beach and arranged our pick up for a few hours later. The only other thing to mention about the Caribbean coast is the unpredictable weather: beautiful sunshine one minute, downpours the next. Philipp and I had hired a body board and a surfboard to give it a go. The tide was tough going though and I gave up pretty soon, but Philipp stuck it out for a few hours – probably because of the atrocious weather. It absolutely chucked it down. We found shelter, with a number of other tourists and locals alike, under a small shack on the beach. Nothing much to do but wait it out for the weather to improve or for our boat to come pick us up.

In total about one hour of sunshine was had, and with just that one hour Franzie and I managed to get burnt to Biblical proportions, despite being sat in the shade with factor 25 sunscreen on. Thank goodness for the foresight of aloe vera gel to cool our toasted skin.

The rest of my time in Bocas was mostly spent drinking the infamous “Clos” (the cheapest wine in Central America which can be purchased in a 2 litre tetra pack and all for the princely sum of $5) cooking (my tomato salsa went down a treat and featured in a number of our meals) and eating with some very fine people, and learning a little bit of Spanish on the side. But after 7 days, it was time to leave Bocas for other Panamanian climbs.

I left with Calyn, a lady who'd also been studying, and together we headed to a hostel in the clouds. And that really is as much as I knew about it, aside from that it was somewhere near Boquette and South of Bocas (which isn't really hard to be, if you look on a map you'll see). Next adventure ahoy!