20K and a Year Away

A lot has happened in the last week. We celebrated Christmas Eve with Katherine and her family. We went to their house for traditional food and left around 10:30pm. They stay up until midnight to begin their celebrations. We decided to leave a little early so they could do their thing without having to worry about getting us home.

Katherine served pork ribs she had been cooking all day, potato salad, and rice with guandu. I hadn’t had guandu before, but I had heard of it. It is called pigeon peas in English. They are legumes. Rice with guandu is a very popular Christmas Eve and New Year’s dish. A lot of people make it with coconut milk, too. I don’t think hers had coconut. We thanked them for the great time, food, and company. They invited us to spend Christmas day with them at their cabin up the mountain in an area surrounded by waterfalls. Of course, I said sure!

The next day, we lazed around for a while then got ready to head to the cabin. Unfortunately, we got a message from them saying they were running late with all the preparation to go and would not be able to pick us up. Bummer, but that’s ok. We will try another day. Axel was not sad because he got to spend the day playing his new Minecraft game that he got for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas and Axel, here is that cake I told you about. It was good. It was chocolate with a whipped cream frosting and dark chocolate on top with a dulce de leche center. We were not sure about the dulce de leche. It was interesting. The cake was delicious. There was too much for us, though, so I offered cake to anyone I saw. José, the hotel owner, and the housekeeping lady helped eat it! There is still some left if you would like a piece.

After Christmas, I contacted a local guide who does night tours. For $30 a person, he takes you out into the jungle at night for a 3-hour hike to find creatures. We signed up for the Sunday evening slot and left with him around 7:15pm. The area we hiked turned out to be very close to the first waterfalls we visited.

On the way to the trail, our guide, Edgar, pulled over next to a school building. Up in one of the trees behind the school was a sloth holding her baby! We watched her for a while. She was a three-toed sloth. She didn’t really like having lights on her and started climbing the tree. We watched as she made her way so slowly up the tree.

There was one other person on the hike with us, Christine from Germany. We chatted a bit with her on the way to the trail. Edgar pulled into an overgrown area – or it seemed to be overgrown until you saw people’s houses up some driveways – and we headed away from civilization and into the actual jungle.

Now, let me tell you how dark it was. We each had at least one flashlight, some had two, and we all had our phones and cameras for pictures. When all these devices were turned off, you could not even see your own hand in front of your face. It was DARK. I was excited to see what was out there, but not super excited about the thoughts that kept jumping into my brain about being lost in the FOR REAL jungle with no lights and no idea what was out there and hungry. It was going to be a great hike!!

We saw all kinds of insects, which is good because Axel has a science report to do on insects in Panama – convenient, haha! We saw frogs and an actual bushmaster snake. We did not see big cats – they are very good at hiding. We saw ocelot and jaguarundi tracks, though, so we knew they were around there somewhere. We heard owls hooting, too, but they just watched us. We saw the little bats that flew around, but none of the big fruit bats that were as big as a small child. I know, bummer, right?!

Here are a bunch of pictures of what we saw.

There were a lot more things out there wanting to say hello, but, as my children have told me time and time again, I am not allowed to touch all the wild animals. As a matter of fact, they have told me I am not allowed to touch ANY of them. Whatever. The pelicans in Florida wanted to high five. I am sure of it. Why else did they keep flying right next to me? Hmmmm?