Home Sweet Hut

Today I moved to an adventure/jungle/eco-lodge located adjacent to the stunningly beautiful Rio Cangrejal. Boulders the size of houses are scattered up and down the river liket the remnants from some slingshot shoot-out amongst giants.

When I checked in at noon today it was not without a few concerns. And by “checked in” I mean the owner led me up the path into the jungle, handed me the key to my little creek cabin and called “Bye!” over her shoulder, without giving me a clue as to where the shower or the bathroom are, 'cause they're sure not anywhere near my room! The accommodations here are much more spartan than the other places I’ve stayed on this trip. $30.00 a night gets you a bed and a bulb. So I signed up for this to see if I could still hack it…rustic accommodations and hard physical activity with people half my age.

My cabin straddles a babbling creek, there’s a porch with a hammock, and from every vantage point the view is lush jungle, banana trees, brilliant red ginger blossoms and hibiscus flowers. The roof is tin, so the single room dwelling is as hot and humid as a....um...a building with a tin roof in the middle of the jungle.

When things fall out of the sky onto the roof, which they do periodically….I don’t know if it’s fruit or sticks or maybe just the joints of the roof expanding in the heat, it makes a REALLY loud bang like .38 caliber pistol. So it’s kind of like trying to sleep on a firing range.

Turns out there’s an outdoor/cold water shower and the communal bathroom is a short hike across the property and through the dining room. I don’t know about you, but the words “communal bathroom” always bring to mind the time I had to wade ankle deep into a public restroom in the Dominican Republic. It still gives me bad dreams.

The main reason for my trepidation, however, was that I imagined the other guests to be young, hard-bodied triathletes like the couple I had dinner with last night. He’s a personal trainer about to enter dental school and she’s a former collegiate lacrosse player turned yoga instructor who looks like a super model. Their total body fat combined is 3%. I took note of this as I slathered butter all over my second piece of bread, right before I ordered ice cream for dessert.