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Neil's Round the World Trip!
I got up at 7.30am, this getting up early business is really not my thing but I suppose it's preparation for when I'll be working. I didn't have the greatest night's sleep after my mosquito escapades. I walked zombified to the shower, it refreshed me a little bit as did my fave little Camu Camu rolls and tea. I was a good 10 minutes late for my lesson.
My teacher today was Wilma, I get on well with her and the classes always pass quickly. Despite being very tired I managed to remember all my verbs for the indefinite past tense. During the break I chatted to Marco and Melanie. I tried to persuade Marco to go with us to the jungle. However he's making his family an Austrian dinner on Saturday as he leaves on Tuesday. I ate my little packet of Oreos with the two resident dogs sitting at my feet in anticipation of crumbs. It's cloudy again today, what's happening? I'm so used to the blue sky and bright sun every day! I continued my lesson and did quite a few exercise which I struggled through with prompts.
I walked back to my house with Melanie and then had my lunch. It was the usual cuisine of rice and chicken.
I packed all my stuff for my trip to the jungle and then joined the others outside Joaquin's house where our mini-bus was waiting. It was a tight squeeze but we fitted everyone in. Our guide Ronald joined us and we then drove to our driver's neighbourhood to pick up his wife and child who are joining us on the trip to the Chapari jungle. We drove out of the warm temperate Cochabamba into the cold, misty altiplano. We stopped to buy fruit and biscuits, the change in temperature was crazy we'd only driven 30 miles and the temp had gone from 27c to 2c!
We drove along a precarious road which eventually became blocked by lots of trucks queueing to get into Chapari. The views of the cloud forests were awesome. We waited in line and after some time reached the USA imposed drug control frontier. We had our bus searched in a less than thorough manner by the Bolivian police and drove into the steamy jungle. We had a toilet stop that was necessary as my stomach started to play up a bit. Maybe it was all that meat I ate last night or could it have been the lettuce in the salad bar...lettuce definitely! Anyway this toilet was horrible; a small hole in the ground with greeny-brown slop on the floor and spiders webs criss-crossing from one side of the cubicle to the next. I couldn't help but think I'd finally visited a toilet worse than the one in "Trainspotting".
We drove on into the evening, through the lush, green rainforest and reached the town of Villa Tunari. We continued driving along the bumpy jungle roads until we reached a small village called Shinotaun. We bought some beer and then drove to the school-owned house in the jungle nearby.
The house is a three-level concrete structure set in magnificent grounds with banana trees, lemons, starfruit etc. We all chilled out on the top floor swinging in hammocks sipping our beers. We had a group meal of pasta which I managed to eat even though my dodgy stomach was growling with disapproval. We drank lemongrass juice and then got on to the hard stuff; the local rum with Sprite.
We played some card games including my fave s***head until about 12.30am and then exhausted we all crashed to sleep.
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