Welcome to the Jungle!

After a few days in Bocas Town, we caught a boat to the nearby island of Bastimientos where we had booked two nights at the sister hostel of Casa Verde called Palmar Tent Lodge - an eco friendly resort with Safari tents. The resort is situated in-between the jungle and the beautiful Red Frog Beach - named so after the red poison dart frogs that inhabit this part of the island. 

After recovering, once again, from boat stroke, we settling into our basic but slightly damp safari tent. Randomly the tent was made by a British company called Soulpad  and the towels provided to us were also by the British department store Debenhams! They must have known we were coming...

Our safari tent

View from inside the tent looking out

It wasn't long before we were reminded of the fact that we were staying on a tropical island - a coconut fell to a thud outside our tent! The gardener must have forgotten that one when he was doing his rounds of cutting loose coconuts that morning...


Picking coconuts turned out to be a good way of getting free food and drink as there were so many available. Appropriately the lodge had a machete to get them open. I must mention here that one of my travel buddies Tom was the allocated coconut opener. He did a sterling job each time showing off the machete skills he had gained whilst travelling in Africa. (Tom you can give me that $10 for this later...)

The wildlife on the island was, as you would expect, exotic. There were two fluorescent green parrots called Bob and Marley who would routinely fly over and attack squawk at you. Alas neither of them spoke, which was just as well, as I imagine both would have sworn given the anger management issues they both had. Ironic seeing as they were named after a chilled out Rastafarian?!

Bob & Marley, or is that Marley & Bob...?

There were other much more accommodating wildlife on the island including geckos which would come and watch you whilst you were peeing or having a shower...slightly unnerving to begin with but quite entertaining towards the end!


Given we were staying at an eco lodge all the water we were using for the toilet, shower, sink, kitchen etc. was collected from the regular bursts of torrential rain. The water therefore required vigorous pumping beforehand. A nice work out to make you even sweatier than you were already. 


Unfortunately for us the owners of the lodge were on leave whilst we were staying. Therefore the staff (I use this word loosely) who were there in their absence were all volunteers. Most of whom were backpackers. They were all very pleasant but given they weren't really getting paid (they just got free lodging and boat rides back to the mainland in addition to discounts on food and drink) the level of cleanliness and service you received wasn't the greatest. Which was a shame as the lodge had a lot of potential. 


Prior to arriving on the island, we had met a guy called JC (not Mr Jesus Christ himself rather an American) who was staying at our hostel back on the Bocas mainline. JC had described quite excitedly that whilst he had been staying at our lodge that turtles were crawling onto Red Frog Beach at night to lay their eggs. Understandably I was pretty excited by this prospect as I´d not seen turtles in that environment before. They were also according to JC  the size of dinosaurs. I didn't believe him until I saw a photo and was pretty much gob-smacked. They were HUGE. 


Alas after spending two nights in a row walking the length and breadth of the beach we didn't see a single turtle. I was, as well as all the other recent arrivals at the lodge,  extremely disappointed. Especially given that those that had been lucky enough to witness the spectacle earlier in the week wouldn't stop raving about it... :(


To try and take our mind off the lack of turtle action, we all decided to walk to one of the other beaches up the coast called Wizard which my friend Adam from back in the UK had said was meant to be beautiful. The volunteers at the hostel said it was an easy forty minute walk to the beach. What they had forgotten to highlight that due to recent storms the end of the beach where the path began was littered with fallen trees and the path itself was thick with mud. It was also quite overgrown and barely recognisable in places. Trecking in Havaiana flip flops and a bikini is not correct clothing for such conditions. As such we failed miserably. 

One of the many assault courses we were faced with...

In the middle of the first batch of fallen trees

One of the slightly clearer and less muddy paths...

The next day we attempted to walk to another beach further down the opposite side of the coast called Polo Beach. This walk started off better and we did managed to pass through other nice beaches to get there (namely Turtle Beach). However my threshold for walking through a jungle with just shorts and a t-shirt whilst insects were crawling all over me was just to too much to bear. The final straw came when a spider dropped out of a tree and landed near me and I freaked out. Massively. After having to take deep breaths through my cupped hands (there wasn't a paper bag nearby) I managed to compose myself enough to get myself out and back to Turtle Beach. Thankfully the beauty of this beach and the warmth of the sea water was enough to shake off my fear and finally relaxed. A true sign I am way too much of a city girl to ever contemplate living in the jungle...

Almost there...

Finally - the calm after the storm

Despite this drama, we did see some interesting wildlife en route that didn't freak me out as much. Namely some hermit crabs, red frogs, and numerous exotic birds. 

Red Frog!

Bob & Marley´s non captive cousins

Not quite wild, but this dog certainly didn't want to go in the sea!

Not the greatest pic, but this is actually a humming bird mid flight 

The time soon came to return back to Bocas Town. I had mixed emotions about returning to the mainline. On one hand I had an amazing time on the island seeing wildlife that you only see on National Geographic. However on the other hand I´d managed to freak myself out over creepy crawlies that in reality are a thousand times smaller than me. Id also managed to get a cold from sleeping in a damp tent so overall I wasn't that sad to be leaving and returning to civilisation. 


Final score? Jungle 1 - Citygirl 0.