Woken at dawn by howler monkeys. We’d been forewarned. Just as well because it sounded like some creature was being murdered. Not a pleasant sound.
We booked activities for our stay at Chillamate: a night-time nature walk for this evening; a bird watching tour tomorrow morning, and white water rafting this afternoon. Sarah denied that she’d ever agreed to the rafting but we booked it anyway. Why make her do it when she didn’t want to? She was just suffering nerves. We knew when it came to it, she would love it. She had been exactly the same when we’d done rafting in America, although that was 14 years ago.
Even though we knew best, we were still faced with Sarah worring about the rafting all day. Next thing we know, rafting is moved up to this morning – something about thunderstorms in the afternoon. Sarah should have been pleased – less worry time. On the contrary, she was not happy, not happy at all.
We, and two American girls, also beginners, were met by our guide, Fabian, who took us to the minibus. Off we went, but the minibus stopped again, this time to pick up a group of very keen, enthusiastic, gung-ho American youngsters. From their banter you could tell they were not beginners. No way were going to put up with a gentle ride down the river.
When we arrived at the setting off point, the river looked pretty wild.
Sarah decided: she was not doing the rafting. Jenny and I could go without her. She arranged for the minibus to take her back.
That was final. Sarah had made up her mind. The river did look very rough, much worse than the Colorado 14 years ago. I wondered if Sarah was right. Perhaps this was a young person’s thing. Jenny could go on her own. I would stay with Sarah.
But before I knew it, someone had put me in a lifejacket, stuck a helmet on my head, a paddle in my hand. Here are Jenny and I about to fling ourselves down a river. Do I look nervous? Not at all. That is relaxed nonchalance – just done slightly awkwardly.
We were just finishing the safety talk when Sarah decided: she was doing the rafting. She didn’t know what to do but Fabian said she could sit in the back of the boat where he would keep an eye on her.
The ride was pretty wild. There were sections of white water, one after another with just a few easy stretches between them. Our paddling efforts were just for show. It was Fabian who got the boat down the river – all by himself. He did it while taking us through all the biggest, splashiest water, maybe the safest way to go, but it didn’t feel like it. Which is why it was so much fun. Controlled danger.
From the picture you might have thought we had left Sarah behind, but here she is, tucked out of harms way in the back of the boat.
But was she enjoying herself? Have a look at the next picture and decide. And doesn’t it also look like I’m the one steering the boat? I think so!
This next photograph captures one dramatic moment. It’s amazing how much fun it is to get a face full of water.
But was Sarah enjoying herself?
As for the keen Americans, it turned out they were all white-water rafting instructors from Washington State. They knew the owner of the firm and wanted to do one of his tours as a professional courtesy while they were in the country.
They reckoned the ride was quite tame so they made it more exciting by doing some man overboard and capsize drills. It was quite impressive seeing them crewing an overturned raft as easily as if it had been the right way up.
We stopped for fruit. We were only half way. Enough. I could have stopped, but there was more. For the second half Sarah sat on the side like the rest of us and did her share of the paddling. Sadly no photos to prove this.
After all that excitement, we had a quiet afternoon, lunch across the road at a soda, a walk through the Chillamate gardens to see what wildlife we could see on our own. Jenny got good at spotting the little poisonous frogs.
Our night-time tour started at 7.30. Our guide, Jaime, was a biologist who’d worked at the La Selva reserve nearby. This was where David Attenborough had spent two weeks filming a few minutes of footage up in the rainforest canopy. The great man had asked Jaime what something was and he’d said “it was”, and that was all he’d had a chance to say to him in two weeks.
We wandered around the gardens, following the same route that we’d done ourselves in the afternoon. This time we had a chance to see what was active at night, peering at things with our torches.
There were lots of millipedes down in the leaf litter. Nothing eats them because they produce cynanide gas. They look quite disgusting – not a nice jungle snack.
We saw some of the poisonous frogs, but not as many as Jaime had thought we’d find.
These two tree frogs we caught in the act. Frogs’ porn that leads to frog spawn.
It was Jenny who spotted this snake dangling from a branch. Jaime was rather surprised because it wasn’t one he recognised. Nevertheless, he was sure it wasn’t venemous.
Jenny also spotted a moth being consumed by “zombie fungus”.
That led to a discussion about The Last of Us and how Jaime had heard of a moth whose body had been consumed by the fungus yet it still had a functioning brain and wings so that it could still fly. Which organism was in control?
I wonder why we never do sort of tour in the local woods back in England. We’d probably find lots of fascinating things, none of them poisonous. It would be much safer and might be just as interesting.