From: Tomer Morad [tomer_morad@hotmail.com] Sent: éåí çîéùé 25 àå÷èåáø 2001 2:27 To: tomer_morad@hotmail.com Subject: King of the jungle!!! Hello everyone! I have just returned from a five-day trip to the jungle, and it was amazing. But before I start i want you to know that all the french people should be eliminated from humanity, as they serve no use to it. They only interfear... Sooooo, after being sick in the rafting trip, and not eating for five days I had to break the fast somehow. I thought all day about what I will have for dinner (big dillema in cuzco) and I finally decided to eat something. But something easy, you know, to go easy on my stomache, after all i have been throwing up my internal organs only two days before. It turned out that in the same evening there was a birthday to the hostal owner in lima, and she came to cuzco for her birthday (her name is pilar from the casa del muchileros). We went to a restaurant to celebrate. And how can I celebrate without a BIG JUICY BEEF STEAK! Don´t worry, I was ok by then... As I passed the test of the steak, I ordered a tour to the jungle in Puerto Maldonado. I was ready to do the tour, yes! I was ready to rip the jungle apart, eat jungle food and hike for kilometers and kilometers every day! So I started making my way into the jungle, what danger! I took a cab to the airport and boarded my plane to puerto maldonado. The seats were free so I rushed to the plane in order to get a business chair... It was nice to sit in the business class for 35 minutes. By the way, driving it would have taken 50 hours because the road is not good. The view from the plane was amazing, so many trees! Also when I came from madrid to lima I saw all the amazons from the plane, you wouldn´t believe how many trees are there... I am telling you, waste as much paper, burn as many trees as you can because there are so many trees here, enough for everyone for years and years. Don´t be fooled by the green parties, it is all conspirency! So we landed in the middle of the jungle, in an airport with only trees around it. Yes, I was ready for my big hike into the jungle! I started to suspect when I saw that on the bus waiting for me were people that being twice my age was a compliment for them... And worse, they were french, talking french! We drove a little in the city and then boarded a boat. In the city i was greeted by a very nice insect who helped itself for a few CCs of my blood. The boat ride took about an hour and a half to reach the lodge. Still thinking how I will rip the jungle apart all by myself I noticed how my 20 kilo muchila was carried by the workers into the lodge. Still amazed from the last scene, I went to have lunch in the lunchroom... The jungle food turned out to be a big buffet, full of all kindes of food, like in the best restaurants... Jungle hike? yea right... After that I went into my room (with my muchilla, what hutzpa! it´s heavy! I have a ptor!) This was the best room i have been to in all of peru... You have to understand that i was expecting no more than a tent... It was clear now what kind of trip this is going to be... The first day: We went to see the monkey´s island, an isolated island in the jungle with about 30 monkeys. So we saw many monkeys, the local monkeys, the guides, the french... These monkeys are used to people so you can feed them bananas. You walk and yell ¨platanos monos¨ which means bananas monkeys, and they come and grab the bananas from you. They also like mineral water. They will drink from bottles of mineral water, but if you give them just regular water, meaning ionized water they do not like it and throw the bottle away! At night we went by boat to the river shores, to look for allegators... We saw three of them. It was nice because we had to be silent so all the french people had to shut up. The second day: This time I went with another british person (No french!) fishing. So we were fishing. And fishing. And fishing. And fishing. The fish kept on eating our bait and not grabbing the hook... Noone was successful... So much for my fishing capabilities... We also entered the jungle, and I got a one-week tatoo from a special jungle fruit. In the afternoon arrived another (!) french group, as if the place wasn´t already loaded with those useless fellows. One of the brighter (smart) french women decided she should go to the jungle on her high heals... Useless, i am telling you. The third day: We woke up at 5am only to see it raining like a real rainforest. It stopped only in the afternoon where we went to see some beautiful birds. This day i was not with the french people, but with four nice spanish people and a stupid american. The american kept on speaking nonsense in his pityful spanish, thinking he was funny... We all ignored him... At night there was a show of some locals. It was horrible, but the french fellows tipped them like good tourists... Day four: We finally went on a hike of 12km to the lost lagoone, which was really nice. Not many animals but nice. Sorry, many animals. So many, but like everything in peru you can´t enjoy something without paying. These animals like their payments in blood. So you can actually calculate how many CCs of blood you loose in every km. I would like to introduce you to a new scientific unit: CCs/m... After the hike we went back to lodge by boat, seeing another allegator on the way. In the afternoon I went again to monkey´s island. To make the trip more interesting I swam back with the guide to the lodge... Remember that this is the same river i saw allegators in three hours before, 100 meters from the lodge... day five: today i woke up, did nothing special and took two flights. Now i am in Lima... To sum it up i have to say that this jungle trip was the best thing I did in peru, and the most beautiful place (after the technion of course...) I have been to in my life. Many animals, beautiful views, jungle sounds, birds, and lots of water. Really recommended! Although the natural continuation from the rafting was to be eaten by an allegator, nothing like that happened. I only lost a few CCs to the mosquitos... I need to rest now before my flight to Brazil next week... Best regards, Tomer. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp