Jungle Therapy
I visited El Yunque with two psychiatrists. They were not my psychiatrists. They just happened to be playing hooky from a medical conference and the three of us made up the entire tour group. At one point Benny, our guide, exited the vehicle for some reason, and one of the shrinks (no offense) leaned forward and said in a low voice, “You’re very brave to be traveling alone like this.” “Ummm”, I said. “How do you do it? I mean, it’s really brave,” she said. “Um, I guess yeah, I guess I’m brave. I don’t know. I’ve done it before. I’m used to it.” Then Benny got back into the van and the doctor sunk back into her seat. I guess our moment to speak confidentially had passed.
I told Moe about this and she said, “That’s how they open you up, mom.” Is that so? Why a total stranger would want to open me up, I have no idea. I guess it’s just force of habit on her part.
A Dip in the River
Benny took us to a really cold mountain river. My two companions dove right in. I told him I didn’t feel like swimming and went for a walk in the rainforest. The truth is I don’t like cold water.
Graffiti in the Forest
Graffiti has been around forever. On Mark Twain’s journey to The Temple of Baalbec in Syria, he had this to say about it:
One might swear that all the John Smiths…and all the other pitiful nobodies between Kingdom Come and Baalbec would inscribe their poor little names upon the walls of Baalbec’s magnificent ruins, and would add the town, the county, and the state they came from…It is a great pity some great ruin does not fall in and flatten out some of these reptiles, and scare their kind out of ever giving their names to fame upon any walls or monuments again, forever.
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
You cannot even escape it in the depths of the jungle on an island in the sea.
2 Comments
Rico · January 10, 2022 at 7:02 pm
Having grown up in San Juan I can attest to the unreliable electrical service. More than once did my poor family have to throw out a full wild boar carcass that we had stored in our freezer due to these failures. My hard-working father, Manuel, would then have to venture back into the jungle for another of these delicious beasts. (They make a fine sausage.) He could not afford to buy more boar on a cobbler’s wage.
Complaints, or requests for compensation from local government for our losses were always met the response, “No refunds for those from East San Juan.”
Great Blog!
Rico
Moe · January 10, 2022 at 11:42 pm
Thank you for that interesting story, Rico. Wild boars have always been one of my favorite topics of conversation. However, I’m not sure what you mean by “those from East San Juan” unless it’s what I think you mean. If that’s the case, we’ll leave it for another blog.