Good God, Batman, it's La Gruta--the holy bat cave of Isla Colon!

©2007 Scott Doggett, Special to WhozHereNow.com

If you haven’t waded through bat poop in awhile and miss it, you’ll want to check out La Gruta, a 100-meter-long cave near the center of Isla Colón. Dueling statues of the Virgin have been placed at the mouth of “La Gruta,” which is Spanish for “The Cave” (clever, huh?). Flowing past the statues is a small creek that exits the cave and contains more crap from the vampire bats that cling to the cold hole’s ceiling than you could possibly imagine.

Like, you could fertilize Ethiopia with it. Miraculously, the people who reside in the nearby hamlet of Colonia Santeña wash their clothes in the holy creek water, but now I truly digress. Every July 3, hundreds of believers flock to the jungle-ringed cave to pay their respects to the Mother, though few feel compelled to enter the pungent cavity, which in itself is a blessing.

Those who do either traverse guano-coated rocks or walk in the creek, which enters one end of the cave and exits the other. The cave is claustrophobia-small most of the way (picture a one-car garage a third of a klick long) and in addition to the bats it features many dripping stalactites. When you reach the cave’s unremarkable end, don’t be concerned if you find yourself wondering, “Is this shit gonna kill me?” That’s a natural concern and probably a just one.

But wait! That's how the cave is after storm after storm has dumped oceans of rain on Isla Colón. When this writer last visited La Gruta (during a dry spell in 2007), the gross factor was just a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Gone were the stench, the dungy drippings, a creek the color of cafe au lait. The visit was undeniably pleasant. Ugh!

But definitely cup your tits when in the cave or at least coat them with hot sauce. That’s because the bats of La Gruta have a history of biting and sucking the nipples of swine in the nearby hamlet, and such bites can cause infection. To stymie that possibility, the villagers regularly coat their pigs’ nipples with hot sauce.

It’s hard to say what, if anything, their piglets think of jalapeno-flavored tits, but there you have it: the pig tits of La Gruta taste like chip dip. A taxi ride to and from the cave will set you back about $15. An old lady who, presumably, provides security at the cave, asks $1 admission per person.

Location

Colonia Santeña

Isla Colón

Bocas del Toro

Panama