To Panama and Back - Lost and Found

    While we were on the islands people kept raving about this eco hostel called Lost and Found, which happened to be up in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. We were told to catch a bus to a town called David and when we get half way jump off when we see three big yellow rocks. We were also advised to go during the day as there is quite a long hike up to the hostel through the jungle. So the day came when we were going to depart, but it was super sunny and lush so we decided to push our boat taxi back to the mainland to three o'clock. Thinking the boat taxi would be thirty minutes and the bus two hours to the yellow rocks this would give us an hour of sunlight to hike to the hostel... perfect. We were on the bus looking for these yellow rocks and it kept getting darker and darker until it was pitch black and all I could see was my reflection in the window, but we told the driver and he let us out when we got to the rocks. We were quickly left on the side of the road with very limited moonlight, no passing cars, and no towns for two hours in either direction.

    We crossed the road and came to beginning of the trail only to see it dissapear into the black jungle. The noises that were coming from the jungle made all the stories ive heard very real, about how the jungle becomes alive at night. Prata and connor led our group of six using a blackberry screen to light the path with another couple closely following them and me and Phe taking the rear. The trail was alot gnarlier than everyone had told us, it was very overgrown and some points were so steep we had to climb, I had a surfboard in my right hand so it was quite difficult when it came to the climbing, every second that passed seemed like an hour. I was dwelling on the stories my friend Pat used to tell me back in Costa Rica about how hes nearly been bit by multiple times by very poisonous snakes that could kill you if you didnt get to a hospital within the hour. As I was thinking about how nuts those stories were, the bushes right beside me began russling. I froze thinking it was just a gust of wind but no it was something very very big and it was moving slowly along the ground closer to me until it was no further than a foot away. I ran one step forward only to run into Phe who was stuck behind the other couple who were having trouble getting up one of the steep bits. So of course I did the manly thing and began shoving phe into the couple infront shouting move your asses theres something in the bushes! I had a couple moments of panic and I was very tempted to run/roll myself backdown to the highway and sleep on the road, but luckily everyone began hustling and we were out of there. The rest of the hike sucked. But we made it to the top eventually and were very welcomed by all the staff and we were all having a laugh about our hike. It turned out the path we should have taken was a well tracked hiking trail, and the path we happened to climb that night was very rarely used if not ever used because it is so overgrown and steep

 

    One of the offered day trips we took was to these hot springs, which were average... until we found this monkey who was the friendliest clumsiet monkey in town. We were having so much fun playing with it I put my camera down and it quickly ran up the tree infront of me and jumped toward the one behind. Very touching music was playing in my head while this monkey soared through the air in slow motion, its times like these you slow everything down to really appreciate nature... until the monkey missed the branch and hit every other branch on his way down to the ground and then snatched my camera! I took off after that cheeky thing and he only looked at me once before letting the camera go because he knew I was going to annihilate him, and I most definatly was. We made up soon after.

 

 

  

    We explored the jungle around Lost and Found while doing a treasure hunt, which was free and if we completed it we won a bottle of wine. Strike!