‘Diablo Blanco!’ screeched the perverted racist parrot at the break of dawn to let us know it was time to get up. As the darkness and the horrors hidden within retreated into the cracks in the ‘floor’ and ‘walls’, we dressed ourselves shaking our shoes thoroughly as we saw several eyes peering in expectantly, and I had a feeling they were hoping some creature had made our boots it’s home during the night. As the disappointed children (Or spiders contorting to look like children in order to consume villagers) scuttled away we emerged from our hut to greet the village for breakfast. As we observed in silent terror the mystery meat rotating slowly on the spit over the fire while the cackling old lady (who was probably like 30 as they do not carry age well in the jungle) muttered something and gestured at me, we decided without exchanging words that breakfast was unnecessary and let’s just get on with whatever was to finally kill us.
As our guide Pepe (I can’t recall his name as it sounded like something out of lord of the rings) hacked through the thick veil of vines, leaves and yes, spiders and their nests, my sister following so close behind me she tripped me on more than one occasion, I pointed to a pretty bird I saw up in the trees. My sister said ‘oh! That’s pretty!’ and the guide turned quizzically and said ‘que?’ to which my sister gestured to the bird and said ‘pajaro!’, and he laughed and said ‘no, una arana.’ This made no sense to us as clearly his Spanish was poor. This was no... OH MY GOD ITS FUCKING UNFURLING! Yes. It was a spider that curled up to look like a bird to eat birds.
Pepe then handed us some plant stems. We looked at them and snapped one open and dumped the contents into his mouth and motioned for us to do the same. After the breakfast from my deepest nightmare, we insisted he show us what was in his and OH MY GOD ITS A FUCKING NEST OF TINY ANTS! Lemon ants they’re called. They’re called that cause they taste like lemons. My sister refused any part of it, but my brother in law and myself figured we would soon have to run from, or fight, a puma... or a fucking giant spider contorted to look like a puma... to eat pumas... So we said cheers, and frankly, they tasted like lemons. Wasn’t bad. Didn’t like them crawling back up. Like they didn’t want to be eaten. Hanging out in a plant stem being all lemony. They were asking for it.
While enjoying another stem of ants, I noticed a line of red ants walking across a log (or a spider contorted to look like a log...to eat logs) as I bent down and said ‘hello ants. I am eating your friends.’ A giant ant... and I mean a fucking giant ant, walking over top the others stopped dead and OH MY GOD ITS TURNING ITS HEAD AND LOOKING RIGHT AT ME! I called over to the others and said ‘Hey guys look at this weird giant ant!’ The guide walked over, shrieked (could have been a manly yell where he’s from he was really small and it’s hard to gauge) grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me towards the jungle and bolted full speed yelling for the others to do the same. We did and I looked back at the spot as it became blackened by a swarm of ants. Or a Spider sonteorted to look like a swarm of ants. To eat a swarm of ants.
When we could run no further, we found ourselves at the mouth of a cave in giant cliff face. At this point, the fact that the cliff face was literally covered with thousands of spider nests and crawly things all over it didn’t even phase us. The guide explained as best he could that the only way back now was to climb the cave to the mouth at the top. As we had nothing with us except terror we looked confused as he placed his hands on one side, then pressed his legs on the other and began crab-crawling his way up. “What the hell we’re going to die today anyway. I’d rather it be from a fall.” My brother in law said as we all started doing the same. About 20 meters up, we hear screeching and a lot of thumping. I shout ‘Mike! You ok?’ ...silence... my sister yells ‘MIKE!’... then his reply ‘BATS!... LOTS OF BATS’. Or spiders contorted to look like flying bats. To eat flying bats. As a bat slammed right into my face, my leg and right arm slipped and I was sure that was the end of me. Newsy, dead at 23... Beloved by several, hated by many. I barely had time to shout ‘MIKE! Tell Mom I love her, and I the neck pouch was USELESS!’ as a tiny but freaky strong hand darted out of nowhere and hoisted me back into position... Pepe, now doing the russian splits had saved my life while angrily saying ‘NO! Muy Morte!’ to which i tried to explain as i crawled out of the mouth of the cave trying not to look directly at my brother in law who looked like a swarm of bats had just anger banged every part of him that I didn’t try to fall to my death.
As we trudged back to ‘camp’ the monkeys came out. I know they were real monkeys as they were goddamned fearless and came right up to us and I swear to God tried to stare us down. One of them was always snapping (I don’t even know if they have thumbs, I’m not a monkeyologist) but they were fucking snapping while dangling behind a larger monkey eating what looked like an eyeball so menacingly it will haunt my dreams forever. The guide I think told us not to make eye contact and hurried out of the area as the screeching began. I presume the monkeys were all immediately devoured by some monkey impersonating spider. As we stumbled hurriedly out of the monkey territory the guide threw his hands out stopping us all dead as an albino snake sat in a clearing staring at us. The guide looked like he was about to cry and beg it for mercy as a shadow fell over it. Our eyes fell to the dark spot behind it as OH MY GOD ITS A GIANT FUCKING TARANTULA. How many people can say they say a snake fight a spider and LOSE? I can. That spider walked up to that snake, pinned it’s tail to the ground and IT WAS ON! I couldn’t watch the fight all the way, but i saw the spider bight the head of the snake and the snake go limp. Then we were too far running for our lives. I envisioned the spider looking up at the sky triumphantly over his kill and roaring like the T-Rex at the end of Jurassic park.
Approaching the village we tiredly passed a tree with crazy roots and what i can only describe as some sort of jungle conch shell. I asked the guide what was the purpose of the shell and he half told and half mimed a scenario where if we were being attacked by a puma, we were to crawl in there as they were too big to fit and blow on the shell and the villagers would come help. I tried my best to explain that that may be well and good for him at a towering 3’11, but I, a handsome 6’3 would surely die as if i could fit, a puma almost certainly could fit, and likely be infinitely better at manoeuvring within. ‘Que?’ he responded, and I just replied ‘You know what Pepe? Fuck you, I’ll just fight the fucking Puma.’
Part three next time. ‘Don’t pee in the water’.
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