Jungle Day 4 and 5

Last night was treacherous indeed. We dined on a log and fried the fish we had just caught. Then we used the 'natural' toilets, down a long jungle path, and hopped in our tents while admitting as few bugs as possible. Our tent was for 2 people, and it was literal: no room even for minibackpacks, twas a matirimonial bed in the wilderness. When we were both in and settled, a beetle appeared. Then ants of all sizes, from bags that had been left outside on the ground all afternoon. The retaining walls broke and Kelly let loose, holding nothing back of her ture jungle emotions. Having had the exact same breakdown on the log crossing the river earlier in the day, I commiserated and was actually impressed she had made it so long in this laugh-or-cry situation.

We made ourselves calm down from the hysteria because the tent was overheating and we couldn't breathe. Sleep overtook us until about 11 pm, when I found myself awake and Kelly whimpering... 'Leah? Are you awake?' We were trapped in the storm of the century, with wind tearing at all sides of the tent and rain blasting us. We started screaming, the worst of our thoughts getting the best of us. What if a branch fell onto us? We clung to the ground. We noticed water leaking in the sides and scurried to close all zippers. Then we lied there in sheer panic for a while until a David Sedaris audiobook put me to sleep.

In the morning we could not possibly have been more reluctant to make one last jungle trek, but we survived and hopped on the long boat for a pleasant 8 hour river ride...very Amazon Trail, my favorite childhood computer game.

We were staying at the same ecohostel we stayed at our first night, the one with the cockaroaches. We knew what to do this time: don't throw bananas in the trash. We though we were golden, until Kelly opened her backpack after dinner and a roach scurried over her fingernail. The Oreo wrapper from earlier in the day. She watched as it and a few friends scurried out of the pack and under my bed, as I yelled for her to kill them, as I was farther away and occuppied brushing my teeth.

What followed was chaotic screaming as Kelly took out her plastic bag used for laundry and could see roaches crawling inside. She ran outside, leaving me in with the roaches and her sneaker, trying to kill as many as I could get to. We called Marco in to help, and he picked up a roach with his hand, then threw it on the floor screaming, 'Kill it, kill it!', which did not make things easier for me. Then he threw one onto my legs, and that was it. I left the hut until Marco assured us they were all gone. Carcasses literred the floor as we fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to pee. I ducked out of my net and turned on my flashlight, and saw massive hoards of ants scurrying around the roach bodies. The floor was clean in the morning, and we enjoyed our 8 hour ride back to Cusco. Jungle? Never. Again.