I was never really an outdoors type of girl.
You’d never find me at the beach on the weekend and I used to only agree to camping if there was a bottle of wine involved. Even sitting motionless on the grass got me all flustered about possible bull ant bites.
Don’t move Mitzi, don’t move
That was until I toured through Nepal and was forced to confront this aversion to the wild (much to my unease) with a “nature walk”.
I spent three days in the Chitwan National Park, which is just on the border between Nepal and India. The morning of our proposed walk, I sat sweaty and anxious on a picnic bench with the rest of my tour group. I was in my best bushwalking attire for these thousand-degree conditions: leggings, T-shirt, old sneakers, and a grey hat. Our nature guides, dressed in khaki green, stood at the front of the group, each wielding a giant stick- think Gandalf-style. We flung questions and requested stories about what to expect. Entering the jungle via boat, we would walk on foot until we reached our accommodation for the night; a local family’s house on the other side of the river.
It sounded simple until things got serious when we were given specific instructions about what to do if we saw a certain animal. Our leader explained that if we encountered a rhino, we were all to run fast in many different directions and climb at least six feet up a tree.
At least six feet up a tree?
Were we supposed to train for this?
Digesting this new need for sporadic agility, I soon found myself sitting in a skinny dugout canoe, gripping my knees and trying not to make any sudden movements. I didn’t want to tip the boat over into crocodile-infested waters, now, did I?
Two canoes, each with eight of us sitting one behind the other, floated down the river while our guides pointed out birds and other relatively harmless wildlife, such as the type of crocodile that doesn’t eat humans.
Via the current, we drifted downstream for 90 minutes, the sun baking the back of my neck. The canoe eventually beached itself and we pulled up on the side of the banks. I cautiously balance-beamed my way out and stood on the edge of the Chitwan Jungle. Grass up to my armpits and my foot sinking in mud, I looked for a path or a clearing. There was no path or clearing.
I spent most of the five-hour “walk” blindly flailing my arms in front of me, elbowing branches out of the way, and ducking from possible snake attacks from above. We trekked through elephant poo mixed with mud, leech-infested soil, and flora so stiff it could paper-cut. I tried to enjoy it and chanted positive mantras in my head, but this was seriously like Jurassic Park, just with leeches.
And the leeches were everywhere. They were crawling and slithering towards us at every shrub. I conducted a mandatory leech check every five minutes, followed by an anticipatory shudder and shake from being convinced they were sliding down my hair/neck/stomach/underpants.
They were like silent assassins. You didn’t even know you had one, you just saw the evidence; a trickle of blood and a war wound. Or if you were lucky you might roll your sock up and find ten suctioned to the side of your ankle.
Oh look, a tiger print.
As I grimaced and elbow-punched through the jungle, I was also frantically looking for trees that would allow me to heave myself up onto them, or big branches I could use to defend myself against a sloth bear, whatever they looked like.
Happy place. Happy place!
I was listening for abnormal sounds and looking for sudden moment. As soon as I lost concentration, I would slip in mud or trip over something on the ground. I lost my footing at one stage and punctured my leg with a sneaky string of barbed wire. My leggings ripped open and I quickly rubbed hand sanitiser over the cut while silently thanking Past Mitzi for getting a tetanus injection.
When we reached a path that led to the river, I thanked the jungle gods for getting me this far without a leech. Maybe paranoia was working out for me? The heat had transformed my shirt into a sticky blanket and my face was literally dripping with sweat.
Only when the group halted did I realise we had a squishy situation- an obstacle course, if you like. Between us and salvation was a mud mission that took up the next 30 metres. I looked for another way round, an alternative route. There was no alternative route.
I undid my shoes for the third time and took a step into the hot, stinking mud. My ankle disappeared and I was up to my shins in yellow hot mush. With each step I slid diagonally and my arms windmilled in the air as I tried to keep balance. I started to giggle and ended up cackling the rest of the way through it. I spotted something black and wormlike in the mud: it was coming towards me.
This worm/snake/tube parasite started chasing, so I panicked and was soon hurdling my legs out of the mud like a lifesaver through shallow waves.
Laughing and sliding to the end of the mud maze, I made my way out and squinted into the sky. The sun gleamed marigold as it set over the Himalayan foothills. The smell of grass, wet bodies and animals up my nose. My T-shirt patchy and ruined with sweat.
We trudged our way towards our accommodation, which bordered the river. Our toilet didn’t flush and we filled it up with dribbling water out of a bucket each time we needed to go. At least there were no leeches in it, and the chances of a rhino in our room were slim.
Looking back I realise how rewarding our jungle walk was. I s’pose I learnt that no matter how huge that mud puddle is, roll up your leggings and trudge though it. You may get chased by mysterious tube worms, but at least you’ll come out the other side laughing.
Although I’m still a leech hater, I no longer have an aversion to the wild.
I even rethink that bottle of wine when I go camping.