Islands.

If I had a camera, this is where I would post some photos of Bocas del Toro. Imagine: Caribbean islands covered in dense jungle. Brightly painted huts with thatched or zinc roofs on stilts over the water. Coconut palms and wooden boats that you take between islands. I would also probably put up a picture of my feet with their pebbled texture from so many mosquito bites. The problem with tropical paradises is that all the fauna wants to eat you.

The main town of Bocas is on Isla Colon and is based entirely on partying. After a few days of that, I ran away to Isla Bastimentos which is much quieter. There are no roads or cars and I adore it. I could gush about this place all day long.

The problem now is where do I go after this? I've been traveling on and off with a group of about 8 kids I met a few weeks ago. But the Canadians and Americans are leaving soon and the English guy is traveling north to Honduras, stopping back in Tamarindo to sell a surfboard. I'm not particularly excited about heading back to Costa Rica right now, and especially not Tamagringo. But here's the admission: I'm scared to travel alone right now. (Gah, how embarrassing! This feeling goes against everything I stand for!)

The idea of taking a boat back to the dirty port town on the mainland and getting in some half broken-down taxi and going to a bus station, and taking that bus to some new city where I will arrive with no idea where I am and will then have to get into another dodgy taxi and then.... blah, blah, you get the point. Point being, it scares the shit out of me. But that's the thing about traveling here: you are always arriving in strange cities looking just as lost as you feel and you have to trust strangers to get you around, to give you directions and to not rob and kill you.

So do I follow the kids back to Costa? Do I find a new group that is planning on staying in Panama? Or do I suck it up, take a deep breath and get in that taxi by myself?