Last night, we decided not to go to San Juan de Nicaragua and instead, we booked another night at our guesthouse.
We woke up early as today, our host was bringing us in the reserve to observe wild life in their natural habitat.
We started with a breakfast, cooked and served by our hosts.
I've seen worst than this view for breakfast! (By the way, I'm not talking about the previous picture…)
After breakfast, we left with our host, his 6-year old daughter, our guide and a young girl that would be our translator for the day.
Here, they don't have lions, hippos or tigers like in Africa. No! They have tiny little insects, plants and animals that can kill you or make you sick. At least, the lion, you can see or hear it coming! But a teeny-weeny poisonous ant on a tree is easy to miss! The first advice our guide gave us, and that our kind interpreter translated, was not to touch anything without asking first. And I think it was a wise advice. And for once, Steve listened!
Fortunately, we had gumboots because there was no real trail and it was raining so the soil was a very muddy!
We started walking in the deep forest and Steve and I were very charmed by the flashy leafs, exotic trees, tropical plants and colorful flowers… but luckily, we had a great guide who would see every little things we would have missed like lizards, poisonous red frogs, poisonous military frogs, poisonous ants, poisonous flowers, poisonous fruits, poisonous mushrooms, medicinal plants to cure you from some of the poisonous things! But I'm proud to say that I'm the one who saw the poisonous spider!
It was huge, hairy and super cool! But of course, I was not going to touch it. And I was right because the guide confirmed that this spider is, of course poisonous and that it can jump.
But sometimes, even the most beautiful harmless plants like this lovely flower were home to hidden evils. Do you see the bug in the middle of the picture? At first sight, we only saw the flashy colors of the flower but when we started looking closely, we saw at least 4 of those bugs.
For the first half of our walk in the forest, we were mostly going uphill which means that, on our way back, we were going downhill... Just like that, have you ever tried to go down a hill, with gumboots, in slippery mud and without being able to hold to anything?! It was interesting and challenging. A few times, when I slipped, for half a second I considered grabbing a tree but I quickly remembered that it was safer to take the risk to fall on my bum… and pray I would not fall on a nest or a deviled ants crossing. But both Steve and I managed to stay on our 2 feet.
For the ones who are freaking out thinking that a 6-year old girl was in this jungle, don't worry, our host and his daughter didn't come with us, they stayed on the boat. And after a couple of hours in the reserve, we joined them and went swimming in the river.
While we were refreshing ourselves in the cold water, we saw the most beautiful butterflies we ever seen. We saw grandiose blue butterflies! They were so big that I first thought they were birds! They were a splendid radiant blue and were flying with grace, following the current of the river. Unfortunately, I could not photograph them because I was in the water and didn't have my cellphone.
We came back to El Castillo at 1:30pm, we had lunch and visited the ruins of an old fort that was built in 1675. It was a very strategic location because El Castillo is not too far from the ocean, right by the river and from the top of the hill, you have a perfect 360 view.
Oh, and when you get to the top of the fort, there is a public library! And no, the present tense used here is not a bad translation. We climbed all the uneven rocky stairs of this ruin and we got into this room thinking it was probably an old kitchen or a former torture room but instead, it was a library, opened to the public and a woman worked there.
After this visit, we decided it was time to relax and have a beer. We spent some time on our patio again. When you have the chance to be in a place like that you want to enjoy it!
At 6:30pm, we left again with our host, a different guide and the same translator to see the wildlife around the river with a different perspective and maybe get to see a caïman, which, depending on who you talk to, is either in the family of the crocodiles or the alligators. But this time, we were staying in the boat. Anyway, it's not like I would have insisted to walk in the bushes at night. Not with everything we saw a few hours ago! If it's hard to see during the day, imagine at night! At one point, our guide showed us this super colorful bird. The bird is beautiful, isn't it?!
But after we came back to our room, I looked at the picture more closely and saw the spider next to the bird. It's not huge but, based on the lesson we had a few hours earlier, almost everything in this jungle can hurt you! Ok, I suspect they may have exaggerated a little bit the dangerousness of some bugs but I certainly won't test it.
Exploring the nature from a boat at night was very different. And our guide was amazing! From the boat, he was able to catch 2 lizards and even a frog! Just with a headlamp and his 2 hands!
And at one point, just like that, he jumped in the water, went into the bushes and caught 2 small caïmans. Nothing would have been able to convince me to do that!
We had a very good time today!!!
But let me tell you that when a red ant bit me while I was sleeping, I started imagining crazy killer bugs everywhere in my bed and I didn't sleep too well!
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