Strangled By a Vine, One Foot Thick.

6.27.2008

Friday

I woke to the sounds of someone puking. As first I couldn’t tell if it was in our room, or another one. It was about 12:35am. Jill comes walking out of the bathroom to find a flashlight. Horrible to be sick while traveling! She thinks it was the vegetarian food she had for dinner. She also said she hadn’t thrown-up since 5^th grade (!). This was a trip of a lot of “firsts in a long time” for Jill.

Three hours later, we got ready for breakfast and our morning hike through the jungle to catch a glimpse of the small river otters on their morning swim. Well, the “morning hike” turned out to be a half-day 10K hike. And completely exhausting. However, we did see a family of Tamarins, wild hog tracks, and all kinds of insects. We saw rubber trees that bleed white sap and trees that bulge out in the middle when they hold water. We learned about a snake, perhaps living somewhere nearby, who’s venom could kill a person within ½ an hour. We ate the stem of a plant that made out mouths completely numb for five minutes. We saw a 300 year old tree being strangled by a vine one foot thick that had wrapped around the trees trunk. Luckily, we did see the small river otter family (which we only had a 50/50 chance of seeing), swimming happily along the river in the morning sun. Finally, we came across a family of howler monkeys.

The hike was difficult. Although the jungle was in a “cold spell”, it was hot and humid. Walking through the jungle was slow work, climbing over roots and around mud swamps. The rubber boots we wore were not quite the right size and rubbed in awkward places on my feet. Finally, we made it back tired, sore and drenched in sweat. The icy water from the unheated shower was shocking but felt good. We ate lunch and rested for the afternoon, Jill and I happy we had scheduled the jungle trip as our last big adventure in Peru.

Later that night, we took a night walk through the jungle, which started with seeing a pink-toed fury creepy crawly tarantula! In all, we saw three types of tarantulas, along with many more spiders. Some poisonous, others not. We also saw an ant that lives in solitude and can paralyze entire sections of your body (eek!).

We also saw lemons on a lemon tree the size of softballs. We never see lemons like that at home. I suppose the wonders of the jungle are endless.