Settled in

It’s been a busy week this side of the Atlantic. On Monday myself and Cara headed back in Puerto Jimenez, ate chicken quesadilla (a culinary masterpiece), bought our boxer shorts (surprisingly comfy, and a perfect addition to the hippish all-my-clothes-are-damp look I prefer to call ‘jungle sheek’) and swam in the warm waters of the Golfo Dulce. The next day, on route to our first turtle survey of the week we stumbled across a Neotropical otter nibbling on his breakfast. It was my first sighting and a pretty special one at that, considering there is no research regarding their population. The turtle patrol however put a sadder emphasis on the morning, as one of the greens had laid her eggs too high in the sand causing the tide to turn up the nest. None of the eggs survived. Nature even in all its beauty can be cruel, especially on the already hard done by turtle hatchlings.

Wednesday morning saw a new addition to our weekly schedule; trail maintenance. For five hours, armed with spades, machetes and chainsaws we dug a completely new trail through the dense rainforest. The heat was made bearable by the water fight Kirsty and I had and the fresh orange juice the cook at OSA gave us. It was quite an accomplishment digging up roots that gripped the ground like a child does its mother. Whilst it was tough, as proven by the blisters on my thumbs, it was physically rewarding and actually rather enjoyable. As the work we were doing was part of collaboration with OSA Conservation it meant spending the morning with the guys who work here, who are possibly the nicest and funniest people I’ve met. Juan Sito for instance has the cutest smile and would laugh at me sweating and say “mucho aqua?” to which my reply was always “si!” Then half comatose I cooked for everyone, slept and then cooked again.

The next morning I woke up at 2:45am and crept out of camp, led by Nathan and followed by Sam and American Sarah for my first ever Peje. The tales that had preceded the journey were not wrong, it was a tough walk. We clambered down steps, under fallen trees, passed razor grass, through swamps and lagoons and came out into a pitch black clearing. It felt as though I were in a big dark room, all I could make out were the outlines of leaning palm trees  and a line of bright white froth thunderously crashing seconds after the last wave ripping the silence in two. And then, I looked up. Above me the milky way eloquently lit up the night sky, so bright that you’d think that if I reached out to touch a star, I’d be burnt. The poignant night sky slowly faded into a subtle pink glow that was delicate and just so pretty. By this point we’d been waking for hours on the sloped sand and my calves ached, we had 43 sectors to survey and each was the length of two or three buses lying next to one another. But the end, sector 43, the finish line, was so indescribably worth it. Words do not do this perfect little corner of the world justice. The rainforest fell into a lagoon that cattle crossed as the sun rose, and the birds swept their wings in amongst the palm trees. You could see for miles above the tree tops to your right and miles across the ocean to your left. I was entirely humbled to be one of the few people who got the complete privilege of seeing this private and protected landscape, so entirely untouched by tourists with no trace of the 21^st century.  ‘The circle of life’ ran through my head on repeat whilst Nathan sang ‘Hakuna Matata’, I had to remind myself that someone hadn’t just picked me up and dropped me into a Disney movie. This was real. And I was there.  I even turned to Sam and said “all we need now, is a good soundtrack”.

On our way back, we had to walk up the stairs of doom. Which went like this; Sam pushed me up, I nearly passed out, got to the top and had a semi-asthma attack, fell over and got razor grassed. All I could do was lie there, in the middle of the jungle and laugh, life was too perfect.

On Thursday I went on an Otter survey all the way to the top of Piro river, another 5hour trek.  We were joined by the lovely Juan Carlos, the head of science at OSA who, whenever I would turn around would be doing something funny such as putting a feather in his hair and exclaiming “I am the Mexican Pocahontas!” or wearing a leaf as a mask. I managed to find a few otter tracks on my own, which was a rather exciting considering I’m the non-scientist on camp. We also saw a poison dart frog carrying its tadpoles on its back, which apparently is unbelievably rare, and we just happened to see it. The way back down the river was absolutely terrifying. If ever there was a way I would die, it would be walking down a fast flowing stream of water up to my waist, that’s bed was made up of rocks like marbles, during torrential rainfall with trees falling down around me. Its not the place for the clumsy, wet rocks are not sturdy walking ground but they do however, make you appreciate pavement in ways I never have before.

On Saturday we walked across the beach with Toucans flying low above our heads to the waterfall. On our way back I saw a figure in the sand making its way to the sea. My first thought was that it was a turtle so screamed out and pointed towards it “WHAT. IS. THAT?!” Carlos, Malorie and myself just sprinted, a rather peculiar site for Sarah and Kirsty behind us. Turns out, it was a baby crocodile. I can’t believe I just saw a baby crocodile on the beach and we strolled along, its hard to put these sort of moments into perspective.

The lagoon brought more fun, as a tree trunk had fallen into it and was floating on the surface like a banana boat. This provided endless entertainment, Kirsty did backflips off of it and I did my best impressions of Dirty Dancing and the Jesus Christ lizard (walks on water) whilst Malorie clinged to it with dear life and Natalka and Carlos swam around in the background collecting coconuts. Then we returned ‘home’ for Yaka chips and a little bit of Madagascar and fell asleep listening to the rain on the tin roof of the hammock deck.

Now, I’m off to learn more Spanish, which will save me a lot of awkward situations, so ¡hasta luego.