The jungle lodge was beautiful, except for the mosqitos.
Now, mosquitos can hardly be helped in the jungle. Cody's 98% deet did not fend them off, and they bit through two layers of clothing. I would have worn more layers but it was incredibly hot. Nothing you can do, they're ridiculous. After awhile you just learn to accept it.
I counted more than 400 mosquito bites on my body. I have never been so itchy. I had 57 bites on my left hand alone, along with bites on the palms of my hands.
Aside from that, the lodge was awesome. We saw so many different birds and bugs of all different colours, beauuuutiful trees and plantlife. Mammals and reptiles were harder to find, but we found a snake, some small lizards, lots of monkeys and bats and a sloth!
The last night we stayed there, our guides Jose and Douglas took us out in the canoe at night to go looking for alligators, and we caught a caiman! I am not sure how to spell this.
He was probably 12 inches from nose to tail tip, and the guides showed us how to hold him. It was amazing, he was a beautiful little creature :)
I keep forgetting to bring my camera to the internet cafe to upload pictures for everyone. SORRY GUYS.
Yesterday, we took a motor-canoe across the Amazon and saw river dolphions! We saw some grey dolphins and a pink one, which I think are harder to find because they live in really small groups. Anyways that was followed by a 2 or something hour trek with our backpacks under the hot-hot sun, which was certainly an experience. We all felt a little awful and everyone looked like they'd been thrown in a lake because they were drenched with sweat. I didn't sweat that much but I would have preferred to because I had gross pit-stains. Now I only have one pair of clothing left and laundromats are closed today because it's sunday. UGH.
YESTERDAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER, THOUGH, FOR THIS REASON.
Because of the incredible itchiness, Sarah and I decided to visit a pharmacy to get anti-itch cream. While I watched a little girl kick around an inflatable beach ball, Sarah asked the guy for anti-itch cream for mosquito bites; partly in charades and partly in words. He nods, and grabs a box containing a small tube of cream. From behind Sarah, I caught a glimpse of the name of the medication:
TRIDENOVAG
The three last letters of the name both alarmed and amused me, so I tried and failed not to giggle as Sarah gulped back snickers and took the box.
After paying for our box of TRIDENOVAG, we ran out laughing and actually laughed all the way to the yellow rose of texas, which is a restaurant that serves very good ice cream. Thomas and Cody were waiting there.
Upon arriving, we were like "There is no way that he gave us vaginal cream. There is just no way he could have misinterpreted us THAT badly." I took out the instructions, which were all spanish.
If my spanish comprehension is as awesome as I think it is, i caught the words "fungal and bacterial infection" and also, the word "herpes".
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shortly afterwards, I read that it can be used for any skin itch anywhere that responds to steroids or something, which we know mosquito bites do, because you can use steroid cream for mosquito bites. So it was usable for our needs, we just thought it was amusing.
And so, we have named it "the vag cream."
Best part is, when we took it out to show Thomas and Cody, we forgot to take our tube of TRIDENOVAG off of the restaurant table.
Whoops!
