A breathtaking night in the jungle of Panama

Actually, the next evening at around 11 pm, we set off into the jungle as planned.
At the pizzeria, we had to wait for Hara and his two buddies to finish work and got into a conversation with the bartender. He told us that he also offers jungle safaris and we asked him if he would do them at night as well. He grinned and shook his head and said: Nooo. That's way too dangerous.'

Gulp. Well, great! From that moment on, I was no longer able to have a conversation and started typing unnecessarily on my phone. I was scared, really scared!

The guys, as cool as ever dressed in shorts and flip flops
(we, of course, well-equipped with long safari socks, tracking shoes, and a headlamp in our luggage) said goodbye to their colleagues in a more serious way than I expected. They hugged each other with a 'Take care, guys!'.
I would have preferred a more indifferent 'Peace, see you tomorrow' :D
We realized that this was really going to be a risky story tonight.
That was the moment when even typing on my phone didn't help anymore.

At some point, Hara and his two buddies took us to the street, where our private driver, Mogli's brother, was finally waiting.
(Mogli is one of Hara's two buddies, whom we gave this name. He looks like one, grew up in the jungle, and knows it like his second home. He was kind of our leader.)

We left the small town of Arugambay and started driving. The three locals sat directly on the roof of the jeep, and Mogli shone a strong flashlight on the surroundings. I was glad to be able to follow the light level from inside and hold on tight to the front seat.

We hadn't been on the road for 10 minutes when we suddenly stopped on the completely dark road. There stood a huge elephant on the slope next to us. It was still about 10 meters away from us. As if this distance wasn't enough, the jeep promptly drove down a tiny path at this point and straight towards the elephant.
So it stood in front of our jeep for a short time, until it quickly and annoyed disappeared into the dark thicket.

Yes - we had definitely arrived in the wilderness.
We continued driving along a small path, where the jeep stopped again shortly after. Next to our vehicle, directly on the side where I was sitting, stood the next giant elephant. It was only 2-3 meters away from us and looked directly at us. It was an incredible moment, which I even managed to capture with the camera. Mogli threw him a banana as a farewell and we continued driving. On the rest of the journey, we encountered a porcupine, many deer, rabbits, and buffaloes.

At some point, the jeep left the tracks and we drove freely on the wild dry land. Mogli's brother knew the paths very well and I had the feeling that he knew exactly what he was doing. Well, that's what I thought anyway.
We came across a pregnant elephant mother, but we quickly left her alone. Later, we encountered an elephant that got really angry, ran towards the car a few meters, raised its trunk, and hissed at us. But the light blinded him and he turned around and disappeared. Mogli shouted something after him and no kidding! The elephant turned around one last time and trumpeted. It was as if they were having a conversation. Totally crazy.
We continued driving.

When we arrived at a pond, there was a huge crocodile on the bank a few meters away, which quickly disappeared into the water. When we shone the light on the water, you could see crocodile eyes reflecting at several places.

Finally, we parked next to a hill, where a local family had already set up their camp. This was the place where Mogli actually wanted to spend the night with us. A high mountain where animals can't easily come up. But that was just a pipedream.

So we had to make do with a camp on the ground. The guys parked the jeep next to the family's tractor, thus building a protective wall from behind. We were protected from the front by a fire that Mogli and Hara conjured up in no time.

And so we spent the night in the middle of the jungle. We sat by the fire, listened to relaxing music, the guys grilled sausages over the fire, and hour after hour we simply enjoyed the indescribable and magical tranquility of nature. The open wilderness surrounded us and it was totally satisfying to just look at the fire and listen to the sounds of the night.

At regular intervals, one of the guys shone the flashlight on the surroundings. In the nearby pond, you could see eyes reflecting here and there, and every now and then you could see an elephant sleepwalking in the distance.

In between, some of us, including Mogli, fell asleep. I also slept for a while on the roof of the jeep, but with the fire, we somehow felt safe.
The next morning, Manu, Merle, and I sat on top of the jeep. We watched an elephant splashing in a pond and Mogli discovered bear tracks.

Tired and in an indescribable and extremely happy state, we returned to Arugambay.