Jungle Tour San Blas 12.9.08

We were up & at ‘em early this morning as we all wanted to get on the first panga out on the Jungle tour. Again, when you think of San Blas, you think of the Jungle tour. You jump on a panga that takes you up the estuary similar to one we have been on in Tenacatita. Mike & Marylyn on Lady Hawke and Joe & Deborah on Pacific Jade with us beached our dinghies and locked them up at Ismael’s and walked down the street to the beginning of the jungle tour. Two other cruisers on Indian Summer joined us and all 8 of us jumped in a panga and began the tour. The estuary is lined with mangroves, cat tails, trees, & ferns – everything green you can imagine. The day was beautiful – sunny & warm and a bit muggy. We know we’re South now! We saw probably a hundred different species of birds, turtles, iguanas, butterflies, bulls, & crocodiles! Yep, freshwater crocs! We even saw an abandoned movie set. Our guide had eagle eyes and stopped the panga & identified every bird he saw, flower, tree, seed, & shell. Along the panga ride, we saw about 6 crocs from small ones only 3’ long or so and others that were bigger, fatter, & scarier! Our first stop was at a Crocodile farm which is a refuge & even a little bit zoo. There were lots of crocs – from itty bitty ones about 6” long to huge ones 6-7 feet long! And other animals – deer, hogs, parrots. We were attempting to take pics of the huge crocs and were worried that we would scare them and they’d run after us…well, I was taking a photos of a particularly large one and suddenly….a HUGE moth flashed right in front of the camera lens…it scared the beejesus out of me!! We all had quite a laugh at that. Then, I was also taking a photo of the hogs, which were so cute! I took a photo and the flash scared the hell out of one of them and it jumped, which made me jump twice as high! Haha… After spending a little while at the crocodile farm, we jumped back in the panga and went to a nice hidden swimming hole with a restaurant. It was heaven! The water was clear and turquoise, fresh & cool. We all jumped in & swam around in the cool refreshing fresh water. Ahhh….now this is living. They even had a swing that the boys used to jump into the nice cool water. After we were swimmed out, food & drinks were ordered and I went around the place to take photos. I was approached by one of the workers, the head maintenance man who lived on the property and he told me he lived on the property – a perk of the job – and he was responsible for keeping the pumps running 24/7 as they supplied San Blas with drinking water. We hung out for about an hour at the restaurant – swimming, chatting, & eating lunch, and jumped back in the panga to head back. We started the trip around 7am and returned around 1pm. What a fun morning! The Jungle trip is definitely high on my list of recommended activities – but especially the fresh water swim!

We walked back to the Bay and had our obligatory beers at Ishmael’s and made it back to the boat for some much needed rest & relaxation. There are plenty of small projects to complete on the boat – wash the dinghy, wash the boat, laundry, etc. We had a nice dinner & catch up on the blogs! We’re planning on staying for a couple more days and then heading further south to Guayabitos Cove to Jaltemba. The plan is still to be in the Barra de Navidad area by around Christmas.

I hope to update photos in the next day or so!