Muddy

I have never in my life experienced such amazing mud before in my life. My 3 days in the Amazon jungle right outside of Tena, Ecuador was fully defined by the amazingness of the quality of mud. In the deep depths of the Jumandi cave (I called it Jumanji after the robin williams movie) and along the shores of the river I bathed myself from head to toe in the most orgasmic mud ever. After having a massive mud fight with my guide (I looked like smeagle from lord of the rings) I decided that this mud in these parts seems to be the smoothest and most exfoliating in the world. I was thinking about bottling it up to sell it in competion with all the dead sea salt shit that israelis sell in shopping malls. i think there could be a profit in this. Anyways, the mud became an over arching metaphor for my whole experience in the jungle: fun, cleansing, relaxing, wet, and dirty.

I stayed at this paradise lodge called shangrila (not to be confused with the one in china). There were only a few other tourists there at the time, so we could sit in any of the hundreds of hammocks are little hearts desired. Our guide for the 3 days was this dude named Alex. Long hair, short, strong build, great salsa dancer (like every latino is), and ridiculous really breathy laugh. After eating the local jungle cuisine of fat worms (tasted like delicious buttery shrimp) and drawing a penis on his arm with the indeginous dyes found in some red fruit we became great friends and had a blast together. We had a super bonding moment when he put a giant tarantula spider on my face. I had to resort back to my yoga breathing or else the tarantula might have peed on my skin and left a wierd rash. I am worried no one will believe me that i had a hairy tarantula crawling on me cuase i have no photo evidence...but lie, i do not.

Speaking of rashes, my jelly fish sting has not really gone down yet. In fact, I am convinced it is still releasing some chemical or something that makes it itch like a bitch. Not to mention that I counted around 28 mosquito bites on my left leg and around 30 on my right. And I have had to take a round of cipro for a UTI contracted from wearing a dirty old bathing suit for a week straight. Oh, and I have a big pimple on my face now. Such is life of a traveler. So hard.

My 3 days spend in the jungle were loaded with lots of wet muddy adventures. I spent an afternoon tubbing down a river drinking beers with these two other couples that were staying in the lodge. They were the kind of older married couples that you could still talk about farts with and how the stalagtites in the caves looked like erects dicks. spent a great night drinking rum and hot chocolate drinks and dancing to old school rap from my ipod. I think the last words the husband said before he went to bed with his wife was, ".you think i got her drunk for nothing..."

Side note: i have become deathly afraid of peeing in all water sources (rivers, lakes, etc.). Apparently there is this kind of fish that is attracted to urine and swims up your vagina. It has spines only pointing in one direction, so once it is in it cant come back out.

With these two couples, a group of 4 ecuadorians (who all spoke perfect english and have an import company in china), and Alex (our trusty guide) we all hiked up this river to a bunch of beautiful waterfall spots. We ended the day in this big lagoon. After beign forced to jump off the rock into the water (i hate doing that shit), Alex and I rocked hopped up river. It was just one perfect waterhole after another. Paradise. I felt really in my pachamama moment connecting with nature and all. The day was topped off by riding ontop of the truck in the pouring rain. I think at one point it started hailing cuase it definetly felt like a thousand pins and needles all over my body. Maybe that is what acupuncture feels like. We were screaming at the top of our lungs and singing zip-a-dee-doo-daa to keep ourselves warm. Only in Latin America can you ride ontop of trucks in the pouring rain.

Alex called me pastelito the whole time. That means little cake. It sounds a lot better in Spanish than in English. If anyone called me little cake in english I would probably punch them in the face.

Alex taught me how to balance a pointy rock ontop of another rock. All patience and zen meditation I guess. He says I am one of the only tourists he has seen do it. Hell yeah! Soy Madre Tierra y que!

After rolling around in the mud the entire last day in the jungle, Alex and I went out dancing in Tena to celebrate his birthday. There is only one club in Tena so it was naturally packed. Got super sweaty, ate a giant plate of rice beans and grilled chicken for 3 bucks at 3am, and happily passed out in my own hostel room. Life is good.