Please, Shoot Me.

Sunday, October 28. If any of you ever hear me say I want to take a 7-hour jungle trek, you have my permission to shoot me. It was the physically hardest thing I've ever tried to do in my life. At one point Marty took my pulse - 120! It came right down, but even so. It was very dramatic, powerful, to observe orangutans in the jungle. We saw monkeys, turtles and peacocks too.
But in order to see all that you really do have to walk into the jungle here. I'll try to capture the experience in two sentences - We walked straight up and then straight down trails so slick with mud the trails might just as well been covered in grease. No switchbacks.

There were four of us. A guide - no one is allowed in the sanctuary without a licensed guide - me, Marty and a wonderful youngish Spanish man named Pere Puic. (Our picture is included with this post.) When he saw I was in trouble, he put my big water bottle in his backpack. Later, after breaking my fall when my feet simply flew out from under me, he put every worldly possession I was carrying in the bag. Even with that help, I fell twice more. Worth it? I'm not sure. But the orangutans were unforgettable.