Bamboo House

One would NOT believe the roads we drove on in order to reach our 'Jungle Home' which is well and truly "off the grid" During the 7 hour journey we drove over mountains that look as though the road would only support a bike, across wooden bridges barely wide enough to accomodate our 4 tires, even through a few low rivers. At one part of the journey we opted for a short cut that took us through a small town to an unmarked river crossing. To get across, the car had to be backed down a steep incline onto a "single car" rusty ferry propelled by a wooden boat lashed to the side of it..... quite the adventure.


Our "Jungle Experience" is not so scary after all. No mosquitoes :) and the monkeys keep their distance, but oh how they have entertained us as we watch them travel through the canopy of the trees in large groups with the young un's hanging on. It's keeping the racoonls at bay that is the challenge, all our food is either in a mini fridge, the oven or locked in a mesh screened cupboard. Yes, we have a few hard backed beatles, spiders, lizards, bats, birds that actually fly through the 'A' framed roofing, but we are doing GREAT!
We need to be vigilant with the clearing up after food prep due to the industrious ants. Katie and I took the 30 stepping stone walk to the open air bathroom one night only to see 2 pairs of eyes shinning in our flashlights .... we had disturbed two racoons playing in the toilet water! I am actually very impressed with the bathroom area, simple wood/ stone trough for a sink, and a bamboo covered pipe shower with folage for walls.

There is a beautiful butterfly garden at one side of 'the house' and they frequently drift through our living quarters, and the smallest birds rest among the bamboo beams singing their hearts out... it is truly like living in a garden. We are lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean and the howler monkeys calling out to each other.



The house with 'no walls' actually is really neat, a simple construction, a bit like a ' Swiss Family Robinson' tree house only it has raised deck levels from the ground, not up in the tree tops, and the four of us are enjoying it immensely. Our days are simple, even though the jungle comes to life at the earliest sign of daylight, we just take in all the strange sounds and scents... these monkeys can really make a racket. We don't get going till we have had our coffee, which takes us to about 9 am, and by 'getting going' I mean, we meander down to the beach, a 3 min walk away, and 'wallow' in the tidal pools - watching the brilliantly colored macaws - for a couple of hours. Then it's breakfast/lunch around noon, followed with reading and sleeping till 4 pm ...none of us have a desire to move any faster than a sloth! We can't, it's too hot. Then somehow it's evening time, fix dinner, play cards, sleep, and start the whole hectic process all over again the next day!

All four of us can say we have this relaxation thing down to a science!!


We did change up the routine one day by taking a remote walk to reach a waterfall which we had been told was a great place for a swim. So using the cobble stone river as our guide we carefully picked our way through the water which was anywhere from ankle to chest deep! (had we not been assured that this indeed was the right way we may well have turned back as there were no directions - just word of mouth). Shaded by the lush canopy filled with monkeys we trekked onward until we reached the cascading waterfall with it's deep refreshing cold pool. Here we lounged at the base of the falls thankful that we were able to steal a brief reprieve from the tropical heat. The 45 minuite walk back along the riverbed afforded us an opportunity to encourage a couple with directons to the falls, feeling we were now seasoned explorers!