I have to admit, it’s way too easy to press pause on the daily writing when you’re comfortable in your environment and just grateful to have “regular” amenities available to you. We have just arrived to Isla Bastimentos, and are experiencing the a minor reality check. On Isla Colon (where we’ve just spent the last week) we got lucky enough to score a new B&B on a deal, and I think it is safe to say we were more or less in the lap of luxury with air conditioning and an ocean front dock.
First, let’s press rewind…
Prior to our arrival in Bocas town, we finished out our stay on Isla San Cristobal. When I last left off, I was seeing our remote location through rose colored glasses. I won’t deny that it is beautiful, but the remote living turned out to be.. Not our cup of tea. Over the course of 5 days, Grant and I learned that we are not jungle people. Can we live minimally? Absolutely. But when you throw heat, isolation, and massive mother-f-you-can-finish-that sentence- SPIDERS into the mix… nah.
Composting toilets are cool and all, until you’ve got to hike through a jungle at night (when all the friendly critters seem to appear) to use the bathroom. Suddenly the beautiful path becomes scary, and the family of tarantulas that has decided to appear on the steps are damn right uninviting. Let’s just say we learned to operate during daylight hours out there.
I know, I sound a bit stuck up. But looking at Grant’s face, when he is generally less anxious about things, kind of sealed the deal on this one. The other bizarre thing about the place was the fact that our hosts were not there – and in the wilderness, hosts make all of the difference. (No fault of theirs – family emergency) That lovely Canadian woman I previously mentioned turned out to be hanging on by just a thread – a new arrival, she was supposed to be doing the job of 3, with very little warning or experience. When we got there, 2 young (mid/late 20’s) German volunteers greeted us. It turned out they were the laziest volunteers I have ever encountered, and were basically using the place as their free playground. They were sent packing 2 days into our trip, and so we were left alone with the poor cook. All of the hiking on the island needed to be done with machetes and a local, so we were unable to experience the beautiful/terrifying/monster arachnid laden/hotter than hell surroundings too much. It just ended up being a place that seemed to be growing too big for its britches – there was much more expansion on the property than we had been made aware of.
Okay, yeah. I don’t mean to sound entitled, just trying to say that pictures do tell 1000 words – but often not the whole story. This “rough” experience certainly wasn’t cheap, and I’m all about value on a long trip. I’ll quit my bitching now and show you what we were subjected to. Poor, poor us.
More soon – I’m hungry.
Green