I’m sitting in a café in Antigua after spending 85-ish days in the jungle. The jungle is both remote and surprisingly not remote. Today is the first day that I could simply walk five minutes to drink an iced latte and use some internet, for instance. But in the jungle near Semuc Champey, I was somehow always surrounded by people, and not just tourists or coworkers.

The only kind of adventurous thing I did during the entire 85 days was walk to my manager’s house-under-construction. When I say “walk” of course I mean “walk straight up a horrendous mountain side for two hours”. My knees are still upset about it. It was incredible and beautiful and the house will be amazing; but I wouldn’t say it was worth it. Maybe I’m too demanding (what, me?), but the rewards from hiking very rarely match up with the effort expended. I returned with a co-volunteer and one of my most favorite people on the earth via the road. It took the same amount of time, because the ascent was so difficult for me, and was HOT AS FUCK, but definitely my preferred method. People underrate walking on mostly-flat ground, but really it’s fantastic.

Mostly in the jungle I sat around. Even my pilates/yoga/dance practice just died. I grew a supremely weak internal motivation system; I might never do yoga again. I stopped journaling. I didn’t embroider. I read quite a bit. I took a shit-ton of naps. I liked to go down to the river; I’m the most tan I’ve ever been in my whole life, so that will probably turn into skin cancer soon enough.

I rescued guests from giant tarantulas and wolf spiders and made José rescue me from scorpions. I saw small, dead snakes and lots of live hummingbirds. I was sexually assaulted by a drunk dude in his undies – his tiny hard penis almost made me feel sorry for him, but mostly I wanted to slit his throat. I fought regularly with the kitchen staff for such rewards as bagels and cheese. And then we bonded over some spoiled, pain-in-the-ass clients. It’s true what they say about “my enemy’s enemy”, you know.

I watched hook-ups and break-ups and did a lot of drugs. I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. I started drinking soda again and sugary fruit juice. If I never ever ever in my whole life look at another chimichanga, I’ll die satisfied. The other manager had a baby – the smallest one I’ve ever seen in real life – and so did my sister in Colorado. My skin is 28.7-percent covered in mosquito bites.

I worked with some fantastic people and very nearly killed about seven guests. It’ll be fun to go back for the “volunteers’ reunion”.