4 March Motorbiking around the island

There are various options for getting out and seeing the whole island including local bus, taxi, Smart car rental, golf buggy, bicycle and motorbike. We chose a motorbike for the day.

Many, many people ride a motorbike but only the police seem to wear helmets. It's impossible to buy one here. Whereas we have our own; bought in Thailand where it was the law to wear one much used thereafter.

Armed with a local map and the knowledge of a small island with one road around the outside and a handful of lanes connecting the east and west sides. Not easy to get lost here.

Baptist church

hungry caimans

Our first stop was at the oldest Baptist church in Central America, built in 1847 on the highest point of the island, either 65m or 85m high depending which paragraph of the guide book you read. It's a pretty white wooden building with a red roof and a bell tower. We took the tour, took photographs and climbed to the top of the tower for great views over the whole island.

Smile

Next stop was Laguna, or Big Pond, with it's resident caimans. It's thought they are recent arrivals; pets grown too big to handle in the back garden and released in to a convenient freshwater pond set amongst trees. Of course there's a small fee for a guide to show you around, point out the names of the local trees and sell bread to feed the crocs.

After this we found our way back to the coast road and rode along the ocean shore clockwise to the most southern tip where we stopped for a much needed coffee – we'd travelled at least 4 miles and needed a break! Onwards and up the western side as far as the airport at the north of the island and then we turned around, did some of the transverse roads before stopping for me to have a dip in the sea. I'd brought mask, snorkel and fins and enjoyed the wonderful clear and warm water. There are some fish, but reports of the quality of diving here didn't encourage us to get our kit out. Comments we heard from divers were 'there's nice soft corals on the drop off, but very few fish'. We'll wait until Providencia.