Don’t pee in the water.

We had thought this was a normal jungle village, as these people seemed pretty jungle-y. Turns out that was not the case. These people were the aristocrats of the jungle world. We later had the opportunity to flee danger by stumbling into a different village, much further into the hell that is the jungle. We stopped dead in our tracks, as the few people standing in view stared at us like we were aliens. According to our guide Pepe, they had never seen white people before. Frankly I tend to believe him as when my sister took a picture with her camera and showed the ominous old lady the screen, she shrieked like she had seen the devil and ran. The entire village swarmed out to meet the chaos as they listened to the old lady shout and point. She then angrily pointed at the camera, and my sister a little worriedly took a picture of one of the men. He saw the screen and shouted in surprise and excitement. They all cheered (for reasons known only to them). He motioned for her to do it again, and she did, as he posed in a ‘I’m throwing this spear at my village friend here’ sort of way. The others swarmed in to see, but the subject of the picture was having none of it while knocking them over and tossing them all aside to get to the screen.

Long village jungle story short, a tiny boy (I named lil’ Pepe) in that village would NOT stop following me. It was creepy. He was like a friggin jungle-ninja. Ultimately, in the hut of the medicine man, he finally came up to me and pointed at my bandana. I took it off and handed it to him to SHOW him. He bolted like there was a giant spider chasing him (there could very well have been. I could have been a Spider contorted to look like Newsy. To eat Newsy). I sort of just stared as I realised that bandana was now gone forever. So I hope it served you well lil’ Pepe. But still... fuck you thief. I’d have given it if you had asked. Pfft. He’s probably been eaten by a spider by now anyways. And then that spider eaten by a spider. And that one eaten by a puma.

Did you know there’s a kind of fish... a little teeny tiny fish that is attracted to urine and will swim up your urethra if you pee anywhere near it, hook into your flesh, and the only way to get rid of it is to amputate? Neither did we. As Pepe mimed ‘hook onto the inside of your penis’ we could not tell for sure what he was trying to say to us. We all just nodded as he seemed to desperately want to impart this piece of information. Then I said ‘so... DON’T pee in the river?...’ and he nodded emphatically. To which my brother in law, clearly upset by this responded ‘can I stand next to the river and pee into it?’... ‘Why would you possibly want to do that?’... ‘I don’t know. Can I pee into a cup and throw it in the river?’ ... ‘Knock yourself out.’

As we waded through the waist deep water, trying to figure out if there are urethral muscles we could clench to make sure we didn’t get any unexpected visitors, I noticed the eerily calm jungle surrounding the water. It seemed to be unnatural. I dismissed the calm (cause fuck you jungle that's why) as I was planning on being eaten by a spider any moment anyways, and we came to the base of a waterfall. I don’t mean a little cute waterfall, I mean a big ass fucking waterfall. Like a fall and you’re dead 100 times before you hit the rocks below, waterfall. As Pepe scampered up the wet rocks in his bare feet and tiny hands, my sister, brother in law and I all looked at each other and without having to confer, I shouted (irritated) at Pepe, ‘Yo Pepe! None of us seem to posses your apparent ability to scale wet rocks unaided... lil’ help?’ ... the response came swiftly; a rope came flying down to us. I don’t recall how we all got to the top of that godforsaken waterfall, but we did. And we were both, elated that we laughed in the face of death yet again, and also furious that we had to do such a thing in the first place... yet again.

That is where the jungle adventure ends. We were there for another day, but after the waterfall I can not remember a thing until the airport. The weird thing is neither of the others can remember anything either. I’m just going to go ahead and presume I was drugged and gang raped by pumas and spiders. And spiders pretending to be pumas. To eat pumas. That’s the least upsetting option really.

Suddenly I’m startled awake at the airport by a horde of children trying to take my shoes off. They get one as I say ‘Why are you taking these terrible jungle drenched shoes?’ they laughed and scampered away with only the one of my shoes. As I sat up and shook my head a soldier holding an assault rifle nudged me and said in rapid Spanish something along the lines of ‘you look retarded with only one shoe and I am hungry’ (My Spanish wasn’t great then) to which I stared blankly at him and responded loudly ‘My roommate is in the army in Canada... So we’re like... cousins or something.’ His icy glare was enough of a conversation for me as my plane was called to board after my 32 hour Ecuadorian airport adventure without a dollar in my pocket. The airport, I later learned, was shut down immediately following my flight as there was military unrest, and mine was the last flight out.

I managed to smuggle a cocoa bean fruit out of the jungle and bring it back to Canada. Every single border agent seemed not to care at all that I had it. They seemed to feel nothing but pity for me and just kept waving me through. Which in hindsight was a dangerous decision as it could have been a spider contorted to look like a cocoa bean fruit... to eat... I don't know, let's say oompa loompas.

I arrived home in Canada to my mother excitedly waving as she ran to hug me. My father asking ‘where’s your luggage?’ and my mother immediately following up with ‘and where is your neck pouch?’ I just looked at them. One shoe gone. No luggage. Dirty. Exhausted. Bleeding from several wounds. Clothes literally torn all over the place. And I just replied. ‘Actually Mom, the neck pouch wasn’t overly helpful. So I put it in the luggage. And Dad, the jungle people stole my luggage. It’s theirs now, but don’t worry. They have already been eaten by Spiders, so it’s OK. Justice was done. Jungle justice. Let’s just go home.’ Oddly they didn’t really follow up with too many questions.

In the final chapter of the jungle tale, Jungle diseases and you... See a fucking doctor.