A Trip To The Bocas (Chica and Brava)

My friends, Kris and Joel Cunningham, and a neighbor of theirs, Lauren, made a trip over to the Boca Chica/Boca Brava area today, with Joel driving.

The Interamerican Highway is under construction the whole way from David to Santiago in the middle of the country though traveling over to where we turned off to Hoconcitos was pretty easy going. The road from Horconcitos to Boca Chica, which is on the mainland was a different story. We passed a lot of houses that gringos would definitely consider hovels, some made of split bamboo and others that looked as though they were made of discarded lumber picked up along the highway somewhere. But as we discussed, at least these people have places to live. They have homes and aren’t living under bridges which, to our group’s way of thinking is a huge step up from being homeless in America.

The road from Horconcitos ends at the waterfront in Boca Chica…

One of the biggest lies found in travel guides, anywhere, is the phrase, “English is widely spoken.” Well, sort of…

We caught a water taxi from Boca Chica…

Over to the Hotel Boca Brava where I promptly fell in love wit the girl who works at the restaurant there. As usual I didn’t take nearly enough photos of the whole event. But to access the hotel you have to walk up about eighteen hundred gazillion stairs. I found it to be a challenge, but the views when we got up to the top were worth the pain…

Looking out towards the Pacific Ocean.

Looking back towards the mainland.

I don’t know how drunk the driver had to be to pile this truck up at the Boca Brava Hotel maybe 75 feet above the water and with no road…

We had lunch at the hotel with huge, surprisingly tasty hamburgers and fries while Lauren opted for the “fish fingers.” I never realized fish had hands, let alone fingers…

Back on the mainland I asked one of the fishermen if he knew of anyone who had a boat they wanted to sell. He said he did, but it needed work and pointed down the shoreline and wanted to take me there, forthwith, as they say, and it was all I could do to get him to stop trying to get me to go along with him. He said the owner wanted about $2,500. I’d seen the boat, I’m sure, from the water taxi, and if this isn’t it, the color scheme is the same, then it’s pretty close. Yellow and red. On the way out of town we took a peek at where the boat was. These boats are very narrow, with a beam of about six feet which, if you go look back at my post about the narrow boats of England, can make quite tidy homes. This hull, rather roughly finished fiberglass, is about 30 feet long.

Before heading for home, we swung off the road to Horconcitos onto a horrible road that took up to the Seagull Cove Lodge where Kris and Joel have stayed several times. They were very warmly greeted by the manager, Marcelo. Joel took this picture of Marcelo, Kris, Lauren in the background and myself, standing out at the edge of the dining room.

The views from where we were standing were gorgeous. In fact, they all were.

On the road back to the Interamerican Highway there are some spectacular vistas. It’s a shame a two-dimensional camera can’t capture the depth of the scenery.

Traffic was much heavier on the way back into the city but Joel and Kris dropped me off at the bus terminal around 4 o’clock or so and I was home, dead tired but happy by 5.