Aqua Lounge, Bar, Hostel- Bocas del Toro

How often can you say that the sparkling blue water of the Caribbean Coast can be seen through the floor boards of your hostel? Ummmm hmm? Never. In many a hostel I have stayed, and this was magical to say the least. The Aqua Lounge in Bocas del Toro, a funky hostel built above the water, is part hostel, part bar, part water park.

Rooms are typical hostel style, about ten beds, and you are given a key to lock valuables inside little boxes beside your bed. The two dorm rooms are the only closed off areas in the hostel but when the windows are open there are spectacular views of the ocean and the rest of Bocas del Toro. At night tiny fans kept some of the Bocas heat away in the rooms.

Aqua Lounge was filled with mostly young tourists and adventures from all over the world eager to meet each other; we had and English girl, an Irish girl and two Swedish girls in our room.

The hostel is busy all day with tourists and locals hanging out on the decks, drinking and jumping into the water and on the water trampoline. Swings on the wooden porch allow you to spring into the water or the hole in the middle of the deck that makes a swimming pool in the ocean. There was a terrifying wooden diving board that people were gladly jumping head first off of; I had about four heart attacks just watching.

In the early evening the local children came and were running on the decks, jumping into the swimming pool and off of the trampoline in their underwear.

We heard a rumor that a man named Tarzan had been living at that hostel for seven months and so we were looking for someone really dread locked, really pruned or maybe even wearing a loin cloth but we never figured out who it was.

Across from the main island, the hostel is easily accessible because of the many boats that come back and forth for only a dollar a trip.

Just behind the hostel there is a path that we thought might potentially lead to a beach, but it only curved through the tiny town where teens played soccer and babies waddled on the dirt road. We, still thinking that we may be on the right path, persevered for about twenty minuets and felt that we might perhaps be the butt of the joke that was causing everyone we passed to laugh.

After returning to the hostel defeated, humiliated and very hot, we were told to walk in the other direction but still only found small strips of beach. (See next blog of beach ideas!)

Apparently Monday nights is the night to be at Aqua Lounge, but I would say that every day is magical, raucous fun, and so gorgeous it kept the mysterious Tarzan from leaving for seven months. We only stayed for two days but we left sunburned, hung over, dehydrated and completely satisfied.

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Filed under: Country Guide, Reviews on May 15th, 2008