TRAILS:
1 - Red Frog Beach Trail
2 - The Sloth Trail
3 - Salt Creek Trails
4 - The Forest Behind the Reef Trail
5 - Path between San Cristobal and Valle Escondido
6 - Popa 2 Trail
7 - Mangroves Path
8 - Punta Hospital Path
9 - Carenero Walking Path
10 - Bats Cave Path
Treking in the rainforest is probably one of the less developed tourist activities in the Archipelago. The reason, probably, is that only a few trails are appropriate to easy walk in the forests that exist in the region.
In the interior of the Bastimentos Island, within the Marine Park, exist of the more valuable primary forests remaining in the islands, with a very good diversity of trees that are loaded of parasite plants, showing an incomparable beauty.
Other islands share this wealthy very little explored places, standing out the rainforests of Popa and Cayo Agua islands over the ones in the Colon, Cristóbal and Solarte islands. Some of the trails are built by the locals to be used by the tourists but many are only paths that were opened by the villagers to walk from their homes to their plantations or between communities.
In the fauna of these forests are threatened species like sloths, frogs, parrots and a lot of birds, green iguanas and diverse types of monkeys like whitefaced, howling, spider and nocturnal.
In Bastimentos Island it is possible to walk the forest from the community of Quebrada Sal, at the north east extreme of the island, where up to three different trails are offered by the organized guides of the village, being the one to Long Beach habitually used by the local people. Other interest tour is to see medicinal plants with a chaman guide.
One of the most interesting places, "The Sloth Trail", start at the end of Bahía Honda, on the Bastimentos Island. This tour, administered by the project "Timorogo" of the Bahía Honda community, is in part acuatic and in part by land finishing with a visit to very old caves where live thousands of bats.
Also in Bastimentos Island there is the very used "Red Frog Beach" path, a walk of about 15 minutes through the rainforest crossing, from the south to the north of that island, with the end on that beach.
The village of Popa 2 offers, through the project "Meri Ngobe" a couple of paths, one into the rainforest and the other a short walk over a kind of dock through mangrove forest. To trek in the first one you will need ad guide from the community project. It is good to emphasize that in Popa Island it is the only forest where they will be able to observe toucans.
The available places are completed with Zapatillas Cays Major where the "The forest behind the reef" trail is an easy and short walk for everyone.
In all the cases it is recommended to use guides of the neighboring communities to the forest that thinks to cross, to avoid any accident, and ring with you hats, plenty of water and appropiate clothes and shoes to walk in the forest.
