Jungle Hangover

Pantanal, Brazil

Hoo boy. Hangover day. It turns out that the sangria was a bit stronger than some people were ready for

Leigh and his horse

and there were a couple of very sick people last night. Kristy, after telling me that she’s the kind of girl who is always happy, threw up her happiness all over the floor next to her hammock and then was sick for most of today. After great effort I did resist waking her up at 8 in the morning to ask her if she’s happy.

Kristy does actually seem to be genuinely happy all the time. She’s an Aussie girl and I’ve found that most Aussie girls are either always ready to have a good time or always ready to be miserable. She’s definitely one of the former. She just got married to Damon.

It was kind of fun at breakfast to see everybody stagger out.  Kate and Naomi came out, sat down and then decided to have a beer. They reckoned that they were both still pissed, so why not continue.

So after breakfast, I decided to go piranha fishing with Claire and Neil. Piranha fishing is fishing for the impatient sportsman. It’s great; you have a bamboo pole with a fixed line and usually beef as bait. As soon as you throw the bait in you have to be ready or your bait disappears. I was a bit cocky, as I’ve done it so many times and usually catch 10 or more piranha, but as soon as I patiently explained the proper piranha fishing technique, Claire immediately started kicking my ass. Every time I caught a fish, she had already caught one and already had her line in the water ready to hook another one. The spot that we went to was a new one and though it was much more comfortable as there were fewer mosquitos, there were also less fish. After a couple of hours, we gave up: Claire 6, Mike 5, Neil 5.

In the afternoon we had our soccer game against the Brazilians. In each country I try to arrange one and at the farm they have a nice small grass field with bamboo goals. My last tour, which had a bunch of Irish lads, ended up going all the way through South America undefeated (which is some feat considering we beat the porters on the Inca trail who supposedly hadn’t lost in three years, beat the locals on the stony beach of Puerta Inca, which I had never done and finally the locals on Lake Titicaca which is over 4,000 meters) only to lose here to Max, Paulo and the assorted cooks and horse guys. Surprisingly, as I didn’t think this tour was going to be an athletic one, we kept it close. As in the States we play soccer until we’re old enough to play real football, I played a number of years as a kid and now play quite a bit down here. My style is to stand near the opponent’s goal and just try to kick it in, usually after pushing one of the smaller locals out of the way. None of the work and all the glory. This time we ended up losing 6 to 4, but with 3 goals from yours truly.

The girls, Kate and Naomi go on drinking all day long. They sit out in the hammocks downing beer and Cachasca, the local sugar cane alcohol. There’s a calf that runs around the camp like a large dog. I´ve never seen anything like it. Anyway, it turns out that the calf has developed a taste for beer and licks all the beer cans in the garbage can clean and then figures out that if he knocks over full ones he’ll get more. Smart cow. In fact, it turns out that he’s quite a bit smarter than the girls who kept leaving their full beers around and then acting surprised when they found the cow licking up they’re spilt beer. Eventually, I find out that I’m the dumbest one of them all as the girls had been nicking beer from my stash.

Anyway, except for the girls, the evening was fairly quiet one as we had a big day coming up the next day.