How I Got Lost in The Jungle And Survived

What should have been one the scariest times of my life...

...turned out to be one of the most fun times of my life.

Why, you ask?

I guess because I’m weird.

I’ve noticed that when super bad things happen, normal people freak out. For some reason though, I’m always chill af.

Like the time a guy tried to attack a friend and me in Mexico.

Or when I got stranded hardcore at a border town with 6 friends and 0 money.

Both times, people were crying and going into hysterics, and I kind of just didn’t care at all. I always had to be the one to deal with stuff (mainly because I was the only one calm enough to actually do something about it).

Let me tell you about one of those times...

I was in Bocas del Toro, Panama, with several friends. We decided to go look for a beach called “Red Frog Beach” on La Isla de Bastimentos.

We wanted to find poisonous frogs because that’s what the cool kids do, I guess.

(Image taken from hellotravelpanama.rezdy.com)

We were staying in Bocas Town area and had to get over there on a boat.

Once we got to the island, we saw some of the cutest kids in the world.

This boy wanted to show us his chickens:

Slowly one by one, our group of 6 people dwindled off...

...until it was just me and my friend, Chris.

It was my fault, really.

Because I saw the sketchiest haircut place in the world, and just HAD to try it out. $3 for a sketchy haircut with chickens running on the ground around me?

And locals watching me like I’m the main act in a circus freak show? Yes, please!

I even got to shave the barber’s head afterward! Jk haha.

My friend Chris was the only one nice enough to stay behind with me on my impulsive haircut venture.

Unfortunately for him, nice guys really do finish last…

...because he’s the one who got lost in the jungle with me.

Everyone else managed to find the beach that day.

Chris and I were cursed from the beginning.

First, we were climbing over some rocks, and I dropped my camera and it broke! No more pictures for me (or for you to see).

This is the last, blurry picture I took before the unfortunate death of my camera:

We had to bury it in this graveyard:

Just kidding about that last part, but isn’t that a cool looking cemetery? I’d never seen one like it before.

Luckily, this was a LONG time ago, in 2010. So, since I didn’t have a smartphone yet, I got to save the pictures that I’d already taken because they were on a memory card.

Old school for the win! Memory cards are the new superheroes.

After the camera death incident, things just went downhill.

We should never have trusted the random village person who pointed us on the path that didn't really look like a path. When it doesn't look like a legit path, it usually isn't.

We took the sketchy path and mean jungle monkeys threw things at us...

At least they were nice enough to not throw their poop! I’ve heard that they do that.

After the attack of the monkeys, we literally walked for hours.

Then came the mud pit, which we tried to cross because there was no other way around to continue on the path. I thought I could make it...

But the mud pit was way deeper than I expected.

I literally started sinking and thought...

“Oh my gosh, is this the mud version of quicksand?”

I was definitely sinking slowly, further and further, until the mud was up past my bellybutton.

Chris luckily is super tall and has long legs (and did some kind of weird ninja move where he was half hanging off of a log trying to get me).

The mud was up to my shoulders, now.

My flip-flops were completely lost in the mud at this point. I know flip-flops are horrible jungle trekking shoes, but I was planning on going to a poisonous frog beach, remember?

I lost so many pairs of shoes to Central American forces of nature that year.

Anyway, Chris managed to help me get out of the mud. We had no other option but to turn around and try to find a different way out.

We’re walking along, and it started slowly getting dark, which made me a little nervous. I really started wishing I had watched the tv show Survivor more, anyway. (Fun fact: Either Survivor or Naked and Afraid did an episode on this exact same island)

The intense heat radiated through the trees onto my back, making me sweat and lose the little amount of water I had in me. We were incredibly thirsty.

As I was trying to make plans on how to survive the night…

I saw my biggest enemies walking across the path before me: Fire ants.

...but not just any fire ant.

I'm talking about the monstrous, Central American version of them. Also known as bullet ant. Because their sting is like a bullet (and worse than a regular fire ant).

(image from treatcure.com)

I was officially afraid for the first time because I had no shoes and I’m super allergic to fire ants. Chris, being the nice guy that he is, saved me AGAIN!

He literally just let me piggyback ride for a while until it seemed there were no more ants around. Phew, that was a close one.

Thank goodness Chris is so freaking nice.

Dark was closing in on us, and as we started to think we would never make it...

...we saw the first person we had seen in hours.

Thankfully this guy spoke Spanish as well as Creole (some people on the island speak Creole called Guari-guari).

He saved our lives and helped us get out of the jungle!

It was dark by the time we made our way back to the shoreline to try to take a boat home.

Our friends were nowhere to be found.

No one was really taking back boats anymore…

…but luckily we convinced a local fisherman to take us on his boat if we paid him some extra moolah. And that, my friends, is how we made it out of the jungle.

We got back to our hostel and our friends were there.

Their reactions to me, especially, were hilarious.

I got back completely covered in mud, with no shoes, a broken camera, and my hair was WAY shorter than I wanted it to be (the guy chopped off about 6 inches when I only wanted maybe a half inch).

I'm sure I looked like Swamp Thing, from that old comic book back in the day.

(image taken from the interwebz, sideshowtoy.com)

Despite not making it to the beach, I can honestly say that was one of the most fun days I’ve ever had. I always know that if I lose my shoes to a force of nature...

It’s going to be a good time.