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Published: September 26th 2009
OK, so as Em said - I have a small tale to tell.
I could have just let her tell it, but it was a very personal experience I hold close to my heart.
So as I'm sure Em said - the guide told us we could ride on the roof if we wanted. Since I've fallen on my head in the past, I of course thought this was an AWESOME idea! So we climbed on the roof an charged off. It was the first true 'highlight' of the trek and we were all stoked.
Then after a while of hanging on to the roof of a car that is gunning up and down winding, pot-hole filled roads on the side of a mountain like a rollercoaster on crack, we were all realxed and chatting.
I was busy talking to the Austrian dude on my right and got smacked straight in the face by a nice leafy branch.
Incredibly funny, I know. Once I was done laughing along with the others (and cursing their families between breaths), I started to feel an itchy burning sensation on my neck. It started to get worse, so I was scratching and rubbing it like crazy.
Eventually the car stopped to pick something up and I stuck my hand down my shirt only to find (to my delight) a super funky caterpillar.
Oh joy of joys! It must have been on that nice leafy branch that met my face - unnnnnnnLUCKY!
After doing my best to not scream like a girl in front of my fellow trekkers, and tossing my new friend as far as one can toss a caterpillar - I thought back to what I had been doing for the past 10 minutes.
I had basically been rubbing that little darling all over my neck and shoulders with great gusto.
Fun fact - caterpillars love being rubbed and squashed SO MUCH that they leave little hairs in your skin as 'thank you' presents.
Hooray.
It felt like the pleasant itching feeling you get from poison ivy, combined with the soothing effect that fire has on flesh.
Anyway, our guide (Sunny) told me that it should only last about an hour, so I acted all manly (while crying like an orphan inside) and set off into the jungle.
After an hour had passed and the thought of sand-papering my neck had only become more appealing, I let the guide know that times were still not too good. He then reckoned it must've been a different caterpillar and didn't know what to do about it, so I used 3 different insect creams that I snatched from my fellow hikers which didn't really do anything except fillme with false hope.
.
Now imagine this - you know you can't scratch because it will take off the cream, you're sweating so hard because jungles are so cool and you're hiking up muddy hills, all you can think of is how awesome drowning in the arctic would be beacuse your neck may literarly be on fire, and you're trying not to be a downer for everyone else so you keep it nice and quiet.
Never have I come so close to losing my mind.
If the guide had pulled me aside and said "Simon, buddy, I know this may not be an option for you, but legend has it that human faeces soothes caterpillar stings" I would've flung myself, as hard as I could, face-first on to the ground, while raising one arm behind my back to offer the man my only roll of toilet paper and screaming "do it Sunny, DO IT" into the mud.
Unfortunately their is no 'generations old' jungle-cure for caterpillar tickles.
It never went away either.
Only got slightly better each day.
Day 1 - somebody please beat me to death with your walking stick.
Day 2 - just felt like poison ivy, but a little more groovy.
Day 3 - 30 mosquito bites around one area.
etc etc.
In fact - my neck is STILL slightly itchy..
My caterpillar cuddle was 8 days ago.
Awesome sauce.
So remember kids - next time you see a caterpillar:
Pick him up (he wants you to).
Rub him on your face (he REALLY wants you to).
Go trekking (YOU'LL want to)
OK, that's enough whining.
The trek was truly awesome.
Just be sure to tune in next time when I get my face sucked off by a harmless tree frog.
Or when I get dismemberd by a sleeping panda cub.
Sime
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Classic creepy crawlies
Brilliant. Well not the incident itself, but the blog was hilarious. Been too long since last we yakked such funny arb BS. Gotta say that caterpillar makes the rainspider that snuck into my room during last night's storm (and which I can only assume is lurking quietly as I type) look pretty tame. Enjoy!