Day 8 - An Assssstoundingly good day!

 I woke up, having slept fitfully on account of placing my poor bruised part of my head on the pillow. however, it was surprising, given the force with which my head had hit the tiles, that I didn't have a huge headache this morning. I declared myself fighting fit.... I was walking out of here if it killed me, though preferably not.

In reality my neck and shoulders felt sore, I could move my neck fine and pins and needles had gone, but it felt like I had mild whiplash. My brain felt ok, small size, less to damage. 😂 But I didnt feel quite right.

Nonetheless, I pulled on my now dry boots and we hit the trails again.

Most of todays 13 miles would be along an undulating path next to the beach or along the sand itself... good practice for my morocco trip in November! The beaches here are stunning and today had a bit more of a wild look with the waves crashing in to shore. But they are hard work to walk on and at times I even wished for the return of mud! 

The first river we had to cross, I took off my shoes and socks and immediately regretted it. Although keeping my boots dry was a good thing, it hurt my bare feet a lot going along the stoney bottom of the river and I was really slow across. It was beginning to piss me off and I resolved that I would just keep my boots on next time... wet boots be dammed. 

I wasn't in the best frame of. mind today, my neck ached and my head did hurt a little though not as much as I thought it would. I did not feel quite right but was determined to see this through and not hold up the others. 

A spotting of a tapir went some way to making me feel better. Another snuggled down in the undergrowth. 

There were many birds for dave to get excited about, though I liked the many hawks we saw. Many of them let us come pretty close to them to take their picture, they didn't seem bothered at all. 

And then we spotted a coati mundi, just trogging along the shore, presumably looking for crabs. Id seen a brief glimpse of one at Sirena but this was much closer and we kinda followed alongside him for a bit. 

We sat down for our takeaway breakfast of pinto and sausage and egg with some melon and cake on the side, there were 3 palm trees jutting skywards and it really was the most idyllic spot in a wild beach meets jungle kinda way. It was something special for sure. 

We plodded onwards... more sand... more water, dodging the waves as they lapped the shore. There was a line of dying queen ants, massive red things, on the line of where the surf reached to and I was also trying not to step on them, even though they were dying. 

My shoes were now soaking wet and my left foot was a bit uncomfortable but nothing too severe. My neck still ached and for me. it became about putting one foot in front of the other and just keeping doing that until we got to the end point. 

Various sightings served to break up the difficult trudge.... 

Costa Rica's Airforce made an appearance in the form of a line of pelicans in good formation initially which descended into chaos. That was pretty cool. 

We saw a group of coati scrabbling in the samd for food, including several babies and we stopped to watch them.... they looked at us but then went back to their sand scrabbling activities. 

We crossed more streams and got very wet feet, all efforts to protect dry boots now at an end for all of us. 

We took a break and Jenkins showed us how to break open a coconut, if we didnt have a machete or knife. He proceeded to drop the coconut onto a jutting up bit of wood and then prised the outer shell off... then hitting the coconut on the edge with a stone, he split it precisely down the middle. 

Dave had a go and managed successfully eventually though it took some time, I had a go and just got frustrated in the end... it was waay harder and taking up energy that i wasn't sure I had spare. 

We carried along the shoreline, and scrambling along the rocks when suddenly Jenkins pointed into the cracks in the rocks... boa!! 

Huh? 

I wouldn't have even thought to look for a boa here, on the shoreline, in a crack in the rocks... but I guess he felt safe there. 

It was a small one, probably a juvenile, maybe male but impossible to be sure. He had a lovely red marked tail and a beautiful iridescent sheen to him. I was stoked. I had pretty much given up on seeing snakes today after all the rainfall yesterday, so to find one in such an unexpected place lifted me up and kept me going... now back to searching for them. 

It was hard going, walking on the sand and I just didn't feel like myself today. It was taking me a lot of effort and willpower to keep going... in places I felt ready to just break down in tears, which is generally unlike me. I muttered to myself, telling myself to pull myself together. Stop being ridiculous. Its not far now and things like that. 

The sightings of monkeys and other animals along the way helped to bring me out of my feeling sorry for myself mood! 

We crossed some more rivers and streams which often necessitated a steep downwards climb followed by steep upwards, all on slippery roots and slippery mud. I was terrified of slipping and hitting my head again so went really slowly on these bits, carefully picking my way down or up the obstacle. 

We had just gone past that one bit, when Jenkins pointed out snakes... mating! 2 red bellied racer snakes were intertwined... 

then Dave shouted... toucan... and swivelled his binoculars to the treetops and shortly after that a shout of squirrel monkeys went around. 

Within 30 yrds we had seen 3 animals that topped each of our wish lists.. snakes for me... toucan for lilli and spider monkeys for dave... amazing place. 

For me, to see 2 snakes in their mating dance was quite incredible (either that or they were 2 fighting males). It was pretty much the highlight of my trip and I didn't think it would be topped! 

It was shortly after this that Jenkins was strolling along the trail, or maybe a slight detour, when he stopped and pointed. I looked at him. and he was grinning from ear to ear... 

Fer De Lance!! 

OMG.... 

Finally... all those hours searching. and one appears just when I have pretty much shrugged. my shoulders and accepted that I'm not going to see one in the wild. 

It took me a few seconds to zoom in my focus to the spot where he was pointing... 

There, curled up, bright yellow head resting on a beautiful patterned body was a good size Fer De Lance, Terciopelo. I was kinda stunned.. 

Of course I had to get closer!

He was sleeping, no tongue flicking... 

oh he knew I was there... vibrations from my footsteps would have given me away... but he wasn't bothered... he knew he could defend himsepf if necessary... 

So he sat there quietly whilst I crept as close as possible (I didn't want to add snake bite to the injury list😉🐍) 

I got loads of photos and then just stood there staring at him in awe. His large scales stood up slightly given him. a kinda rough to touch look (don't worry I didn't try) 

Stunning... Beautiful... 

one happy lid! 

Reluctantly I tore myself away from the Terciopelo

The last few miles were somewhat of a slog, through streams, up and down slippery banks and then just as I was beginning to really suffer... we saw a bridge... the first sign that we were close. Then came the final ranger station. Wearily I signed my name in the book and we staggered onwards after Jenkins had a quick search for the anteater, which apparently had been around here recently. 

We detoured through one of the resorts as the tide was right up high making walking along the beach difficult. Lounger chairs and hammocks were strewn across the manicured lawn followed by a sign to the spa. How the other half live!  Frankly I preferred our brand of jungle living and was really glad I had chosen to trek right through. It had been hard and craZy at times but it felt like we had made enough effort to deserve to find all the animals we did. 

We reached our pick up point. There selling coconut juice was a man who had a load of dogs... they all appeared to be in ok condition apart from one that had hurt his paw and had a crappy eye. 

I took out any snacks I had and fed tgebdogs pretty much everything I had left, I felt pretty sorry for them.

Fortunately our ride arrived... and then went straight past us... dammit... gotta walk just a little bit further.! 

All in all we walked 31 miles through the jungle, not counting the probable 10 miles on the second day whilst searching for animals which I did not record. We did that in weather that made things very tricky on the first day and I managed to complete the trek despite having minorly concussed myself the day before. All in all, I think we can be proud of the effort we went to. 

It certainly made me feel like we deserved all the animal sightings that we had. 

I got dropped off at my hostel... and when I finally took off my boots, I found the source of the discomfort in my foot.... 

Something had rubbed a bit of a hole in my foot! The wet boots and socks had clearly not helped. 

Hey ho. I jumped in the shower, ordered pizza and promptly fell asleep! 

It had been a good trip into the jungle!