Our 3 nights on the Island of Barú were a Caribbean vacation. We rented a 3-bedroom house with a private beach shared by about 8 houses. John found it on Airbnb and we highly recommend it (sleeps 8). The house manager, Manuel, helped us with activities during the day and his mother-in-law, Leni, cooked and cleaned. It was fantastic. We arrived in the afternoon and relaxed on the beach for the rest of the day.
John and B played a fair amount of ping pong (we brought the net, rackets, and ball with us from Argentina where they also had gotten a lot of use). I had packed a number of games for us to play when we weren't in the water. They were never used. Instead, each of us found a book and we all read a ton during our stay on Isla Barú.
On the second day, our major activity was snorkeling. We didn't take a camera, so we don't have any photos of the experience. To snorkel, we hired Manuel to get a motorboat. He drove us to 2 snorkeling locations. F loved snorkeling. B had a hard time with his mask. John didn't feel comfortable snorkeling so he floated around with a big sun hat on his head. I stupidly forgot to order prescription goggles from the United States so I could barely see a thing - I saw some brightly colored moving spots that must have been fish but I couldn't see them very well, and when I took my head out of the water, I couldn't see a thing without my glasses. I enjoyed myself but would have liked the experience more if I had better vision.
The activity for the third day was to walk to the town of Barú. Manuel had to accompany us because otherwise we would not have known which trail to take and would have gotten lost.
The activity for the third day was to walk to the town of Barú. Manuel had to accompany us because otherwise we would not have known which trail to take and would have gotten lost.
As soon as we crossed the swamp and entered the outskirts of Barú, this man tried to sell us overpriced jewelry. Manuel advised us not to buy from the man because he overcharges and has vices, so we didn't. After we walked away with B whining that we didn't buy him the necklace that he wanted, the man ran up to us and insisted on giving the necklace to B (we think it was a ploy to guilt us into buying something from him but we didn't do so). Manuel took us to a woman in town who sold us a necklace at a much lower price than this man.
On our last morning there was a big storm. Big rains aren't unusual but big rains combined with strong wind are unusual.