Welcome to the jungle

You wake up in a small wooden bungalow hut. Daylight glitters in through all the gaps in the roof and walls. There is a twirping and tweeting in the air of insects and birds you’ve never seen in your life before, and of course also chirping of crickets common at the country sides at home.

The thick air is humid, so humid nothing ever really dries up. Wasn’t it for the monotone, soft buzzing, you wouldn’t notice the only movement of the air is caused by a fan near your bed. The mosquito net around the bed gives you a feeling that your safe, but you stopped counting the endless bug bites some time back.

You find a bottle beside you. You quaff it without hesitation. Luckily, it contained drinking water.

You touch your left ear lobe to see if the indescribable pains caused by you falling down an old tree trunk into a lots of plants with thorns and even more ants remains. Bloody ants! It might not have been a good idea trying to walk on the moist trunk to cross the river, grasping for balance, stuck there with no chance to put one foot anywhere else. But it will be one of the highlights never forgotten. The ear lobe is fine, only a faint reminiscence remains.

You get up and take a piss in the small bathroom you share with other insects and ants, moving in slow motion. Luckily, the geckos will eat most of them. They make sounds similar to the black birds at home, still startling you sometimes when it comes from right beside you.

Wondering if you’ll again find another heap of fruit bits on the small wooden table on the veranda you take a shower. Bats left them having a party in your roof the day before. You first thought, these chips looked like Choco Pops. How naïve really.

The water on floor slowly creates an ever emerging and expanding puddle, taking with it the corpses of big ants and those soon to be. It reminds you of Bangkok and you hope your friends and the other people are safe.

There is a click and the light goes off. The main fuse again. The water gets cold and you turn it off. It’s not that the water would be getting that cold, but right now, you’re happy for a natural interruption.

You rub yourself with the provided towel, and as quickly as possible find your no-bite insect spray. You take special care of your ankles, but you know that the sweat will wash it away anyway. The air and your body now smells chemically, giving you a bit of confidence. The bottle is almost empty. Luckily, you got a new one, a local product, yesterday. You’re sure it will do good DEETs.

You notice the pinky of your left hand has turned blue. You probably tore a capsule yesterday trying to lift a big stone to help building a stepping stone bridge across a small river. It was not hurting but the finger swole instantly. You resorted to smaller stones and left the big ones to Mike and Tobias before crossing the river with dry feet.

Flipping the power back on you get dressed as soon as possible to reduce the chance for bug attacks and brush your teeth. Your shirt smells of the washing gel you used the day before.

Yesterday you learned more about mantides and spiders then ever in your life. You watched Tobias using a fing-longer (well, rather a gigantic telescope stick) caressing the barks of the trees from top to bottom to see if any mantis would be running down. You were examining rotten tree logs for tarantulas with Mike.

You enjoyed the walk through the primary forest with your party tracing what’s left of the path. You were climbing up rocks and following the river, looking at coconut cups filled with the white blood from the gum trees.

You were overwhelmed by giant trees rocketing into the sky with branches thicker than your arms, often floating in mid-air, clinging to the top of another tree. The various scents of musky and moisture, the mushrooms of different colours. The big leaves, breaking lose with a loud crack and then tumbling or shooting down beside you.

You unbar the door and step outside your bungalow. The chirping and the other sounds get a bit louder. The air is thick but clear, except for the flying bugs circling. A few clouds of mist hang around this huge chunk of rock gazing into the sky right in front of your hut. It’s been raining yesterday and the sun still hides behind a textured nexus of grey. You nod your head at the bats’ work and get into your slippers. Breakfast time…