The shoreline around Bocas del Toro is a display of colorful buildings on stilts.
It’s rainy season again and that means a break in tourism for us. We decided to take a break ourselves and journey on down to Panama and visit an island off of Bocas del Toro called Bastimentos Island. Bastimentos park is located here and is one of a few protected areas of Latin America that preserve, simultaneously, the wildlife and habitat of beaches, coral reef and mangroves. We rented a house on the southeast side of the island called Salt Creek where a small Indian community of some 300 inhabitants live in houses on stilts made of jira (a type of palm thatch for the roof) and wood.
This is also the beach where they filmed Survivor Panama (which we only found out about afterward, this was not a selling point for our vacation, lol).
We admit we are being “Total Tourists” taking this picture
We rented a house along the beach (one of five for rent in this little enclave) where beyond the beautiful homes life thrives as it always has here, native style. The Ngobe Indians still live in communities and small villages beyond the mysterious mangroves inland surrounded by rain forest. Their main occupation is fishing and lobster catching. You will see many boats paddling the shore in search of lobsters and fish along the coral reef that encircles the island in this area. Tours are also available for the community of Ngobe Indians at Salt Creek, 300 residents, as well as a guided hike into the rain forest. The hike does take several hours as a side note.
Michael our tour guide and host with Holly as we enter a Ngobe village by kayak through the mangroves.
Three typical structures: homes on stilts, metal, palm frond and plastic canvas roofs.
Ngobe children posing for a picture. They loved seeing their photos on the LCD screen of our camera.
The homes for rent although different in style all utilize similar sustainable practices to be as eco friendly as possible to this protected area. We were impressed with the various things they have implemented such as rain water catchment systems that supply them with all their household water needs. There is even an ultraviolet water purification system providing drinking water. Solar power, self composting toilets, low wattage refrigerators and DC ceiling fans round out many of the practices implemented in these eco friendly homes
A variety of tours that benefit the indigenous people, protected park and reef areas for snorkeling (Zapatilla Islands on Michael’s Hobie cat, two thumbs up!) or miles of shoreline to explore is all waiting for you at Salt Creek Bastimentos Island.
Michael and Christine are your hosts and they are both wonderful people and will help to make sure your stay is as comfortable as possible in this remote region off the grid.
Our beach home for 5 day.
You can find more photos of our vacation in the photo album section of the blog. We’ll end this article off with the picture below.
An adult female Silky Anteater, 6 1/2 inches in length, being transported to a rescue center by our friend Rayna.
It was Sunday morning and I was pulling weeds in my garden, enjoying the sunrise, planning the rest of what I hoped to be a relaxing day. My wife Holly appeared out of nowhere with a box and said she “needs my help”…… Past experience tells me that any plans I had for a relaxing day have just been canceled. Apparently a guy living in Sabalo came to our home with what appeared to be a baby animal that needed help. Holly thought it might be a sloth and found out that they need goat’s milk every three hours until it can be transported to a rescue facility. The closest one is on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. I was to find goat’s milk; no problem there are goats in Sabalo!
I quickly found out that the goats wouldn’t be ready for milking until early morning; it was only about 11:00 am and that would be too long without food for the baby. I went to the next community and no luck there either. I would have to take our quad 17 kilometers up and down a mountainous dirt road to the town of Sierpe where they had two goats. There was a huge storm coming in as well; it was not going to be a good day. The storm broke as I arrived in Sierpe so I was instantly soaking wet. I hopped in a friend’s car and he took me to the two homes that had goats. The first goat had kids two days earlier and they could not spare any milk. The second goat was no longer in Sierpe. Strike two and I had no plan beyond the goats in Sierpe; despair sets in.
I’m now back at the Las Vegas restaurant where they have internet access and I check my email. Holly had emailed a friend in Sierpe telling them we needed goat’s milk. Our friend has a friend whose boyfriend’s cousin lives near a guy with a goat. I have goat’s milk waiting for me! I was picked up by our new friend Rayna who adores sloths and hopes to one day start a rescue center for them and other animals in the town of Sierpe. We along with her boyfriend are off, 20 minutes outside of Sierpe to the town of Palmar Norte for the goat’s milk. It is still raining. I get the milk and hop in a taxi back to Sierpe, paddle across the river in a boat taxi to my quad. I am now chasing the storm that just passed by back into the mountains and it did not take long to find rain again as the sun faded over the horizon, pulling light from the sky with its descent leaving an eerie path of darkness and shadows accompanied by a million chirping insects.
The road was rutted from past rain storms and is cut through a clay soil that gets slippery in the rain. Our quads are two wheel drive and slide all over the place in muddy conditions but I made it almost back to within 10 minutes of our home with the goat’s milk without incident. That’s when it all went really bad.
There is one place in the road that is washed out and an alternative route through a shallow stream had been cut as a means to pass this otherwise uncrossable place in the road. It’s getting dark, it’s raining and Holly just happened to be on the other side of the now fast moving stream waiting for my return. She was on our other quad and had brought rope and our dog Lassie. Holly tells me she tested the water level it was only up to her knees and that I should be able to make it across. I am doubtful but try anyway. The quad stalls right in the middle of the fast moving stream and the water starts to move the quad down the stream with the current! I jump off and yell for help. Holly immediately jumps in and in waist high water, we fight the current to bring the quad over to the side of the stream. The quad is now on it’s side and halfway submerged in the water. We can’t get it out of the water and back onto the road so Holly climbs out, ties off the quad to a tree then goes to get help from our friend Jesus, the biggest guy in Sabalo. I’m in the stream for 20 minutes holding the bike above the rushing water as best as I can. It is now pitch black and still raining. Holly finally returns with Jesus and he jumps into the water; between the two of us we are able to drag the quad back up onto the road although it was a tough fight against the current. We towed it back with the other quad as it would not start. The engine was under water for a fair amount of time.
Holly tells me that Jesus (who is also the guy I asked for goats milk earlier) was able to bring us some milk at about 5:00 pm instead of 6:00 am the next morning like he said earlier in the day (its around 7:00pm now). Of course, I thought, after all that %$*@#!……….well at least our little friend would have plenty of goats milk. When we finally got back to feed her we remember that sloths do not have tails, ooops! Now we don’t even know what she is but we proceed to give her some milk to keep her hydrated.
Jesus delivering goats milk for the animal rescue.
Dan feeding our unidentified rescue animal some goat’s milk.
We made arrangements to bring our furry little friend into Sierpe the next morning where Rayna would tend to her and take her to a rescue center. It turned out that she is a Silky Anteater – they are 6 1/2 inches long, nocturnal and almost never seen in the wild. They use their strong, sharp claws to open ant tunnels in decaying wood and to support themselves as they climb. Although these anteaters are sleepy and easy going, they can defend themselves effectively using rapid slashes with their claws, so if one turns up we look but do not touch! The people at the reserve were concerned that she was found near the ground during the day meaning she may have been sick. Eventually she made a full recovery and was let go back into the wild. You can find out more about how the story ended with the post on Rayna’s blog called “How I came to know a Silky Anteater”. The link can be found below.
Silky Anteater.
You can get a better idea how small they are from this picture here.
