I think the title of this blog pretty much sums up what we thought of the so-called "nature refuge" at Rio Claro - a few hours east of Medellin on the main highway to Bogota. Seems like the perfect place to stop and break up a journey, right? Wrong!
It's kind of a shame really - this mega rich Colombian family owns this nicely built eco resort on the banks of a pristine mountain river and offers an all inclusive tariff with activities such as kayaking, rafting and zip lines for only a few dollars a pop.
The problem is they didn't give any thought to the truckloads of bugs, rodents and other "animales" in the vicinity and stop them from breaking into the rooms. The aptly named "eco-lodge" contains beautiful timber-constructed rooms, but they are open on one side - ie have no window and no flyscreen.
With no mosquito netting over the beds, its an insect free for all, with ants, wasps, moths, grasshoppers and the occasional mosquito sharing the room. Note: this is not a good environment to read with a head torch late at night - we got swarms of bugs landing on our books and buzzing around our noses. Not good to breathe through mouth in these situations.
Fortunately our cabin had four walls and windows, but there were big spaces on either side of them where insects could crawl through. And worse...a rat. Adam awoke in the night to hear sounds of our plastic food bag rustling. First he thought I was kindly preparing him a midnight snack, until he opened his eyes and came face to face with a hungry rat! After we shooed it out and blocked up the big space under the door where it made its escape, I found it a little difficult to get back to sleep, even though we hung the food bag up on a hook.
The rat experience and the weather had us on our way the next morning, a day earlier than expected. It had rained constantly throughout the night, and the so-called "Clear river" was a swollen muddy brown, and the hotel owners would not let us hire inner tubes and ride down it until the river abated. So we left without doing any of the activities. The one good side to this stop-over was the food - although the all-inclusive price worked out to about $85US a day for the both of us, so it wasn't really worth it.
Next time we'll be catching the night bus instead of thinking we'll have a relaxing time at the "eco-retreat"!
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