Wet feet

Had another two eggs for breakfast with rice and sweet porridge – Quakers. I made tomato and sardine pasta for our packed lunch, sweat bees were everywhere and kept flying into the pasta – oh well, extra protein! We were then ready to head off. Hulio and Hugo went first with their machetes cutting down the obstructing branches and trees in order to make room for us to walk through. My role was to mark with a fluorescent, pink ribbon every 100m point. I labelled the ribbon with a sharpie pen and tied it to a tree at eye level so it was visible. We got just over 1km and back. This took us the whole day as the path was treacherous. We spent a lot of time wadding through water. It was like an obstacle course as we had to avoid the tree branches with spikes on and biting insects on, and at the same time had to make sure not to sink into the mud - most of which was very deep.  A few termites went down the back of my shirt and bit my neck and arms. It stung for five minutes or so and then I had a bite mark to show for it. As we stopped for lunch it started to rain heavily so we got our ponchos out. I fell over quite a few times today, tripping over branches, sunk in the mud, and had to yank out my willies a few times too.  I just laughed at myself as there were quite a few comical falls. All part of the fun.  My feet were wet the whole day. Hopefully one day I will be able to be nimble with my steps and have dry feet.  I found some shells and crabs and wondered how they got there. Freddie explained that the area used to be sea. So the shells were remnants of the sea. Then the Andes formed and this geological change meant the sea moved from the area.  We were faster on the way back so we did improve throughout the day. On the last leg of the journey back to base there was a stream to cross. I Tarzaned across dangling from a tree branch, which was really fun.  Although today was physically challenging I really enjoyed it. The jungle is such an amazingly pristine place with no one else around. And today was an exciting obstacle adventure course.