Into the lair of the crab-people
This morning I woke up around 6am, and since it was too early to get breakfast at my usual spot, I decided to go for a bike ride to get some photos of the area. After cruising down the road to Cocles, the beach I’ve been frequenting, I found a bike trail through the forest that looked worthy of some exploration. What I found was somewhere between fascinating and revolting. After turning the corner that took the trail away from the main road, I found myself in a thickly forested area with armies of crabs in all directions.
Since my orange one-speed was not equipped for bumpy trails, I had to walk most of the trail. This was dicey, because I was wearing flip flops, and a number of these crabs ran across and around my feet as they scampered off to their underground refuges. I admit that there may have been a little yelling and hopping on one foot from time to time as I made my way down the path.
But it was pretty interesting to see so many crabs up close. There were small orange ones and large brown ones, and some massive blueish-gray ones that, fortunately, ran off before I could get within 10 feet of them. The blue ones had especially large pincers. Eventually, the path dead-ended at a private property marker, so I had to turn around for an encore performance, slightly reminiscent of the dance sequence in Napoleon Dynamite. Egads. As tropical wildlife goes, I think I prefer banana plants and howler monkeys. The next time I see a crab, I hope it’s in a quiche.
Today is my last day in paradise, though. Tomorrow I’ll hop on a bus at 6am to go whitewater rafting and then head on to San Jose in the evening.
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