The Jungle!

Our return from the paradise of Jardin was quickly followed by the departure into a new paradise, Rio Claro. However, first Diego took us on a side jaunt to see a big rock. Sounds pretty dull, of course it was anything but. The large granite boulder of El Penol sits atop a mountain surrounded by a reservoir. In the late 1960s, this series of valleys was dammed in order to create a reservoir for hydroelectricity for the city of Medellin. Now-a-days, you can climb 750 stairs to the top of the rock and see the expansive views of the reservoir. Pretty spectacular scenery! (Though I don’t want to think about the ecological implications of flooding 50+ valleys…)

The following day, we boarded another bus and headed to the private nature preserve of Rio Claro (meaning Clear River). It’s hard to describe how incredible it was to be there. Our room was in the third story of a building constructed into the side of a cliff face, and it looked out through the tree canopy. There were views up and down the sheer canyon from our windowless balcony. Yes, I did say windowless. It was hot. It was humid. It was the real jungle. We had walls that went almost to the roof (but there was a sizeable gap) and the entire front of our room was open to the jungle. There were surprisingly few bug, although we did not turn the lights on after dark (as per Adam’s demands), which meant bed time was early since it gets dark around 6pm. The restaurant was a ten minute walk on a cobble path through the jungle. Overhanging were many plants, dripping trees, mosses, ferns, all sorts of things you’d imagine finding in the jungle.

At dinner, the walk was with flashlights. We only saw one scary bug (though we saw several of them!). It was a Whip Spider (aka Tailess Whip Scorpion), which is neither a spider nor a scorpion. Flat body, and really long legs and creepy looking. During the daytime walks, we were often treated by playful spider monkeys frolicking in the forest on the other side of the river! We spent a lot of time watching them play. We could swim in the river, float down in the current and watch the monkeys jumping from tree to tree. It was pretty awesome.

We walked upriver for about an hour, until we came to a swimming hole that I just couldn’t pass up. While I was in the water, Adam spied an indigenous man upstream. We decided to retreat back to our reserve area so as not to disturb him any more than we probably had. While at Rio Claro, we saw several types of frogs (both big and small), the whip spiders, monkeys, a few birds, little lizards, a big snail WAY WAY up a tree, and incredible flora. Oh, and a game of cat and mouse in the restaurant, between a cat and a rat!

Next stop, the Caribbean.