It's a world without walls, an endless, noisy darkness. With nothing but mosquito nets to ward off the shrieking, roaring wildlife, I have settled my three young children to bed on their first night in the Costa Rican jungle. The concept of an open panorama of steamy rainforest meets raging Pacific was hugely appealing from the security of our four-walled home thousands of miles from this black confusion of cries, thuds and growling. The bamboo-hewn bedrooms of our base for the next two weeks have storm shutters, but the living areas have no choice but to merge with the jungle beyond.
A vista of almond trees crowded with scarlet macaws and the surf of the ocean behind persuaded the grown-up tenants of Casa Bambu to leave the room exposed to the elements at night with the reward of a lilac and orange dawn signalling an end to our nocturnal terrors. As more experienced travellers will surely testify, a first night in the jungle is always the worst. By the time you watch the sun set for a second time, the deafening call of the howler monkey no longer conjures images of a furious lion in the bed next to you, but reminds you of the handsome family that swung through the garden's mango trees earlier that day. The dark-furred howlers were just one of the marauding gangs that crashed through the trees around our bamboo house, chucking star fruit and bananas at the noisier monkeys playing Frisbee in the garden below.
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