Once in a Lifetime

1/25

…because I refuse to trek through the jungle EVER again!

We got up in the morning knowing we would be walking through the jungle, but I was not expecting the adventure that was awaiting our group. We began the mission along a narrow pathway covered in leaves with typical jungle nature all around us which is fine. About 5 minutes into the walk we stopped and our tour guide asked for two volunteers…thank god, I did not raise my hand. the guide grabbed a nut of a tree and cracked it open and but the substance that was inside the nutshell in the palm of my friend Sloane, then proceeded to tell her to eat it without giving up any information about what it was. She realized that she was already in this so she popped it in her mouth, bit into it once and swallowed it. Then Terry, our guide, told us that it was the larvae from the butterflies that lay their eggs in the nut shells… ew. We continued on our walk and came to a tree which we learned was a mahogany tree. Cool….Then we came to another tree (which is hard to describe so I’ll try to post a picture in our next port) but basically the base of the tree kind of has little cubbies, so you can stand in them. And this is good to know because if you are about to be attacked by a jaguar you should put your back against a tree such as this one because jaguars and other similar animals don’t attack from the front. Next we saw a hut in the middle of the jungle. The ground was cleared out underneath it so it was just soil, no leaves. I feel bad for the people from our trip that we learned would be spending the night there because at this point we had come upon several bugs that I cannot identify and we saw what ringworm grows in because it was EVERYWHERE and to be honest, that is what put me over the edge of hating the jungle so I’m going to spare you all the description of that. Anyhow, seeing this hut made me appreciate the fact that I was only going to be in this environment for another 1.5 hours tops. Next we came upon a vine that grows from the ground so its roots were at the top. Next stop on the tour, a tree swarming with little tiny ants. This doesn’t look cool to someone who doesn’t know things about the jungle, but I now have the knowledge to tell you that if you rub these ants all over your body they have a scent so you smell good. Honestly, who thought to do things like this! Needless to say, I did not test this, but I watched others put their hands up to the tree and lets the ants crawl on them and then rub their hands together and there was indeed a smell. Next we came to another tree with guess what, MORE ants. But these were not little ants that smelled good. These were the biggest ants I have EVER seen in my life. They were about the size of a fat marker cap. Don’t you worry, I have pictures! We saw a few more things after that but my attention span was long gone in the moment as it is writing about it. So that’s all I have to say about the jungle. I learned a lot, I’m not gonna lie, some of it was interesting, but I DID hate it.

coming up next, piranaha fishing and crocodile searching