The jungle can do curious things to the human mind. After our first kilometer into the jungle,
Cipher, our guide, crouched down shirtless wearing torn denim shorts and smoked his cigarette. He told us about commando training, "they send three men into the jungle with nothing more than a box of matches and a knife. Whoever comes out alive after the month passes the training". This comment was in response to asking what to do if we get lost. He continued to say "they are never quite the same after leaving, 60 percent go insane". Basically, he was telling us that we would be screwed.
Two days is not enough to make someone go crazy, but it's enough to understand the power the jungle wields. We were an hour and a half jetty ride up the river in the heart of elephant territory. The trek started out slow as we were learning to walk again. Walking on
slimy mud with an
occasional visit from a leech can be a
treacherous thing. Sweat engulfed every inch of our bodies as we tried to stay upright and move forward at the same time.
Cracks of lightning appeared in the distanced and alerted us of the fact that, yes indeed, we really were in the jungle. Rain started to drip from the canopy as we reached the first cave and our night's lodging.
Cipher proved to be an excellent chef, even without the luxuries and conveniences of modern appliances. Fluffy white rice, chicken curry, spicy beef curry, vegetables, and an egg omelet constituted our evening's fare. The best was the impromptu desert created to celebrate Ricardo's birthday, a couple cupcakes covered in liquid
Milo and a candle. I am sure that's a birthday he will never forget.
After our supper and sitting back a little to let our extremely full stomachs relax, we headed to bed. We, meaning the three girls, were squashed next to each other in the center of a cave. This is the same cave that I saw a giant spider hanging from just only an hour earlier. Our
guide's response was to simply grab it's silk thread and move it out harms way for us and it.
Cipher's philosophy was a very sustainable one, respect the jungle and it will respect you. Simple enough. Only our mats and sleeping bags provided us with a buffer from the deafening sounds of chirping insects and chatting nocturnal creatures outside. The three boys and
Cipher decided that they would prefer to be eaten first (in the event that a black panther came for a visit) by sleeping outside the cave and next to the smoking ashes from the fire.
Lidia held her flashlight tight as she laid down on her bed between us. She told us that she didn't think she would be able to sleep. We also thought the same, but our bodies told us differently. In no more than 10 minutes we were sound asleep contributing our snores to the sounds of the jungle.
The next morning, groggy eyed and somewhat disoriented, we awoke; and we soon discovered a few visitors. Our visitors were, unfortunately, 'jungle honey bees'. Eating our morning fare proved very difficult and even smoke did not deter them on their mission to buzz in our ears and make us jump around. After one stung my leg and two hours of harassment, I had concluded that bees are
not my friends. Honey will never taste the same. I even heard bees buzzing in my ears as I laid down for bed the following night, but it was just the other insects buzzing around. And off we were to finish our trek over the newly moistened jungle ground.
Occasionally, we would see very large circular foot prints sunken in the mud. There was usually grassy elephant scat next to it as well. They were very close and I could not help, but wonder if they were watching us off in the distance beyond some ferns and trees. Elephants are actually extremely dangerous. We were warned to keep our flash lights down the previous night at the camp site. Flash lights will make them charge up the hill towards us.
Cipher actually looked concerned (which scared us all the more). We could hear them just down the hill from us, snorting and moving through the brush.
Hours passed and there was no indication of how far we had gone nor where we were. No signs, no path markers, no sun through the canopy, and nothing letting us know our orientation. A person really could go mad if they misinterpreted that the path remained the same. Little by little, the day trek wore on to feel a like the "Lord of the Flies". For those who are not familiar with this book, it involves a story of stranded young men on a
deserted tropical island after a plane crash that eventual go crazy against and with each other.
Our occasional frustration, became laughter as things seemed so opposite to our predominately urban and easy lives. Actually, I hike quite a bit, but this trip was just ridiculous in comparison to my other hikes. I am not sure if everyone was in a state of over-elation during the night before when we had decided to embark on this trip. We were having dinner on a
picturesque restaurant boat on the river bordering the jungle and everyone smiled as they agreed to pay the 200
ringgit for the two-day trip. Our group was a mix of nationalities and exchange student types from everywhere in the world. The group included a Chilean, a Australian, a Canadian, a French, a
Yemenite, and of course me, the American.
The emotions and spirits tended to change at a moment's notice. Laughter was the most common response to our jungle stimulus. A visit to a cave filled with bat droppings, cockroaches feasting on the insect-filled waste, and of course, the producers in the equation, bats. There were literally thousands of bats hanging over our heads. They
squealed and waved their wings in annoyance of the disturbance below from our mini-UN tour group. I will never forget the sound that they were making. This sound was a combination of the intensity of a train rolling past and the sharpness of nails on a chalk board. We climbed back down to our lovely leech-covered-muddy trail once again.
We also saw the massive elephant cave, where we were supposed to have camped. Cipher informed us that food must really be put away or we would really of had many (and I do mean many) furry friends--a.k.a. 'jungle rats'. Whenever the word 'jungle' is used as an adjective it seems to simply imply intensity, the unknown, and sometimes a deep and unconscious fear.
For hours, we trudged onwards without knowing when this trek would end. Most of us were covered in dried blood from where the leeches were pulled in a panic or from their release in response to tiger balm. The tiger balm made them spit our tasty flesh out in disgust. The leeches even knew more where we were than we did. These little parasites could smell us and would literally 'slinky' across the ground towards every time we stopped. They also loved to catch us as we passed by and climb up our legs and into our shoes.
Water continued to seep from our pores and we pushed on further. The creek bath we had taken the night before, did not seem to help us from smelling of sweat, mud, and every other nice odor. Cipher never seemed to break a sweat, even with his overloaded pack of supplies. He had weathered the jungle since he was 13 years old and had no intention of leaving it. He told us that he would be there when we returned.
Finally Cipher's time and distance estimations of reaching the end seemed to shorten. Looking back I imagine that he measures both differently than us. Their values were never really that reliable as they seemed to change without any warning, what was once an hour more turned into three more hours. Even though they had an arbitrary quality to them, they were definitely shortening, which was a wonderful sign.
We crossed two rivers towards the end, or rather 'jungle creeks'. Crossing the first, we had the opportunity to try out our 'lumber-jack-log-in-the-water-balancing' skills. All of us made it across without falling in, some of us were pretty close. Crossing the second, involved a completely different set of balancing skills. This crossing was a fallen log nearly 3 meters above a creek and had a bit of a spring to it when you walked on it. None of us wanted to fall off, especially after Cipher told us that a particularly stubborn German fell and broke his arm. We slid our bare feet slowly along while balancing our packs looking a head to the other side. Once again, we were successful and none had broken arms.
About a half kilometer (or 45 minutes, whichever measurement you prefer), we triumphantly emerged from the canopied part of the jungle back to the main river. We were now at the point to catch our jetties back downstream to our jungle oasis and hostel for the night. Our jetties splashed our salty, smiling, and quiet faces as they plowed through the rapids due to the rising tide of the river for the night. We made it back from the trek, just in time to enjoy a proper shower, dinner, and a well-deserved night's rest in a bed. Would I do it again? Oh yes, in a heart beat.
The girls slept huddled up in the center of the cave.
From the top of the 'mossy' forest, or rather highland rainforest.
Posts
