The first mouthful was a heaven-sent indulgence. After weeks of eating boiled carrots and tomatoes, we had eventually allowed ourselves chicken fillet to go with our cheap pasta. With bell peppers and marinated in cream cheese.

We were feeling like kings.

Across the water in front of us, we could see the faint lights of Carenero Island illuminating the bay. After a day of rain, the clouds had finally given us a respite and the full moon was brightly shining upon the Bocas del Toro archipelago.

“It actually could be quite pleasant here. If it were sunny.”

“I guess so,” answered Ladina.

A dive and surf center doubling as restaurant/bar, right above the water across the street, was giving a soundtrack to the moment. Smart electro with a summer mood and contagious beats. A group of Panamanian locals passed on their bicycles, loudly laughing and joking in their Spanish flavored with a Caribbean accent. The whole world seemed to tell us the rainy days were over.

“Can you imagine being one of these tourists, not having any budgetary restriction? You could buy anything you want, anytime.”

I was watching the bar customers with curiosity. Expats and tourists mingled together, but they were all foreigners — and all having money to spend. They were smartly dressed; well, maybe not smartly, but at least they were not wearing tired sport shirts like me. They had dresses and jewelry, Rip Curl and Billabong outfits. Partying and enjoying the night the way they knew how to.

“Yeah, I could order a salad to eat healthy, and then two hours later I’d be hungry again but it wouldn’t even matter — I would just buy something else to eat.”

I snickered. Earlier in the supermarket, we had agonized over a pack of English muffins. They were $1.75. We could not afford them. We were in the process of saving money to be able to dive somewhere around the islands.

We had ended up buying them anyway. Life is too short to save on English muffins.

I had lived on a budget for so many years I could not even remember how being reckless with money felt like. When every euro, franc or dollar becomes important to realize your dreams, the only solution is to lower your standard of life. It is often hard, but even more often worth it.

Sometimes, I wonder if you can truly understand the world, understand mankind, if you have never experienced privation. Or hunger. Not that we had ever experienced real hunger. We had never been starving, and still kept toiling and working our backs the whole day long in the distant hope that our children would have a slightly better life than ours — unlike so many people we had crossed path with along our journey.

Privation is an easier matter. You have no problem surviving. You always have a safety net to catch you whatever happens. But you cannot afford everything you would want, or desire, or need for your comfort; admittedly, you might sometimes be hungry, but never for long. You can live with it, but you have to make choices. A coffee or a pack of English muffins?

Sometimes, I think people who never had to make that kind of choices cannot truly understand the others who do.

Ladina went down to the kitchen and came back with our vanilla yoghurt. Another indulgence we had allowed ourselves that day. It was delicious. Deliciously delicious. We kept a little bit for the next morning, but we were still content.

We were feeling like queens.

Later that evening, we went out. We could not afford to go to a bar, so we simply walked along the waterfront, stopping here and there at the end of a jetty to admire the night.