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Published: February 5th 2007
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Thursday 17th August So the next day we got up early and prepared ourselves for the trek of a lifetime through the oldest rain forest in the world. We had arranged a guide the day before and what a good bloke he was, his name was ameal and he agreed to just take me, Paul and Laura on the treck compared to the 12 he had taken a few days earlier, this really was going to be just us against the elements. Ameal armed witha machete and me with my swiss army knife bring on the tigers. Ameal got his friend to take us to the base camp, not before i bought a very sexy pair of rubber football boots to do the treck in, they really were rather fetching! Anyway after about an hour in this longboat full of holes we arrived at base camp.
Let me first tell you the things we knew were out there waiting for us. Many poisonous spiders which was Lauras biggest worry, plenty of poisonous deadly snakes, including vipers, cobras (including spiting ones) and all sorts of other wonderfull ones that i cant remember the names of, these are what scared Paul
Ameal
our guide the most. As for Ameal he was clearly worried about Tigers, which i will tell more about later and as for me i really was quite worried about the leeches! We also knew that Elephants, Bears and all sorts of Monkeys were out there waiting for us. We also knew that our accomodation for the night would be a Cave!
Anyway To get into the Jungle we had to cross a bridge and it really did set the scene, once over the other side, Ameal told us, "this isnt a Zoo, the animals are real and can kill, with any luck we wont cross any animals at all". In the back of my mind i was thinking it really would be great to see a Elephant or Tiger. Ameal must have read my mind as he then proceeded to say "if you ask for something the jungle will give you it, you think of a tiger and it will come" and then told us a story about a French girl saying she was desperate to see a Elephant. To which he told her if we see a elephant we would be in great danger if they see us they
will probably charge and that would be a very bad thing for all involved.
So off we set into the breach taking a fast pace from the get go, which got me sweating in no time. After an hour we stopped and started to drink the first of our bottles of water, which we caried along with our sleeping bags and sleeping matt in our ruck sacks. We stopped near a stream and ameal told us the water was fine to drink so we tried a bit and it tasted a bit earthy but quite refreshing. Just before we set off ameal got his mobile phone out and started to play classic Westlife songs like flying without wings which anoyyed me abit for two reasons, firstly i hate Westlife and secondly it was taking away the atmosphere of being in the mysterious jungle. Well off we set again with Westlife still blazing out and me keeping my eyes fixed on the floor for leeches. After a while we stopped and ameal turned round and said,"this is a very important spot, two weeks ago i was with two other travellers like yourselves and i spotted two tigers watching us, so
ahh refreshing
the vine for our survival this is why i am playing the music to keep the Tigers away", what happened we asked "i will tell you later" and said nothing more. With this said we got rather anxious and nervy about the prospect of meeting a tiger.
One thing i remember is just how dense the jungle was there could have been anything two foot to the side of me and i wouldnt have had the faintest idea it was there. The trekking was also tough going through thick jungle up and down hills it really wasnt a walk in the park, and certainly not for everyone, but i fully enjoyed the challenge. After another hour or so we came across elephant tracks and elephant poo which was exciting i doubt i have ever been so excited at seeing poo in my life! But Ameal told us they were two days old.
Ameal also on the treck showed us some basic survival training like how to find water and what to eat and that sort of stuff. So he cut down vines and told us to drink from them which we did and it was refreshing and tasted earthy and woody. Anyway he
then took us to a rocky cliff for a rest and also a bit of fun swinging on vines and doing tarzans which was quite funny.
Hours later we finally arrived at our camp for the night................THE CAVE!!!!!!
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