Guiding the mysterious jungles of Panama 🇵🇦

The isthmus of Panama is the land bridge between North and South America as well as the gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans joined by its famous ship canal. It's a tropical country of thick jungles, sandy beaches and high volcanic mountains.

For several winters I have been guiding jungle river tours through the mangroves of El Banco on the Pacific coast. Mangrove jungles grow in sheltered costal bays and along tidal rivers, the 3 species of mangrove are the only tree that can thrive in brackish waters being soaked and dried out twice a day with the salty tide. The mangrove tree is a key part of the local and global eco system, providing marine life a place to spawn and a relatively safe haven for the small fish to hide between the roots. In comparison to some mangroves El Banco is small but this jungle is a real maze of hidden watercourses creating many loops and dead ends.

Working with SUP Santa Catalina I guided tours for tourists, locals and research groups including the Smithsonian. We would use the tidal flow to travel up the river on SUP's passing through the low hanging vines and ducking under the branches. Then use the ebb to bring us back out into an open water estuary before finishing at a small fishing village. There were several routes I would guide client along wiggling round small tributaries and looping back and forth into the main river. Some routes were only accessible on spring or a neap tide, one day we would have to duck under a tree branch and a few days later we could paddle over the whole tree. During the dry season I would be in the mangroves most days and had the chance to see much of the local wildlife, every trip involved an encounter with an iguana either basking in the sun or hunting the mangrove crabs. The mangrove crabs are small tree climbing crabs that use the roots to hunt small fish from and will jump from the branches to hitch a lift on the boards, or the paddler! As well as the crabs hopping on for a lift we would occasionally get a basilisk run across the boards. During evening excursions the racoons and possums would sometimes put in an appearance but only if you were very quiet and slow moving. One family of racoons started to get use to me but would slowly move away if I lingered too long. One year I was very lucky to see a jaguarundi, an american wild cat prowling along a tree branch carrying its young. The locals said one hadn't been spotted in the area for years.

Above us in the sky were snowy egrets, parrots, vultures, pelicans and a pair of toucans. The toucans were rare to see in that part of panama and despite being loud and odd shaped they were hard to spot. The water of a mangrove river isn't very inviting, it's dark, murky and often hiding something with teeth! But in the shallow sections and where the light hits the top just right you can see a whole aquatic would, often we spot eagle rays and parrot fish in the wider river and small needle nose fish in the narrow sections. I have even spotted a sea turtle cruising along.

I guided 3 seasons of tours, and each year ventured into more and more of the jungle. I would travel solo into the jungle to seek out more routes and hidden channels. Armed with a machete, bug spray and water I explored this maze of rivers, the trees were thick and dense making the rivers the best option for getting deep into the jungle. sometimes I would have to hack at fallen trees with the machete or climb

over branches to explore. some sections of river just ended with a tangle or roots and thick forest others kept going until they joined together or I was completely turned around. A couple of times I backtracked on a river when the banks started to get more sloping and looked too crocodile friendly. I did encounter a small saltwater croc on one of these trips and decided it was best not to take tourists down that way!