There is the wet season, and the wetter season, people delighted in telling me about Bocas. When I first showed up, it was indubitably the wetter season. Within minutes of our getting into town, it started to rain. Then it poured. When we met up with Man Hing, we ducked under an overhang, trying to stow the pack which contained the computers in the big drybag he’d brought. Our big packs went under the tarp in his boat. I was already thoroughly soaked, so cared not if the ride was splashy. I spread the waxed tablecloth over my lap, I was facing backward in the cayuco and Rick was facing me, and he used the other half of the tablecloth, and I thought, what’s the worst that can happen anyway. So maybe I’ll get wetter.
Yeah. It poured. It got windy. I marveled at how Man Hing rode the waves, timing it perfectly while simultaneously bailing the boat. I figured, he had to know what he was doing, everything was under total control. And then the lightning started. I don’t freak out that much about lightning, but I was facing backward. And I saw that one particular flash of lightning in detail – the one that Rick saw, and he was counting, and then his eyes widened and he said, that was only a few hundred meters. We were more than a few hundred meters from the nearest shore, so he figured it out in no time – did you see that hit the water?” - he asked. Uh huh, I said. I didn’t say, in about the spot where we were a minute or so ago (An aside: Rick just corrected me - it was 500 m away, which means, at the speed we were going, we would have been there three minutes earlier. Fine. I have just learned something: it takes six minutes for Man Hing’s cayuco to travel 1 km, thus it moves at 10 km/hr. Take that grade nine math.) I shut up, and I wanted this boat ride to be *over*. Rick later expressed surprise how calm I’d been. I didn’t tell him that I was trying to keep perfectly still so the lightning wouldn’t find me (I had convinced myself that my hands were tingling). I just shrugged, like I defy lightning every day, and said something about what’s the point of getting upset if you can’t do anything.
For the first three days in Bocas, it poured on and off. I thought any descriptions of sunny days were lies. The penca (new word! That’s a kind of palm frond, from a certain kind of palm, that is used in traditional thatched roofing) let in some water (it had a bit of wind damage) – Rick repositioned both computer and mattress because of the drip drip drip. I strategically spread a towel. But we didn’t sit inside much. On the first day, the day we got there, we went for a hike around the Man Hing place. This is where I learned some more new words: heliconia, cleaning, taro, nispero, guanabana (of which there were none). I also learned to appreciate the utility of a machete, that those tiny ants bite, and how good it is that dogs may alert you to snakes. I 
demanded a stick to help me on the steep, slippery slopes. The jungle kicked my ass every time – and this was on (mostly) clean trails! Next time, rubber boots, Rick said, looking down at my soggy hiking boots from which my pants kept getting untucked. I evaluated the evidence of what this environment does: Rick’s barbecue barrel from five months ago was rusted right through. I wondered if I would grow vines if I stayed still for five minutes, because anything unattended will be covered in vegetation before it is missed, it seems.
I’d be lying if I said I loved the jungle. I loved learning new stuff (my brain was full about halfway through the walk, though). I also loved seeing Rick in his element, and seeing the stuff he’d talked about so much. But I didn’t love the jungle. It was dark, I was wet from the outside and drenched in sweat, things kept biting me, and I was completely muddy. I hated that: not so much the being muddy part, but that I didn’t love the jungle. I wanted to love the jungle, I expected it of myself. I mean, when have sweat, biting insects and mud been such a big deal, when there is a (mostly) dry house and (fully) dry clothes to come back to? When, the second you get back to the cabana you can strip off your muddy outer layer and toss it in a barrel that is filling with rainwater and jump into the warm ocean and have a great swim, and then have a refreshing freshwater shower (and there is lots of freshwater, because the barrels on the hill are being kept plenty full with all this rain). But I didn’t love the jungle.
Our second day, we wandered around the Emiliano and Ricardito places. I liked the really clean areas, I liked the fruit trees, I liked going inside the Emiliano and Choni houses for quick visits. I was not happy about the 
prospect of venturing into the jungle for a “short cut” to the Ricardito place, and was glad when Rick – perhaps right after my demand that I need *two* sticks today – aborted that one. It kept raining. Everything was muddy. We squelched through the new infill at the Ricardito place and stomped up to the Abelardo house. Then we started following a trail to a lake, but turned back. Rick was telling me what it looked like with cow pastures before. As I brushed off an ant and stumbled, I traitorously thought that a cow pasture might suit me better (this was, of course, before I saw a tropical cow pasture). That afternoon, I insisted on snorkeling. In the rain. I loved the ocean. I was comfortable there, even if it had jellyfish.
I liked being in Bocas, I liked hanging out with Rick, but I didn’t understand his utter love of the jungle. Maybe it’s one of those things you have to have grow on you, I thought, as I put on dry, clean clothes and started picking the seeds which had velcroed themselves onto my pants off. Tita helped pick off the seeds. I wondered why none got stuck in her coat, seeing as the dogs were all over the place on these walks (though Tasso did not come on the walks to the other places, that required going in a boat – Tasso doesn’t *do* boats).
Day three, it was still raining. I would have been happy staying inside, waging war on the nasty cockroaches (I significantly reduced their habitat the previous afternoon. If you go away for five months, the cockroaches 
will move in. As do bats, but Ricardito and Choni had evicted those in the morning of our second day). I could have puttered until it was afternoon blender drink time (it was afternoon blender drink time *every* afternoon!) Rick thought we should hike to a neighbour’s. It’s not jungle, he said, it’s pastures and there are fruit trees. Ricardito is going to show us the way. I resignedly put on my jungle clothes, and grabbed my stick, and trudged behind Ricardito and Rick.
And then my mood turned around! It really wasn’t much jungle – though of course there was some. It was a lot of cow pastures (which are just as muddy as the jungle), and some planted areas. We got to the 
neighbour’s fruit trees – the neighbour is not there much, and Rick’s guys get to help themselves to fruit in exchange for keeping an eye on the place. Ricardito introduced me to bitter orange, which I loved. We checked out a spider. We saw a sloth. There was more tree tutelage. There were limes, and breadfruit (which was on somebody else’s land, but we asked permission, and he gave it, and let Ricardito use his long stick with a cutting implement on the end). We stopped and chatted with this guy and another one of similar generation – I was fascinated, those two and Ricardito were going on in rapid guari-guari, which they claim is English. Not any English that I could understand. We crossed a creek 
on a rickety boardwalk that had an outhouse right over the creek (they don’t do the pooping in the water thing at the places Rick has). We crossed a muddy low stream-like section – Ricardito walked across like he was on water. Rick showed me where he thought I should go. Is better here, Ricardito said. It all looked like mud to me, so I hopped onto the log Rick had thrown into the mud. And fell off. And started sinking. My stick wasn’t saving me now, I needed Rick to haul me out again – and then I crossed where Ricardito had said, and it was ok. Of course it was. Don’t question someone who grew up in the jungle.
Tasso and Tita had been locked behind the gate at the cabana, but they escaped and insisted on coming on the hike anyway. This was fine for Tita, but Tasso was unimpressed when he realized that we would *not* be hiking back overland. He refused to get into the boat when it was time to go home. Rick carried him in once, he climbed out so fast he missed the dock and fell into the water and had to swim back to shore. Then he refused to even set foot on the dock, and Rick had to carry him from shore. He was forced back in the boat, and he was miserable all the way home. It rained some more.
I’m jungled out, Rick said when we got home. Finally, I thought. Not that this meant we wouldn’t be re-entering the jungle during my time there – we would, several times. But even Rick had enough of the muddy jungle and the rain. Good thing that it stopped later that night.
Posted by Johanna at September 5, 2006 10:27 PM