Estamos en Bolita

Our stay in Bolita was quite different to most of our stops on the trip to-date… Bolita was to be a 3 night jungle stay in an eco-lodge, but gone were the days of food provided and guided treks included (yep, I’m reminiscing about our trip into Manú in Peru at this stage…) At Bolita we were to be self-sufficient and miles from anywhere… if we hadn’t hiked in enough food for our stay, it was a long hike out to buy more… I was nervous!!

We arrived at Bolita pretty hot – but in a much better state than I had anticipated!?! After a nice uphill hike, we were met by Bolita’s owner Ron – Ron was a really friendly dude who welcomed us with a much needed glass of water 🙂 Before showing us to our room he sat with us – and the German backpacker we’d walked in with – to explain how things worked. There was a tour of the kitchen and we were allocated a container to keep our food in. He also took some time to point out the honesty box system for the vast array of spirits should we wish to partake in a tipple – or two – during our stay(!?!), and for the random ‘spare’ food items that were on the side in the kitchen! My fears of not enough food slowly left me – if we were ill-prepared and/or overate – then we could always gorge on cookies and chocolate bars… or eat some instant noodles….

Ron also gave us some information about the trails and pointed out some of the birds and animals we might see while we were there… there was heaps of other wise words of wisdom imparted on us too… I just can’t remember what they were – as obviously blog time is not real time and so it’s been a while since we were really there!

We were then shown our room… we’d booked a double room – so while the German backpacker went to the dorm area, off we went to the other end of Bolita eco-lodge past the bathrooms – yep, shared bathrooms for everyone at Bolita! Our section also had its own kitchen area so we could escape the backpackers if we needed to – yep, we’re the grumpy old people remember… 😉

The room was pretty basic, but clean – so all good 🙂 We made the bed – yep, at Bolita they might provide the bedding, but making sure the bed is made is the guest’s responsibility!!!! And not wanting to be stuck in the dark making the bed by torchlight, we decided to do it right then and there! We then unpacked a little… and sat at the end of the room staring out into the bush – yep, doors are not ‘a la mode’ in Bolita – hoping that we would see some amazing wildlife stroll past…

Anyway… our main reason for being at Bolita was to be in nature, to do some hiking and to see animals and birds…. so after lunch – when the rain had stopped – we ventured out on our first walk.

For our first trail we picked a short loop walk – following two trails – the Banana and the Big Banana! Ron had told us about the trail before we left so we had our eyes peeled for a ‘surprise’ on the trail too! It turned out to be a pretty nice stroll.. but a little shorter than we’d have liked for our first afternoon – especially as it hadn’t started raining again – so off we went on a little detour down Chiquito (the name of one of the other trails at Bolito).

One of our favourite walks at Bolita was the walk to the mirador, as it winded through some pretty nice jungle 🙂 The view from the top was also pretty cool – with good weather we could even spot the town of Golfito from the top 🙂 After we’d chilled at the top for a while we decided to keep walking for a little longer as Ron had explained that if we carried on past the mirador that we would reach the national park boundary. You’re not allowed in the national park without a guide – but we figured it would be cool to reach the boundary 🙂 To be honest we’re not sure if we made it to the national park or not… we kept our eyes peeled for the sign saying ‘STOP – you’re trespassing in the national park’… but it never came… we will never know if we accidentally wandered into the park or if we stayed on Bolita’s land the entire walk… what we do know is that we enjoyed the walk 🙂 🙂 AND that while we might not have had a lucky mammal sighting, we did see toucans and macaws and snakes and lizards… success in our eyes 🙂 😉

The final trail for us to walk was the Bonanza trail! The bonanza trail was pretty cool – there were wateralls and FROGS – cool colourful frogs 🙂 What wasn’t to like… well, I might point out that the rain was pretty annoying – now I’m okay with a bit of rain, but on the Bonanza trail the heavens opened  🙁 We were forced to take shelter under a BIG tree… what can I say – we still got wet, BUT at least we weren’t soaked through to the bones…

When we weren’t out and about walking the trails we spent our time at Bolita eatng and drinking… please don’t get the wrong idea – we didn’t work our way through the spirit bottles in those 3 days… instead we liked to hang out on the upper deck of the main building – overlooking the garden and wilderness – drinking mate every afternoon! It was very relaxing 🙂

The balcony was also a good early morning spot – lots of the other guests trekked in the dark up to the mirador to see the sunrise… we chose to give this a miss… but did watch the sunrise from the deck on top of the kitchen instead!

After three nights it was time to leave… we packed up and got ready for the hike out… having eaten almost everything we arrived with it was even easier on the way out as the bags were heaps lighter 🙂 🙂 The only difference was after reaching the Bolita office we had to keep on walking! The taxi had taken us right to the office door, but on our journey out we had one more stream to traverse before we could make it to the bus stop at Dos Brazos…

After crossing the final hurdle we saw two lone travellers walking down the road – they were pulling behind them a couple of wheelie cases… they asked us if they were on the right road to Bolita? Yes, we said – you are – here’s hoping they planned to leave some stuff at the Bolita office and weren’t planning on taking wheelie cases up the muddy trail to Bolita…

We continued on our way… hoping that when we reached Dos Brazos that the bus would arrive to whisk us to Puerto JIménez, and that it wouldn’t be a no-show for fear of trafficos…