Day 53 - back to Pantiacolla Lodge.

Golly, we can sleep in! Breakfast’s not till 7.30! Awake before 4am anyway; read John Grisham’s ‘The Client’ for a while, then fall back asleep. Discover that I’ve managed to wrench my shoulder in my sleep somehow.

Fleabag the kitten with the odd eyes makes herself comfortable in my lap during breakfast. I surreptitiously feed her my sausage. According to our guide, the lodge seems to get a new cat every year; eventually they escape outside and are eaten by birds of prey or a larger forest cat; the jungle's no place for a house cat.

While we wait for Ernst and Christine’s plane, I work on more maps. The plane’s earlier this time – 8.30ish, and we set off, first stopping in Boca Manu for some supplies. No bushmasters on the field this time around. The computers at the grocery stone are run off a generator, which is currently down. I was toying with the idea of checking my email in the middle of jungle, and am kind of glad that it didn’t work. Kind of spoils the mystery.

There’s a strong smell of diesel coming from the fuel drum at the front of the boat. I don’t think I can take five hours of it, which is how long it’ll take us to go up the river to Pantiacolla Lodge, so I harass Nicolás, who asks Carlitos to wash it. The smell lessens, but only just. My friends who work for Journey Latin America tell me that each group of tourists they lead invariably contains one who complains about things and keeps asking: “When’s lunch? What’s for lunch? How long till we get to our lodge? Are we there yet?” It seems that I’m that person in our group, partially by virtue of sitting next to Nicolás and having him for my captive audience.

Keep half an eye out for herons while reading ‘The Client’ at the same time. Suddenly Nicolás points and we see a large capybara (‘master of the grasses’) in the tall grass by the river. It looks like it’s been swimming and has the face of a beaver.

Work on maps. Annotate my text, even though the pages threaten to rip themselves out of my hand and fly away.

We stop for petrol at the little indigenous community of Ipawaniya. An old man in the world’s grubbiest t-shirt is pushing a wheelbarrow full of yucca. Nicolás bargains with him and his young assistant and gets some yucca for Valentín the cook. I wonder what’s for dinner…

When the old man and his assistant shake hands with us, it’s no more than a light touch, just like the Japanese. There’s a bad smell coming from somewhere amidst the ramshackle plank huts, the crates piled up outside, the diesel drums stacked under a thatched roof. Tim’s wandered off by himself along the beach.

Pantiacolla Lodge is the best one out of the lot. We’re in a raised house, partitioned into spacious rooms with desks, candles, even large Tupperware boxes for dry storage. We even have en-suites – through the back door and across a wooden walkway. No longer will I have to shake out my boots to check for scorpions or watch out for poisonous snakes during nocturnal bathroom rambles. This is luxury.

Dinner does indeed include fried yucca piled high. Tim’s ignoring all of us. His only contribution to the conversation is: “Where are the umbrellas?” when he declines the post-dinner night walk to look for frogs. I’m tired, but Sarah persuades me that tomorrow I’ll be even more tired; there’s an action-packed last day awaiting us.

I’m finally justified in bringing my rain poncho. Tropical rain falls heavily, though we’re largely protected by the canopy above. It does mean that our muddy walk around the frog swamp yields few results; we can hear them – the croaking, the burbling – but we can’t see them. Nicolás tells us to keep an extra careful eye out for poisonous snakes because they tend to be attracted by the frogs’ singing. We don’t see any snakes either.

I’m startled when something the size of a small helicopter flies in my face; it’s an elephant beetle, disturbed by my torch. That’s the extent of excitement for tonight.