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OMG, we made it! Bruised, battered, scratched and bitten but with all limbs intact and still functioning, albeit rather stiffly. What an incredible experience. I really cannot find the words to describe just how dreadful and fantastic it was. The trekking was tough through dense mountainous jungle. Some of those gradients just made our stomachs turn and churn. Cannot imagine how we made it up most of them with our heavy rucksacks, especially in the humidity. In many places our guides literally had to hack their way through the undergrowth. What an adventure - I never imagined we would be going to places so remote. Thank goodness for satnav! But if the trekking was tough, the overnighting was a million times worse. We actually stayed in tiny primitive villages where most of the people have never travelled further than the bottom of their hill. They regarded us as total aliens and spent many an hour just staring at us. We must have looked a sorry sight carrying the weight of the west on our backs. Our "accommodation" was usually a wooden or bamboo shack where all 13 of us shared the one room. We were lined up in our sleeping bags like sardines, just a centimetre between each of us. What with the constant shuffling to get comfortable on the excruciatingly hard floor, the snoring, the sleep talking, the pigs snuffling and groaning, the stink from the day's sweat, the smell of buffalo pooh (I fell in it!), the cockerels crowing from 3am and, one night, the chief and his wife "at it" in the "room" next door, I don't know how any of us slept a wink. I got up one morning and announced that I now knew what hell looked like and I resolved to become a nice person to avoid it in the afterlife - my resolve lasted half-an-hour until I got in a fight over who was first in the "bathroom". The "bathroom" facilities are indescribable. You will have to wait for the pictures. They usually consisted of a little shack, sometimes with a roof and sometimes with a door that you could actually shut. The toilet was a hole in the disgustingly filthy floor and the "shower" was a cold tap if you were lucky. My biggest challenge yet and one I will never, never forget. Believe me, I have earned every penny of my sponsorship. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world. However, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to be back in civilization and, having had a hot shower, looking forward to a decent dinner - without rice, which we had for every meal, including breakfast. So many stories to tell...
