Trip to Jari... (Oct 30 and 31)

We decided to head to Jari today since we realized that we'd been out of contact for awhile. Jari is across the valley and can be seen from Chouki but it's not like you can just hop in the car and drive over. We had a long hike down to the river at the bottom of the valley, crossed the bridge at the large hydro facility (strange that they lose power sitting right next to the hydro facility), and then the local bus into town. The bus runs every 1/2 hour and costs 2 rupees - seriously cheap.

The hike down was OK - Brad's knees were a bit sore but not the stabbing pain he had previously. Jari, or what I saw of it, is not very big. It's more like one road with a strip of shops and the usual clamour of people and cars and trucks and buses and cows and dogs. There is only one internet cafe in town but the service was down and had been for quite some time. They weren't expecting it to come up any time soon. This is the same service that carries long distance calls so local calls could be made but long distance was not happening. The next closest town was 45 km down the road and we had no guarantee that it would be working either. I was starting to feel nauseous (not really eating for several days was wearing me out fast) so we decided just to go back to Keshau's. Rather than take the bus back and hike back up to the house, we took a cab for the big splurge of 150 rupees - it was worth every penny!

The rest of the day... and the next day... more relaxing.
We both managed to plow through a full novel (the same novel actually) in 3 days but, as Brad put it, it was a real page turner! (For those of you looking for an exciting read... check out Angels and Demons by the author of the Davinci Code)

At one point I was sitting and reading on the veranda in a plastic lawn chair, Brad was next to me washing the laundry in a bucket. (The Cipro had made me even more sensitive to the sun so I was constantly trying to sit in the shade but warm myself in the sun). As I was sitting, I felt something heavy hit me in the shoulder - it was heavy enough that I'd initially thought that Brad had thrown a wet Tshirt or something at me. I looked up just in time to see a large lizard launch itself off my shoulder, onto the ground and down the side of the wall. I guess Brad was blocking the way to his afternoon stroll and I looked like a good launching pad!

Along with the lizards, there are some freaking huge ass spiders (pardon my language). I'm talking really big... bigger than any dock spider I've ever seen. I'm OK with most creepy crawlies but spiders... well let's say I find those a challenge. It got so that I'd have Brad do a spider sweep before I went to the washroom. One day I was going to get washed up and the spider that Brad launched out had to be 6 inches across - the body alone was 3 or 4 inches... it was big enough that it's eyes glinted in the light from my flashlight!!

We also had to implement a rule about checking the woodpile before grabbing a stack. One night, while building a fire, we discovered a scorpion in our wood pile. Brad thought it was only a baby but I thought it was plenty big enough and it looked rather annoyed with us.