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I have spent the last week or so in lovely Placencia. It's a small island with long and beautiful beaches. Between afternoon volly ball and late night rum and cokes I've a had a pretty amazing time here. Again, lots of people to meet (and more importantly travel along side for a while).
Perhaps the highlight of my travels so far was visiting the jaguar reserve about an hours bus ride away from the island where I stayed for one night. I went as a group of five in total consisting of myself, Therese and Jahn (a genuinely insiring couple from Norway), Simon (Swiss) and his lovely girlfriend (Dutch) whos name I cannot pronounce and have subsequently forgotten. We arrive in our delapodated cabin to find we have a sixth roommate - and enormous spider, the biggest I've seen other than in musiums. We go on kind of natural lazy-river through the jungle which was pretty amazing, and littered with humming birds. It was a little shallow in places though, leaving my otherwise prime tanned rump a touch sore! Additionally I didn't have my swimming shorts. Infact I only took my jeans, one t-shirt and my hiking shoes with me for the night. Saturated. Careless.
We get back to the camp and dash out to whip up a quick meal in the shared kitchen area before coming back to find that our rather large friend had disappeared. We looked for maybe ten minutes before it dropped out of my bag... ON TO MY FOOT, but wait, worse than that, it turned out to be a different but equally huge beast. Anyway, we chase them out eventually, and pop outside to admire the night sky. It was spectacular. Infact it looked fake, like a painter had got carried away, sold out and gone commercial!
So there we are laying on the damp grass, me wearing Jahn's trousers and my bed's blanket when all of a sudden I get attacked by fire ants. Fifty or sixty bites later I'm running around the kitchen slapping myself silly, much to the amusment of a bunch of bee scientists sharing the space. It turns out that I had unwittedly layed down right in the path of a moving coloney of the little bastards. So after a calming game of poker (or three) we head back to the room to be greeted by a moth. Those who know me well will understand the very real fear I must have felt. And this guy was big. Like a crow. Big. After five or more hits with a pillow its still alive but hiding somewhere. I would of suggested more heartely that we persue it if it had not been for the scorpian the desided to show its face. Anyway the night ended with me ripping a whole in Jahn's trousers by leaping from bed to bed in sheer panic, before shrouding myself in the bed sheets. There I stayed untill morning, plotting my revenge on insectkind. Screw conservation.
The next day we take a three and a half hour treck throuth the jungle, one of the most exhausting times I care to remember. However we stop at a look out point along the way to see the whole area, all 128,000 acres of reserve. I was moved, and in no small way. It would be a lie to say that a tear wasn't shed.
Fifteen minutes later and we find ourselves face to face with two stunning water falls with cristal clear lagoon bases. We swam for what seemd like hours in the midday heat. I even jumped off the top of on water fall! Sure in was only about 10-15 meters high but even still, I was breaking out, doing things I had never done before, I felt like tarzan king of the jungle (well I would have done if not for Jahn, Norways answer to Arnold Swartzineger)! I must say, it made all the bugs worth while. We hitch-hiked back in an American gypsy's Jeep (not without stopping half way to try to islotate the sorce of the billowing smoke clouding the car. Terrofying, but great fun.
So now I'm back in Placencia for one more night of partying before catching a ferry to Honduras where I will achieve my diving certificate for a very low price before using it to swim with sharks etc etc. It's a hard life.
I'll keep you posted.
xx
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Colette
non-member comment
hey there...
Hello Tarzan! Spiders, fire ants, moths.... I don't know how u do it! But it sounds like you're having a great time and I'm so glad to hear it! :) Have a fab time diving and with the rest of your adventures! Take care and missing you, Colette xxxxx