Swamp thing

Shudder shudder. Ok this was one thing I didnt enjoy. In Itacare there is a rather large rainforest that sits further back from the beach and many of the supposed pristine and special beaches are found via trails along this rainforest. We met this Swiss girl at the hostel who had a map and said she was going to one of these beaches and asked if we wanted to come. So we thought why not? Ummm.

So the "trail" was through this rainforest and we were in beach gear including flipflops. First mistake. Second mistake was taking the trail. Basically we ended up getting rather negative advice from the two locals we asked when we tried to enter the forest, they said we should get a guide - and we were like ´nah´. Third mistake.

The rainforest was lovely, lots of cool trees and plants, running along a gushing river we could hear but barely see through all the foliage. Then there were monkey calls and weird bird calls and it was cool. And then, there were the bastard ants. Big black ones that were very busy transporting stuff and then we big humans stepped on their trail and boy did they let us know. I could feel the bites stinging for at least 5 minutes after. Bigger than kadi-yas. And then we lost the trail a bit, had to wade through the river and finally got back to it, and then lost it again. This was the difficult part, because we were the only ones there and we had to make guesses on the right trails, plus we had heard that there were occasional robberies in the forest on tourists carrying cameras etc. Hmm.
After picking up the trail, we got to an area covered in mangroves and a swampy looking stream that led towards the sound of the ocean that we had begun to hear.

So we had to trudge through this damn swampy water. And oh Lord it was gross. Yeck. In flipflops. And I saw little squirmy fish and a funny looking frog and oh man did i want to be somewhere else. Finally after getting out of that part, we got to the beach and it was nothing spectacular, deserted and pretty but not pristine.

We had a nice day though and had a nice walk around the rocks etc, and funnier still is we had no choice but to go back the way we came in. Luckily the tide had receded so the swamp was just puddles - but the ants still remembered!!