The good, the bad and the really bloody disgusting

Days 21-23: Placencia and the Jaguar Reserve

Thu 13 Jan 2011 - Sat 15 Jan 2011 25 °C

.....yep, really not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Sitting in a beach bar in Placencia with my new friends Vanessa and Hila, I contemplate my current outfit: an attractive ensemble including football shorts and a raincoat (friends: do not allow me to consider this acceptable when I show up in London). After some serious downpours while we were camping, everything I have with me is now sporting eau de damp. And my hair looks like some kind of sparrow community have taken up residence in it.

I'm pleased to say that I don't even care too much about this stuff now I have commenced my transformation into Catherine, Queen of the Trekking Sandals, but I do care about attracting hoards of feasting mosquitoes. Vanessa, Hila and I decide to head for the jaguar reserve in the jungle where the situation does not improve. A kind American couple give us a lift in their rental car, which is quite an experience with 3 girls, 3 travelpacks and 3 day bags in the back of something the size of a Nissan micra.

Aside from the mosquitoes, the jaguar reserve is a lovely spot: the highlight is tubing down the river surrounded by the trees and noises of the jungle, wonderful!

As I enshrine myself in my mosquito net and bed down for the night on a mattress which seems to be more spring than foam) I make 2 nasty discoveries.

(1) After taking a look at the facilities on offer, I had decided that I'd last another day without a shower (standards have really changed). This allows me to answer a question that has troubled me for some time: Do smelly people realise they smell? You know, the kind you get on Jeremy Kyle, or if you're really unfortunate, get stuck next to on the bus? The answer, my friends, is YES. That is unless their sense of smell has evolved as some kind of reaction of their body to ensure survival. I am lying there amongst those springs, and I can seriously smell myself. How things have changed in such a short space of time. But the worst is yet to come.

(2) My poor English feet, not used to seeing the light of day, have cracked. It is DISGUSTING. After the 3 day separation from my shoes on the boat trip (we are now happily reunited and will be staying together indefinitely), a gaping hole has appeared in my heel. Whatever has become of me?! I shed a silent tear for the Louboutins, tell myself it's all character building and fall asleep dreaming of showers.....

I have spared you all the feet photos....

This was unfortunately as close as we got to any form of jaguar