Ok. Here is that “Whole-nother-blog” I spoke about. You’ve
wanted to know what we faced in the Jungle. Well, here it is.
Day one. 12 Km hike
barefoot through the mud. Up to your calf muscle mud. Enter LOTS of “LOST”
references.
Day Two. No breakfast. Deluge. All. Day. Long. Rice and soy
sauce for dinner. Lots of Anchovies. While I am admiring a beautiful butterfly,
one of the chickens hunts it down and devours it in front of me. “Dear God,
what kind of a horrible place IS this???”
Day Three. Some breakfast. More Rain. Church? Maybe? Giant
Spider. Dead Spider. Cute puppies steal our muddy shoes.
Day Four. Tea for breakfast. Rose sticks her (bare)foot in
her shoe and feels something. She takes her shoe off and a Dead Giant Spider
comes tumbling out. Rain in the afternoon. The references to “LOST” just aren’t
that funny anymore.
Day. . . Five? No breakfast. Rice for lunch. Rain for
Dessert. Dinner. . . maybe? Finally get rice around 9pm, (with soy sauce.)
Tried to eat when Alex and I hear noises over our heads. Two rats fall from the
ceiling. Local dog Trey (named for his three good legs) runs and kills the two
rats. We poke one of the rats with a stick to see if it is dead, and a
small-ish spider runs out. I hear a scream behind me and turn around, and see a
HUGE spider, with GLOWING EYES on the wall. Local villagers “shoo” the spider
out the door, Ashley wakes up around 10:45pm when the generator comes on and
kills it (or another one) anyway. Kill count, three Dead Spiders, Two dead Rats.
Alex spends the majority of the evening standing on a chair, then decides to
sleep in Kyle’s tent.
Day Six. Find giant dead scorpion in the yard.
Another Giant
Spider is killed, shortly thereafter Local Dog Trey runs and finds an. . .
alligator? Monitor? Giant Iguana? DRAGON??? Foot underneath the host house, and
proceeds to EAT IT.
Shortly thereafter, a BAT (later revealed to be a small
bird, probably a swallow) flies into the wall DIRECTLY above Ashley’s head. Two
more Giant Spiders killed that evening. Kill count now: 5 Giant Spiders, 2
Rats, 1 Scorpion, 1 giant lizard, 1 small bird. Things are getting worse. I am
fully expecting Benjamin Linus and the Black Smoke Monster to show up at any
moment.
Day Something. Ashley and Alex walk to the river to “bathe.”
On the way back, they discover what is later referred to as a “Jungle Rat,”
Which Ashley described as: “Two rats put together, with beige fur, teeth like a
beaver.” I ask if maybe she saw a possum, and later realize that there is
nothing on planet earth that sounds like what they saw.
I find a GIANT
grasshopper, and when I pick it up to feed it to the chickens, its leg FALLS
OFF. Just fell off. I didn’t know their legs JUST FALL OFF. I’m about done with
the jungle now. As a joke, I draw this picture:
thinking it might lighten my
mood. How wrong I was.
Day of Terror. I don’t know if I can even begin to talk
about this day, because it ends in the culmination of the discovery of a
TA.RAN.TU.LA.
I scream, “OH MY GOD!!!
GET YOUR CAMERA!!!” Kyle says, “If Kirsten is running away, then I am out of
here!” and is immediately confronted with another GIANT spider running across
the floor. Alex is standing on the chair again. Ashley is screaming “WHICH WALL
IS IT ON????” I have no idea what Lili was doing in this moment, but I got her
to man the FLIP so we’d have video proof. The local villagers come to see what
all the screaming is about, and even THEY are afraid. One of the ‘braver’
village boys kills it. Kill count now: : 1 TARANTULA, 9 Giant Spiders, 2 Rats,
1 Scorpion, 1 giant lizard, 1 small bird, 1 jungle rat, ½ Giant Grasshopper.
Day Niner. At breakfast (just coffee) I am immediately held
responsible for the previous evening’s mayhem. Alex says: “I know who’s fault
last night was. THE. PROPHETIC. ARTIST.” I instantly respond in hysterics, as
it appears we really ARE on the freaking “Island” from LOST where something
ridiculous as DRAWINGS come true ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I apologize profusely, and
vow to make it better by drawing a picture of us all eating a double
cheeseburger at McDonalds. Alex replies by saying, “If a cheeseburger appeared
I’d get up and hike back to Kuala Lumpur on foot.” I couldn’t say I blamed him,
really. Not anymore. That night I have an alien encounter with the largest
praying mantis I’ve ever seen in my life. I decided he was large enough to eat
other bugs, so I let him stay on my tent. He observes me eerily. I find him to
be the lesser of MANY evils, and attempt to forget about him. I have a
difficult time sleeping that night.
Day Ten-ish. We are told we are leaving in the morning the
next day on Monday. We rejoice. That afternoon, we are informed we are leaving
on Tuesday morning. We almost start crying.
Day eleven. The dead Tarantula makes an appearance. I decide
that nothing is scarier than Zombie Tarantulas. He makes his way from the back
yard to the front yard. I’m really not surprised at anything anymore.
Day Twelve. We ride the tractor to freedom. Final Kill
count: 1 Tarantula (does it count if it was a Zombie?) 13 Giant Spiders, 2 Rats,
2 Emperor Scorpions, 1 Giant Lizard (which I think we ate at some point), 1
small bird, 2 jungle rats, ½ Giant Grasshopper and a Gecko that I fed to some
huge black ants. Throw in the other “smaller” insects, like the roaches, the
mutant moth crickets, the giant millipedes and centipedes, and you have
yourself a small insect revolution. Somehow, the grace of God allowed us off
the freaking island. At least starvation didn’t take my sanity, as I resisted
eating as many of those anchovies as possible.
