After a three month adjustment to returning to the states and graduating, I am here to finish what I started.
[Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia: Feb 2013]
I should have known when the white paint on the car that came to pick us up turned out to be bird poop that I was about to go miles beyond my comfort zone. However “comfort” had become such a relative term that I ignored my gut instinct to pretend we were not the people waiting to be picked up to go to the Lupa Mesa eco camp. After an hour drive we were dropped off at a restaurant in Poring Hot Springs, told to eat, and that a guy named “Mike” with “such a thick Scottish accent you won’t be able to understand him” would be around to pick us up.
A while later a skinny man covered in Tattoos, dirt, and openly bleeding cuts seated himself at the far end of our table. “Yew tha ones gowin’ tuh Lupa Mesa?” he drawled. “Yes,” SK responded, “Are you Mike?” Mike’s raised eyes looked us up and down slowly, taking in our non-ripped clothing. His eyes paused on my pink bandana, “Yeh.” I suspected a World Traveler: I gave him my best blonde ditz smile. After making us aware we would be better off barefoot than wearing sneakers, Mike (henceforth referred to as “the Bloody Scot”) set off on the 30 minute hike through the Borneo rainforest to the eco camp. 10 minutes in the skies opened up and our hike turned into a mud-wading bloodbath. At this point I saw a familiar black silhouette swaying on a nearby leaf: a goddamn leech. The Bloody Scott’s “wounds” suddenly made sense: the jungle was alive with leeches writhing in their glory. I went to point one out to Schwazz when I saw black on my finger. I screamed fifty different profanities while vigorously willing my finger to detach until I stuck my hand in SK’s face demanding rescue.
We made it to the camp soaked, but alive. Lupa Mesa, the eco “camp” was a lean-to in the middle of a raging jungle. The three young women already there (Dutch and German – all looked pretty rugged) kindly let me know “that was how they first reacted” as I barbie-screamed my way though a second leech attack. Pride kicked in: Jade, no more barbie-screaming. By the third leech, I calmly said one profanity and ripped it off.
As we sat down the Bloody Scot launched into stories about the giant spiders he’s seen and how he removed a poisonous snake from the hut just the day before. The Dutch and German girls set about trying to guess their way through cooking a pumpkin (Fried in a pan with potatoes – don’t try this at home) and the Bloody Scot told us about the three weeks he spent in Africa with a tribe drinking blood. After dinner, he asked us if we wanted to go on a night walk. I don’t know if I could picture a prospect more terrifying: night, jungle, rain, leeches, spiders, poisonous snakes, god knows what else? The Bloody Scot’s self-preservation valve seemed too off to make his guidance any sort of comfort. Still, it was too perfect a setting for me to work on my fears. None of the other women joined us, the Bloody Scot let us know later they never actually left the lean-to: Redemption! Poor Schwazz had badly twisted her ankle on the way up and so stayed behind with the not-so-rugged Dutch/German girls.
The hike was quite, and within five minutes we saw the “famous five-legged Borneo spider.” (Which, according to Google, apparently isn’t even a “thing”: But here’s a picture of it anyway).
For some idiotic reason I did not take my own photo and of course that was the only thing we saw. Bloody Scot insists we saw a civet, but I don’t count glowing eyes up in a tree 100m away as “seeing” something.
The Bloody Scott showed us to our hammocks, aka tarps stretched between two bamboo, and gave us a blanket. As I started to fall asleep I found it odd how easily I was lullabied by the clicks and murmurs of the jungle. I had to pause for a second to remind myself this was REAL and not one of those sound recording lamps I fell asleep to as child. I was actually hearing real jungle. Still, the sounds seemed to replace ones I could already label: The thrum of passing traffic with a river’s rush; the sounds of car alarms with night birds; motorcycles with cicadas, and wind is wind and the howls of a lonesome creature were answered in tune by the fisher cats of Vermont. Then my bed broke. But the sounds only became cozier as Schwazz and I spooned in our damp tarp.
The next morning we left. Back to Kota Kinabalu and then immediately on a 12 hour night bus to Sipadan so Schwazz and SK could experience some of the world’s best diving. All of these hours on the bus offered ample time for me to inventory my thoughts. (My iTunes account had messed up a few months back and the same 100 songs get old real quick after 6 months on the road). I realized I had begun stressing out over a subconscious fear that SK would leave me if he discovered “The Big Secret”: I’m imperfect. [Insert dramatic gasp]. Instead of judging myself for being insecure, I became curious and thought about this for a while. SK knows I’m imperfect and he likes that. So, paradoxically, if I strive for perfection I would destroy the very being he fell for: my imperfection. At the end of the day what is truly best is to be imperfect while “perfection” is just a false summit blocking the view of a higher destination. I think every person who tries to find their self during a form of mid-life-crisis where they lost sight of who they are eventually discovers this. Within “imperfection” is the sentiment “I’m perfect”: and a word never lies.
SK following the path, despite all visual evidence, to the Lupa Mesa eco-camp.
Schwazz cleans in the main hut of Lupa Mesa while fellow guest helps do the dishes.
SK in front of our bamboo-tarp “hammocks.” On trips like this I realized “Eco” does not stand for “Ecologically friendly” as one might assume – it means “economy.” In other words: The bare minimum.
On our day jungle walk to a waterfall: a metaphorical example of an unhealthy relationship.
An elephant beetle – supposedly. Most certainly a funky beetle.
SK and me in front of one of the waterfalls which surrounds Lupa Mesa. The green sock-like thing are supposed to prevent leeches from worming their way through the mesh of sneakers and through the weave of your socks to your feet. Better than being barefoot.
After a sleepless slumber party, Schwazz and I get ready to stumble back to civilization.
Bamboo bridge. Shout out to anyone who remembers the one I had to cross in Sikkim “to learn about humility.”
A bamboo grove untouched by hungry pandas.
travelingrealblonde 