TMI

After traveling for a bit you begin to modify some of your ideas about traveling out of a backpack.  I will share some of my in-depth medical knowledge with you. First of all, being overly prepared as we are, we packed pretty much every medical supply you could need for every serious jungle disease you could pick up, including being stuck with needles for a month before leaving. You get so preoccupied with the scare tactics ("you are probably going to get bitten by a bat, and get rabies and die immediately") that you forget to prepare for things that are actually going to affect you. Such as how easily it is to end up with a yeast infection when you are hiking in crazy jungle humidity. Or that if you don't drink enough water because you are worried about the bacteria you will probably end up with a bladder infection. Or if you don't eat any veggies because you have been told to avoid anything grown with water that hasn't been cooked- well, I'll spare you the details, but let's just say successful bathroom trips are often followed by a group celebration! We have learned some lessons along the way. For example, you can wear your socks up to three days in a row but underwear on the other hand, cannot be turned inside out like at summer camp! Water- boil it or buy it and drink it. A lot of it. Even if you need to make many a pit-stop in the dirty, paperless bathrooms. Also, altitude changes (even if you don't feel sick) drink more water.  We have also learned some non medical lessons. For example, don't throw out your hair dryer, because hair does not dry in humid weather! Also- the jungle makes some people beautiful (Allie, with her amazing jungle hair) and other people just get bad skin (me) or perpetual sunburns, despite sunblock (Hannah). At the end of the day though, no matter how much you might be falling apart at the seams, it's totally worth it!