EXPLORER Brian Smailes had to contend with tropical storms, mudslides, snakes, and frogs, thought to be among the most poisonous creatures in the world, during his coast-to-coast expedition across Costa Rica.
But it hasn’t put the 66-year-old off Central America and he’s already planning his next trip in Columbia next year.
Brian has just returned from his hike from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean.
Brian, who lives off Honeywell Lane, Barnsley, said: “It was an eventful trip certainly.
“We helped dig a coffee bean lorry out of a mudslide.
“It was stuck fast in mud about two foot-deep. There were a few of us all digging and pushing together. It took an hour-and-a-quarter, but we managed it in the end.
“It’s an incredible place, we went up a volcano, 11,300ft up with the clouds below us.
“There was rain every day, for about an hour, but there was one point where it rained all day and all night with the most ferocious tropical downpour.
“We saw monkeys, a sloth, quite a few toucans, and parrots, and quite a few small snakes which we had to keep away from, of course.
“There were lots of ants, carrying leaves, thousands upon thousands of them moving along their own paths through the jungle.
“But the frightening thing was these little red frogs, you could see them on the banana trees.
“They’re one of the most poisonous animals on the planet. All you have to do is touch them, the poison is absorbed through the skin, and if you touch them you’re in a coma in two minutes, dead in five.”
Brian said he found the wildlife incredible, and the people extremely friendly.
But one of the bigger culture shocks was the prevalence of drugs.
“They’re everywhere, all sorts of drugs,” he said.
“We were in a pub one night, and someone actually came round carrying a basket, asking everybody whether they wanted some drugs.
“I wouldn’t know one drug from another, but it seemed they had everything. That was quite strange.”
Brian, who has written many walking and cycling books and has his own company, Challenge Publications, is already planning his next trip into the deepest depths of Columbia. “There’s a former lost city which takes five days walking just to get to. That’s where we want to head to. It’s in the area where they made the film Romancing the Stone.”
Anyone wanting to join the trips, on either May 19 or September 8, contact Brian on 07771 915472.
