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Jul. 2nd, 2005 05:14 pmAm deep in the jungle and it is raining. I saw bats.
The first time I saw murcieligo, I was about five, and hanging around in Ecuador. (The jungle-y bits, I guess.) I woke up in the middle of the night, and there they were: four vampire bats feeding off the dogs and pig. (... What dogs and pig were doing in my room is not something I'm real clear on.) I must have made some noise to startle them, because every single one suddenly turned to look at me. We looked at each other for a moment, then they flew out the window. (An open window in the jungle at night? Yeah, I'm not sure either.)
Ok, so, this is one of those stories we can´t examine too closely, because it stops making sense under scrutiny, but the point is: there were bats, and they were awesome.
And that is what the jungle is like. Provided you don´t look too closely at the details- the biting ants (Holy fuck ow.), the mosquitos (Itchyitchyitchy.), the oppressive humidity (Seriously, what is this?), the intermittant electicity (This is the third time I´ve typed this out, for the record.), the eight-hours-on-a-bad-dirt-road-from-anything (sweet fancy moses!)- it´s totally, completely, amazingly, awesome.
It´s lush and green and exciting in a yay! exploration! sort of way. There´s so much here- so much life in weird forms, so much general strangeness, and we hardly know anything about it. (Well, it´s not entirely unknown, but it's unknown to ME, and that needs to change.) Provided enough DEET to allow my poor sangre dulce self to survive, and I'll move down here in a heartbeat. Did I not have a family along, cramping my traveling style, or a room-mate expecting my return in August, or a non-refundable plane ticket (I think my family knows me better than I would like.) I would be begging a job off Jesus, and settling down here, in the middle of nowhere-jungle-of-awesome-ness.
Jesus is the owner of the terribly comfortable hostel we are staying in. A dispatrieated Spaniard, he´s fast on his way to my top five favorite grumpy old men ever list. This is in no small part because of his library, (shelved, as far as I can tell by language family, but no other disernable method) containing bad sci-fi next to interesting biography alongside puzzling romance novels in German and no less than three copies of "In Cold Blood" in Spanish.
I am currently reading most of these, but the best one is a history of exploration in the Amazon. I have determined that weird asexuality aside, I would very much like to be Baron von Humbolt, if I have to grow up. (If any of y'all have tips on inheriting vast fortunes, becoming fluently sept-lingual, discovering the movements of something important like- oh, say, electricity, or getting several interesting and important things named after you, because you happen to be coolness personified, I would very much like to know.)
Whoah. Spell check? Broken. I´m sorry, but this'll just have to do.
edit: I went back though this with a spell check, because no one should have to attempt my phonetics unless they've been really terrible and deserve it. Chances are you don't.
The first time I saw murcieligo, I was about five, and hanging around in Ecuador. (The jungle-y bits, I guess.) I woke up in the middle of the night, and there they were: four vampire bats feeding off the dogs and pig. (... What dogs and pig were doing in my room is not something I'm real clear on.) I must have made some noise to startle them, because every single one suddenly turned to look at me. We looked at each other for a moment, then they flew out the window. (An open window in the jungle at night? Yeah, I'm not sure either.)
Ok, so, this is one of those stories we can´t examine too closely, because it stops making sense under scrutiny, but the point is: there were bats, and they were awesome.
And that is what the jungle is like. Provided you don´t look too closely at the details- the biting ants (Holy fuck ow.), the mosquitos (Itchyitchyitchy.), the oppressive humidity (Seriously, what is this?), the intermittant electicity (This is the third time I´ve typed this out, for the record.), the eight-hours-on-a-bad-dirt-road-from-anything (sweet fancy moses!)- it´s totally, completely, amazingly, awesome.
It´s lush and green and exciting in a yay! exploration! sort of way. There´s so much here- so much life in weird forms, so much general strangeness, and we hardly know anything about it. (Well, it´s not entirely unknown, but it's unknown to ME, and that needs to change.) Provided enough DEET to allow my poor sangre dulce self to survive, and I'll move down here in a heartbeat. Did I not have a family along, cramping my traveling style, or a room-mate expecting my return in August, or a non-refundable plane ticket (I think my family knows me better than I would like.) I would be begging a job off Jesus, and settling down here, in the middle of nowhere-jungle-of-awesome-ness.
Jesus is the owner of the terribly comfortable hostel we are staying in. A dispatrieated Spaniard, he´s fast on his way to my top five favorite grumpy old men ever list. This is in no small part because of his library, (shelved, as far as I can tell by language family, but no other disernable method) containing bad sci-fi next to interesting biography alongside puzzling romance novels in German and no less than three copies of "In Cold Blood" in Spanish.
I am currently reading most of these, but the best one is a history of exploration in the Amazon. I have determined that weird asexuality aside, I would very much like to be Baron von Humbolt, if I have to grow up. (If any of y'all have tips on inheriting vast fortunes, becoming fluently sept-lingual, discovering the movements of something important like- oh, say, electricity, or getting several interesting and important things named after you, because you happen to be coolness personified, I would very much like to know.)
Whoah. Spell check? Broken. I´m sorry, but this'll just have to do.
edit: I went back though this with a spell check, because no one should have to attempt my phonetics unless they've been really terrible and deserve it. Chances are you don't.
