The Jungles of Borneo

I recently weighed myself and discovered I have lost a solid 10 lbs. No surprise on my end considering our week in Borneo. We flew into the depths of the jungle on a small plane to kick off our adventures. After arriving at the National Park near Bruni, we quickly booked our treks. Three days to the Pinnacles (limestone formations jetting out from the thick forest), Deer Cave (largest cave passage in Asia), Garden of Eden water fall and the Bat Exodus, where thousands of bats depart their cave home at the exact same time to fest on bugs of all sorts.

Day one had us stomping through the Deer cave, up and over piles of guano (yes piles of bat S@#*), through rivers to the beautiful lush gardens of Eden. A beautiful one day adventure that saw me pulling small leeches off my legs periodically and repeatedly saying to Jon "this is amazing".

The next day we boarded a small wooden boat that led us deeper into the jungle for our three day trip to the Pinnacles. Then, trouble struck. It started with loss of peripheral vision, then the massive headache and finally upchucking in the bathrooms. A migraine - or so I thought. An hour later I was good to go and our crew of 5 (two fellow Canadians and a German) headed the 8km to Camp 5.

The Pinnacles were stunning. A 3 hour hike to a view point that made us all shutter bugs and camera happy. The brutal 5 hour trek down had us wishing there were elevators and as I approached camp I fell ill. I spent the night throwing up and sleeping off exhaustion. We hiked out without problems but I was sick again back at the Park. It was time for action. Jon went for a doctor. He listed off my symptoms before Jon finished describing them. Extreme dehydration. Brutal but at least it was solvable.

So, Borneo has been an exotic place full of extra large sized bugs, tropical rainforests, caves like no other and magical formations. It is also where I lost 10 lbs and most of my lunch and dinners :)

Off to Bali for sun!