To the bat cave!

  Bocas Town, Panama
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Paddling up the creek

Today was Rick's birthday, and it started off as a rainy day, but that didn't stop our activities.  Despite the rain, we took a canoe up Bahia Honda creek to go explore the nearby bat caves.  Decked out in our most stylish raincoats and rubber boots, we headed out for the creek with our guides Chaffe and Delphino.  As they paddled us up the creek, we got an amazing, close-up view of all of the wildlife: sloths, monkeys, caimans, and crabs.  After a while we reached a small native village at the edge of the creek.  From here we would hike to the caves through the jungle.  The scenery was beautiful, and I think it was even better in the rain.  Because it was so wet, all of the little red poison arrow frogs were out and about.  

Entering a cave

We walked through several different caves, chock full of bats.  We even saw the cave where there is a colony of regular colored bats (brown) but in the bunch there is one white bat.  Christina joined us on this excursion, though she was terrified of bats (They told her that there was no better way to get rid of her fear of bats than to go face it head on.)  She was a trooper, and only screamed a couple of times.  Delphino had alot of fun scaring her, too.  Soon we were paddling our way home, and on the way back Chaffe entertained us with his many stories: for example, 30 is the worst year of your life because that was the age that Jesus was crucified.  When you are 30, bad things tend to happen to you, but it you make it past 30, then you are good.  

Red Frog

By lunch it had stopped raining, so while Rick relaxed in the hammock and read, I wandered around La Loma taking pictures and exploring.  It felt good to not be in a drug-induced haze.  I walked around a looked at all of the things I didn't remember seeing the day before.  While walking around, I saw at least 5 different types of orchids, and lots of other cool flowers and plants.  After a rainy day, the jungle was very serene, though busy with animals trying to make up for time lost during the storm.  

Birthday in Panama

Since today was Rick's birthday, we had a special dinner that night. Though I can't remember exactly what we had (curried octopus with coconut rice maybe?) dinner ended with an amazing birthday cake (made with chocolate grown and roasted on site) and a champagne toast.  Happy birthday, Rick!