hey guys wheres the electricity and hot water haha no seriously where are they

Let me preface this post by sharing my new favorite song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN2AdOjI4FI

I was in a cab riding ~45 minutes back to the reserve one day last week, and our driver literally had one cd with only that song on it. Clearly everyone else in the cab was ready to die after 10 minutes but I jammed the entire time and refused to let anyone turn it off

Jungle Arrival:

The bus from cuzco that heads to the jungle leaves on Fridays at 5:30 AM, kill me. A bunch of my friends were leaving for a long trip that same Friday, so they wanted to have a big house party and go out dancing on Thursday night. Do you see where this is going? I scheduled a taxi to come pick me up at 5:00 AM and decided I would just go bender status for the night, come back at 4:30, pack my bags and then crash hard on the 12 hour bus ride

All went according to plan as I had the time of my life dancing to all the terrible club music that I love and everyone else hates. Around 4:00 I walked some friends back to their house (gentleman), then strolled home planning for a little nap. Im walking up my street and I hear "Nick?" from a taxi driver waiting in front of my house, strange. I ask him what time it is and he says 5:30 uhhhhhhhhhhh what

I don't have a watch down here and apparently the people I asked had sweaty eyes or something because they were an hour or two off. I sprint upstairs, throw a ton of crap in my backpack (I had luckily packed some before), and run back to the cab apologizing profusely. Our night guard was laughing hysterically the entire time, thanks lucas. The only thing I forgot to bring? My rainjacket. For the rainforest. In the rainy season. YEA

Luckily everything is late in Peru and when they say the bus leaves at 5:30 it sometimes makes it out of there by 7:00. So I make it to the bus, promptly pass out, and wake up more or less 11 hours later when they poke me and tell me to get off, its my stop. SKILLS

Jungle:



Awesome place located near the Manu Reserve. To get there, you have to cross the river on this:



When I arrived, a bunch of volunteers were taking the same bus I was on into a town farther down the road, so I just threw my bag in the bushes and went with them for a while. That meant that my first river crossing was in the dark later that night, in the pouring rain, with my hiking backpack on. Day 0 and Im not missing that rainjacket at all!

So there were six other people there when I arrived: Lluc and Didac from cataluna in spain, Laura from argentina, Dana from australia, Dani from barcelona, and Ans from Canada. So I got a ton of spanish practice for that week, which was really good. They even taught me some Catalan words, which is kinda similar to spanish but not really. tightttttttttttt

I settled in the dormitory and crashed hard



My new digs: I hung up stuff to "dry" but it is borderline impossible to dry anything out there. Between the humidity and the pouring rain every night, I just gave up and was damp. Yes, my clothes smell wonderful now.



Without that mosquito net, I would have been dead in one night. Unfortunately for me, I am super tall and fall asleep in a ball, but usually wake up stretched out on my stomach. This means that most mornings I would find my feet OUTSIDE the net. Ill snap a photo later, just picture chicken pox from the ankle down. sexy?

Anyway thats all for a bit, ill post more later. Gonna go finish laundry/washing shoes, buy some random stuff I need, watch the superbowl with some friends, and then get ready for the new dental placement tomorrow morning

HASTA LUEGOOOOOOOOOO