The Jungle

So as if things couldn't get more difficult for us, we were able to spend a week in the jungle here in Ecuador all expenses paid. We spent half the week at a lodge/campsite/i dont really know what to call it, that did not have electricity. The first thing we did when we got there was learn about all the medicinal plants which from the limited spanish I was able to understand seem to only make you high, or more sexually active. We also learned that if a certain snake bites you, you need to sleep with the first woman you can find to cure yourself.

Everyday we had class in the morning for about 4 hours and then in the afternoons we would go on excursions. The excursions included hiking to a pool of water beneath a waterfall for swimming, canyoning UP a mountain (canyoning is basically hiking through a running stream with waterfalls that you need to climb up using various climbing techniques and ropes), tubing down a river, visiting an indigenous community, and swinging on vines like Tarzan. I felt like Bear Grills from Man vs Wild on the Discovery Channel.

As I mentioned before, there was no electricity at the first site, so every night, when it got dark around 7:00 we had to use candlelight...we all forgot to bring flashlights.

One of the scariest moments occurred at the first site...We were leaving to drive to the second site, but the cars had to park about a quarter mile away, and we had to hike through the jungle to get to them in complete darkness with candles and the glow of our ipods. Well, i had forgotten my boots and realized this about halfway through our hike. So, stupidly, I decided to go back and get them alone and only by candlelight. I could hardly see anything, had a huge backpack on, and had a 10 minutes hike ahead of me through the jungle. If I tripped or a gust of wind blew by, I would have been completely blind. I have never prayed so many hail mary's at one time in my life and been covered in so much sweat. Somehow I managed to get back and I got those damn boots, and I forced the first person I found to hike to the cars with me with their flashlight.

The second site was much of the same except the lodge was amazing. It had electricity, a bar, a rediculous view of the jungle, great food and we didnt need a mosquito net. I would easily go back there even for something like a honey moon.

Oh, and up until the jungle I had had a cough for the previous 4 weeks. The guide on one of our hikes through the jungle noticed this, so how do you cure? You eat live larva. It tasted like butterscotch actually although it was a but crunchy. More importantly my cough was gone within two days. They need to teach that in med school.

The pictures above include some of the views from the second lodge, hikes through the jungle, eating larva, and pictures of our lodges.