Hiking

Ok, let’s try it again.  After an aborted attempt to cross Bastimentos on Friday with Mel and Sina (a Schweizer), terminated by a trip to the hospital to get a bunch of stitches on a gashed finger we set out again.  Some woman was reclining in a hammock.  “Are you going to go with us or just lie in a hammock all day?”  “I’ve already booked a snorkeling trip.”  Mel looked at me and we just shared a silent laugh.  Ohh, the tourist route, hanging with the throngs.  “Where are you going?”  “First a jungle trek, then some swimming then who knows what.”

We got on the boat.  The phone rang.  “Hi, Ricky.”  “Dos chicas están buscando.”  “Oh, hi, Cuba.  Bonita?” “Mucho.” “Donde?”  “Mar y Iguana.”  Then the conversation went downhill, I talked with one girl, then the other but the connection was really bad.  I texted that I would meet them at Over the Water Rentals and we headed out.   Ten minutes later Mel finally noticed that we were going the wrong direction, but she is well accustomed to my impromptu changes.

I docked, Marlin came over, I threw him a line, and Mel tied off the bow.  “Hi Claudia!”  Marlin, did two girls come here looking for me?  French.”  “No.”  “Hmm.”  So we walked to Mar y Iguana.  They had left, looking for me.  We exited and turned the other way to loop back around the other path.

No girls.  Back to the boat.  They called and gave me the name of a restaurant they were standing in front of.  “Stay there.”  Off I went again.  A couple of hundred yards down the road I spotted them and gave a big two handed wave and they responded in kind.  A guy pulled up to me on a bike.  “Two girls are looking for you.”  “I see them thanks.”  Repeat after 30 yards.

These cuties were obviously going to be fun.  Hell, they were all smiles just to have found me.  Back to the boat.  Introductions.  Head ’em up, move ’em out.  “Hi, Mauricio.”  We walked up to talk with an elderly Argentinian who lives in a camper.  I couldn’t make introductions as I didn’t know the girl’s names.  “This is Mauricio, also know as Santa Claus.”

We amused the guys at the gas dock.  Well, the girls did anyway.

They introduced themselves, Candice and some Moroccan name. We stopped by a friends boat and I dropped off their backpacks and suggested that they put some swimsuits on.  Mel and I went to the upper deck while they changed.   How does it take twenty minutes to change?  Who knows?

“Where are we going?”  “Trekking in the jungle to a beach.”   A few minutes later we pulled up to a small dock, found an untended pair of rubber boots.  Three girls, three sets of boots. I went barefoot.  A trail had been cut through a large swath of land across the island, from Bahia Honda to Wizard Beach on the Caribbean.  Up and down.  Up and down.  “Somewhere around here is a chunk of Jim’s finger.”  Mel and I have had so many adventures that she is now the tour guide and boat crew.

The path narrowed.  We crossed many a recently built bridge over streams.  Over logs, under barbed wire.  Many red frogs, a yellow frog.  Down yet another slope.  “WHOA!”  Wow, one fat iguana laid there, basking in the sun.  Lucky girls, the usually frequent the treetops.  “Is it dead.”  “No.”  Mel, posed for a picture and I managed to get one.  Then the other two girls tried but the iguana shot off like it was fired from a gun.  I am more accustomed to them dropping out of the trees from branches overhanging the water and swimming away.
Up a hill. Down a hill. “Look, a snake!”  Moving more slowly as we were walking on rocks and I was barefoot, I yelled, “Stay back.”  I don’t know what it was.  A black and white thin, long snake.  Up the hill to a pasture.  Goats roaming around.  
Down a hill.  The caretaker’s house.  I called him over.  He did not look amused.  I handed him his machete.  He was still not amused. Get over it, this is going to become a resort soon.   Down to the base of the hill across a boardwalk through the mangroves.  I yelled out to some guy walking along the beach.  He approached. “Is this Red Frog Beach?”  “No, that’s about a kilometer that we.”  He quickly checked out each of my fellow adventurers and headed on his way.
Pictures, pictures, we want pictures.  I have given up taking pictures.  Same places, same activities.  Sailing, snorkeling, boating, trekking, fishing.  One day flows into the next.
Yoga poses. Three girls in nothing but shorts and rubber boots, holding machetes.  More yoga poses.   I was frigging hungry.   Off to Red Frog beach, the next one over.  Down the beach, over rocks, up deep muddy trails.  Knee deep in mud.  People with machetes on horseback.  More mud. More people with machetes on horseback.  
A split in the trail.  I decided to take the short cut down a very steep slippery slope.  I was filthy anyway and it was better than walking barefoot on sharp rocks and coral.   Into the water.  Shit, sea urchins everywhere, black balls of fragile sharp spines that break off in your foot.  The girls walked without concern in their bikinis and rubber boots.  Yup, I offer a different take on Bocas.
Presently we arrived at Palmar, a lovely resort on the beach owned by the same guy who owns the land we just crossed.   The girls put down their boots, we washed our feet and had lunch, and walked back to the entrance dock.  A water taxi was about to leave.  I offered him $8 to take us to my boat, describing its location.  He knew the spot exactly.   
Back at the boat.  Mel returned the borrowed boots, we snorkeled and we headed back to town grabbed some grub and I took the two girls home for dinner.

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Posted on July 1, 2013 by . This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

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