in the jungle

Hi world!

On Monday, we embarked on our first ever jungle trek. Que divertido! (It is entirely possible that this entry will be littered with Spanish phrases, because...) We climbed into our sangthaew-- the local bus/truck combo-- and met our co-trekkers, 2 British girls and three couples from Spain. Un bien oportunidad! As you can imagine, we got quite a bit of Spanish practice in, especially since (for once!) our Spanish was deemed to be generally no worse than their English.

Getting to the jungle took a little bit of time, since we first stopped at a butterfly farm (somewhat random, but strangely unavoidable when trekking), as well as at a local market for lunch supplies. But finally, we made it! Our trek began with an hour long elephant ride, and I was glad to see the elephants were well treated-- it was clear that with all the tourists, the elephants had all the bananas they could eat. It was funny because the elephants didn't seem tot at all mind drinking water from ditches with us in tow, which from our perspective made for quite a roller coaster;-)


Promptly after our ride, we started up on our hike. And by up, I mean what turned out to be a continuous 45 degree climb for about three and a half hours. While the exercise was great, it was not at all what the brochure or our guide had described, and I wasn't surprised when one of our number (Emily, from England) got a cramp in her leg just one hour in-- especially since we hadn't even stretched beforehand. Given the difficulty of the hike, I was perfectly happy to visit with Emily while we took our time at the rear of the pack. In the end, we all made it to the top without collapsing, and we slept pretty well, too. Minus the roosters.

The next day Emily and her friend Sara were to go rafting, so we said goodbyes. While it was a bummer to lose them, it meant that the primary language of our group became Spanish, which was very exciting. We learned several practical phrases such as "Ten cuidado de la mierda" (mind the poop) "jodidos gallos" (an expletive to yell at the roosters at 4 a.m.), and "El manejero es un tocon" (the driver is a creeper!). The entire group was a delight to be around, and in the evening we played Charades (famous movies) and Spoons together. Finally, the last day was filled with white water rafting and bamboo rafting, both of which were really fun and I'm glad I had a chance to do them.

The one down-side of trekking was that I learned the hard way that mosquitos can bite right through water sneakers, and I now have about fifty bug bites on my feet. Fabulous. Fortunately, we're not in a malaria zone at the moment, but the itching was so awful that last night I found myself wishing I could jump off a bridge if only it would make the itching stop. Thankfully, that was in today's itinerary almost precisely!



We did it! And yes, it did help the itching. For a little, anyway, until I made it to the pharmacy for ointment in the afternoon.

So, today actually ends the Three Musketeers portion of the trip. Fonze and Jeff fly home on Sunday, and by chance I've met a Swiss girl named Sophie who had almost precisely my dates of availability to travel to Laos. So, after a good-bye dinner with David and Newee we said our own sad goodbyes-- and in the morning, Sophie and I make our way to Luang Prabang! Ch-ch-ch-chianges. (PUNNY!)

Until next time, much love,
Sara