![]() ![]() ![]() And sure enough, sitting right on top of a pair of trousers, was a mountain viper. “So,” Rick laughs, “I called someone to help me out and bring a light so we could shine a light inside the tent. It felt like a hose and I immediately thought: this could be a snake.” So I go and unzip my tent and I start feeling the interior of the tent, looking for the headtorch… and I happened to touch some kind of rubbery and cold hose. The terrain was very technical just to get to the lookout. But before going to bed I thought I should go and look at the moon. But I got carried away having a conversation with someone and it got really, really dark. I remember it had been a very, very exhausting day, but we had a full moon and we had a look out and I just, I don’t know what happened. Until one time in the Darien Gap – must have been about 2005 – I was leading a trip with some bird watchers. “But my main camping shelter still remained a tent. But even though it was very uncomfortable, I saw the potential.” He kept experimenting. I’m not a very big guy but certainly bigger than the hammock! And it was very bulky because the mosquito net completely surrounded the hammock, so it was a big bundle that occupied maybe two thirds of the volume of my backpack. “And I remember the first time I slept in that hammock I had DIY-ed was very very uncomfortable. “So I asked this guy where he got his hammock and he said he made it himself.” Rick’s friend showed him how to make his own hammock. “It felt like a hose and I immediately thought: this could be a snake.” I thought: I should investigate if I can get my hands on a hammock. Being in my tent, getting wet and also very hot because the tent at the time didn’t have a lot of ventilation. And then I looked up to where this guy was in his hammock.” Rick’s camping companion was short enough that his hammock was small and his rain poncho could double as a tarp. The tent was on a slope and because of the rain it was getting really really muddy. “We had a downpour that night and I remember being in my tent, miserable. It was not very far from the Panama Canal actually, and we camped in the jungle there. I remember the first time, we went to an area that was infested with mosquitoes. “I met an older guy who had been in the military and he invited me to go hiking with him. But when I moved to Panama City the terrain and the environment was more lowland tropical rainforest.” So I was more used to sleeping in cooler temperatures and therefore I did a lot of camping in a tent, like most people do. ![]() The elevation is a little bit higher there, about 1600-1800m higher. “I come from a mountainous area of Panama. A very comfortable hammock set up, captured on our Darien Gap expedition ![]()
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