Playa Compuesta
I'm in Panama, beach!The most depressing thing (for me) in Panama City? Being on the coast and not swimming and sunbathing. It's like having a burger in front of you and couldn't eat it. So after few days, the only thing to do was to go for the beach, sun and the ocean.
I will not talk about the drive there (you can read all about that here), I will just tell you our coconut story :) and marvel about this particular beach:
... which brings me to 'Our coconut story'. So, let's hear (read) it: walking along the beach listening to the waves, we saw many things and two of those things were coconuts. Yes, there are coconut palms along the beach. Yes, there were coconuts fallen in the sand. Yes, we did crash the coconuts because we felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away movie (but a bit more glamorous :D). It started quite innocently - and not unexpectedly - we saw the coconuts. After we had seen "pipa fria" signs everywhere along the road (and after not having at least one), we grabbed two of them. Now comes the question - HOW? How were we supposed to crack them? (If you ever tried to do that, you know that they're a lot harder than one thinks). First Telchac tried hitting one with the other - nothing happened. Then coconut against the palm - nothing happened. Then coconut against my head - slight crack appeared - just kidding :D - no crack at all :D. We looked around, there were few houses but we couldn't just come up to their fence and smash the coconuts there (or could we? :D). We needed some other idea. What was necessary in that precarious situation was an object made by a human (yes, the feeling of being "cast away" had strengthened). We were walking (barefoot) closer to the houses. There was no sand, just little nasty pebbles that kept stinging our feet. When I saw it, I immediately knew THIS was what we needed - an electrical enclosure. :D Telchac was little sceptical at first but being desperate (some of us) and determined (some of us) as we were, he gave it a try. It took another maybe 15 minutes of violence and aggression to crack both coconuts. BUT! the pure happiness of drinking the coconut water out of the coconut you cracked not using any tools (except for the enclosure, ofc) is just not so easy to describe. Pure pleasure! :)
Useful tip: if you arrived from Europe, use the jet lag in a right way - go see the sunrise!
Apart from coconut breaking we also spent our time beach walking (I hear it's the new IT thing, everybody in LA does it :D). We set out, then halfway there (nowhere in particular) we usually went for a swim, cooled down and went on. We also saw some people collecting garbage and, looking back, this is a perfect way to "use" your time at the beach. If you're not a 'let's sunbath all day long' type, try it! Surprisingly (ironic surprise) you don't need almost any equipment and you can do this at any beach you might think of.
Other than that we also recommend doing a little photo shoot. You can either try getting best beach/nature shot or you can find a place to put your phone/camera on and have an excellent memory to hang on the wall after you come back. (And, you will finally understand how hard Victoria's Secret models work when they have to pose standing on hot sand!) It doesn't really matter if you're a skilled photographer or not, if you have a camera or just your phone - have fun, do your best and enjoy!
Disclaimer: all of the activities mentioned in this blog are recommended at your own risk. We do not take any responsibility for your sunburn and/or people chasing you if you smash any coconuts on their property.
Next post will be more Pura Vida style as we're (finally) going to Costa Rica! CU there!