I do live in a rain forest!

I woke up at 6:15 to go fishing and had no idea what I was getting myself into. Okay, well I had a slight idea. When the local told us to wear rain boots I knew we were not just walking along the road. I figured we would have some sort of adventure and was ready to begin! I had my granola bar for breakfast, backpack with water, and my phone for pictures; long pants were on to keep the mosquitoes off, and rain boots were in my hand.  I didn’t want to wear my rain boots until we actually were off the road and in the jungle. Then we had to start worrying about the deadly Labaria snakes.
We walked along an old road for over an hour, while walking we enjoyed the sounds of birds and  howler monkeys, macaws flew over nearby. Turning off the beaten path and dove into the jungle, at first the going was slow. We were walking through knee deep decaying leaves and mud. Wanting to try and stay as clean as possible we tried to step on roots and stay on the shallow parts. Wished our “guides” would have told us it would be a useless effort. I put “guides” in quotations because they are our friends who live downstairs of us.  While in the jungle we were walking in mosquito heaven. Had to stop and apply  mosquito repellant three times to cover the spots that we had missed. As I was getting more comfortable with the thought that I was hiking in the middle of the rainforest, nature decided to remind me that I was in a wild jungle. Two minutes after I mentioned that we had been snake free, we ran into a Labaria. Labrias are one of Guyana’s most deadly snakes. Our guides grabbed a stick and hit its head until it died, then we began walking again. Not more than 10 minutes later they found another snake! It’s amazing how easily they can spot the snakes hiding amongst the grass.  By this point I was beginning to wonder where the fishing place was. We reached a little creak about 20 feet wide and I thought, “well this looks like a nice place to fish.” I was out of luck; instead of fishing there we had to wade across the stream/pond/river/creek. Our guides went first; we had to balance on floating logs, no floating sticks that would submerge when you stepped on them.  While we waited for everyone to get across we got to enjoy seeing multiple Blue Morph butterflies! They were beautiful!
Finally we reached the fishing spot and made our fishing poles by cutting down some long palm branches, removing the leaves, and tying a hook onto it. Our guides went on to a more secluded area. They left us to fish off a log. An hour later the two other SM’s with me had both caught one fish, and then accidently let them go. The men that had gone beyond returned and we started our trek back towards civilization.  This time we moved along at a much faster speed. We were no longer scared of getting dirty. Mud filled my boots and I was wet from my hips down, getting dirtier actually helped cool me off and keep the bugs off. Seven hours later we arrived back home to a delicious lunch of leftovers.
Then, after this seven-hour adventure, it was time to begin preparing for Sabbath and the weekend…