I think I hate the jungle.
The realisation dawned on me a few months ago while I was in the world's biggest jungle, the Amazon, which is as good a place as any to decide you dislike dense, tropical rainforests. I was about three hours into a six-hour hike through the Peruvian part of the Amazon, in search of monkeys and birdlife and frogs, and whatever else you look for out there.
So far the only animal life we'd seen was the sort that had found us: flies, attracted no doubt by the rich puddle of sweat that had begun on my back and then spread to encompass pretty much my entire body.
My clothes looked like I'd dived into a swimming pool. My hat had a regular drip, drip, drip of sweat rolling off its sopping brim.
The few bits of skin I'd left uncovered had been bitten by mosquitoes or harassed by midgies. And we still hadn't seen any monkeys, or birdlife, or even frogs.
That's when I decided that I hate the jungle.
It's bad news, this realisation, because I like to think I enjoy everything when it comes to travel. I like rustic and I like luxury. I like extreme and I like sedate. I like beaches, and mountains, and deserts, and cities, and villages, and lakes, and even forests.
But not jungles.
Mostly it's the humidity. My northern hemisphere genes weren't designed with moisture-rich air in mind.
Jungles are always muggy and steamy, and it's not long before I'm bathed in sweat and wondering how I got myself into this is the first place. Why do people come out here for enjoyment? Who calls this fun?
If it's not the humidity and the heat, then it's the insects.
There are many things I would rather deal with than insects. Like sharks. I'm actually fine with sharks. I enjoy having sharks around when I'm scuba diving. They're big and scary-looking and pretty much harmless. I also like lions, and bears, and I'm not particularly bothered by tigers.
But I hate insects, and jungles have millions of them. There are flies that crawl around your face, mozzies that bite you, midgies that annoy you, and big flying, buzzing things that you can't identify, but which all seem to want to land on you or crawl up you. Then you've got all of the ants, and the spiders, and the leeches, and the snakes.
All of these things come part and parcel with the jungle experience. Doesn't matter if you're in the Amazon or wandering around a Pacific island, if you're in Sri Lanka or Indonesia, these things are coming to get you.
It doesn't help, as well, that I've almost been killed in a jungle. I once had a brush with a king cobra in the middle of nowhere, Thailand, that would have ended in my certain, painful demise had things gone only slightly differently. (I scraped through with a fright, and 10 leeches attached to my legs.)
Why do people go to jungles? To see wildlife, obviously – the only problem is that if you're in proper, dense jungle, your chances of actually seeing anything up close are minimal.
Here we are, back in the Amazon, when my guide halts everyone on the jungle path and points up into the dense canopy above us, his finger waving in the direction of a clump of brown fur high up in among the greenery. "You see the monkey?" he says, as the fur swishes slightly.
I think I can see that it's a monkey. Except I forgot to pack binoculars, so for me it's just a brown clump high up in among the greenery. And my camera lens is fogged up because it's so humid.
I've tried really hard to like jungle holidays. I want to enjoy diving under a mozzie net at night and listening to the sounds of screeching and whooping emanating from the treetops.
I want to love a walk through dense Amazonian undergrowth as much as I enjoy a trek up a treeless Andean mountainside. I want to think about big, suffocating, constricting snakes the same way I think about friendly, loveable sharks. I would like to be able to get the same buzz from the sight of monkeys as I do from the sight of a spare table at a really nice seaside cafe.
But I can't do it. There's too much humidity, too much sweat, too many bugs, and too many bitey, stingy, poisonous things hopping and slithering through the wet undergrowth below me.
I think I hate the jungle. But that's something I can live with.
Am I wrong about the jungle? Have you found an experience on your travels you just can't enjoy? Post your comments below.
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