Sqealing and Ass Kicking

From Borbon we moved inland to the village of Selva Allegre, riding on the roof of a truck/bus hybrid thing. I kind of enjoyed it, it"s always vaunted as a very authentic traveller kind of thing to do. This being me though, I was exceedingly wary of us hitting a pothole at speed, flinging me high into the air without anything underneath me but the ground when it came to landing. I held onto our heavy rucksacks with my knuckles, if not white, a very light shade of pink. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to my buttocks who were forced to endure a 2 hour bouncathon on a rough wooden bench - ouch. Andy sat next to this bloke who had a pig in a sack. We didn"t notice until the guy got off and poor Porky started squealing. Next stop, the pot I"d wager.

In Selva Allegre we experienced something of a communication breakdown. We were supposed to be meeting Julio the boatman from the village Playa de Oro (Lit: Beach of Gold), for a trip down the river to the Reserva de Tigrillos (a jungle lodge and cat sanctuary). This had been sorted the previous week via email. Whatever the mix up, we ended up sitting in a cafe owned by the very hospitable Nelly, Julio"s cousin, eating shellfish stew and watching another kung fu masterpiece: Kickboxer 4.

It was fascinating waching Jean Claude Van Damme learn how to catch arrows fired at him from close range (oh and seeing him kick some ass as well obviously). However, eventually we tired of waiting for Julio to show and instead struck a deal with some random geezer to take us up the river to Playa de Oro. David, a bird watcher from Boston  (originally from England but with a bizarre Australian twang) joined us for the trip.