We don t have much time to blog but wanted to post some pictures for everyone to see where we have been for the last 2 weeks. The best picture we have taken so far of the giant spider that chased us in the jungle tree house is sadly not available to download but we will try to get it up soon, it really was giant and so gross. We are in san jose now waiting to go river rafting tomorrow to our jungle eco logde and then continue on with the rest of the 2 weeks rapelling down waterfalls, ziplining through cloud forests and snorkeling on the beach. We have loved our time in Quizarra, we are certainly sad and certainly happy to have left and continued on with our trip. We hope everyone at home is doing well and want you all to know how much we love you.

Life as a granola...

It´s been one week in the jungle and as we sit here to let all of you know about our adventures this week we don´t even know where to begin. In our packing checklist we wish we could switch out our ¨how not to become a sex slave¨ book with ¨How not to become a indentured servant¨ book. We knew that we were going to have to volunteer on this trip and do some work, but never imagined we would have to break our backs and sweat to our death to do it. At one point every day Me and Juanita look at eachother with that ¨What the hell did we get ourselves into¨ look. The first three days consisted of hauling sacks of sand up a jungle trail, but the accomplishment of helping out the community is well worth it, we hauled 612 large gunney sacks of sand up the hill in those three days with our team of 8 other volunteers (mostly girls). We´ve gotten very comfortable with a shovel also and digging trenches.

Yes, the work is hard but the people in Quizarra, the small town we are spending our first two weeks, are absolutely amazing. They are so welcoming and warm that it´s hard not to fall in love with the families we are staying with, and the food is great. Our new host mom´s soul purpose in life is to keep us nice and plump, and with all the rice and beans we eat morning, afternoon and night it seems to be working.

As for Lupita´s traveling pants . . . there was a slight glimpse of hope when Lupita got of the plane and the first words she heard was a man yelling for Carlos, but that soon ended when the love of her life was nowhere to be found. As for Bri, Ricardo, the large, okay fat, cross-eyed tico nieghbor asked the first day of work if he could have her.

We´ve got one more week of hard manual labor ahead of us, with a day of old school roller blading to eminem and michael jackson thrown in there. Leaving Quizarra will be bitter sweet for sure. Not having to dig trenches in the blazing costa rican sun is definetley something we will not miss, but we know we will miss the community and the love they have shown us.

Pre-Trip Preparations

Mosquito nets...CHECK
Headlights...CHECK
Pants that the legs zip off to become shorts...CHECK
Liquid Butt medicine...CHECK
Charmin...CHECK
Book (How NOT to become a sex slave for dummies)...CHECK
Retard friendly compass...CHECK

Where we are going:

We will be stationed in a small remote village called Quizarra. From what we understand there are about 340 people living there. We will be guests in the homes of the villagers. Locals say that it is dangerous to walk outside after dark, take a light to avoid stepping on the snakes. (kind of like walking into room of Returned Missionaries). For jobs will be machete wielding farmers.

Dining on rice and beans (and the occasional cabbage soup) will help us keep our girlish figures. Thank goodness there are no peanut M&M's to be had in the area. No technology is available within an hours drive by bus. No texting, no e-mails, no cell phones. HALLELUJAH!!!!

If we manage to avoid the slave traders, survive plague and famine, we are off to Rio Pacuare to ride the big, huge, monsterous "we could die" rapids. Lodging will be jungle lodges with hammocks.

Amber will silently be on the lookout to find a Carlos "man of love" to get her taste of latin drizzle. You may remember her Paris romance with a dread-locked drunk Jamaican last summer. She has set a goal of traveling the globe in search of exotic men and lasting memories. Sisterhood of Ambers traveling pants.

Briaunna's main goal will be to survive the trip on the hard-earned $100 bucks she has managed to work and save over the last year. This could mean no showers for 6 weeks (1 week longer than her current record) Fortunately she has been in "granola" training this last year by passing up to 5 weeks at a time without a cleansing drop of water touching her.

We will be posting entries telling of our travels as often as we can on this Jungle Love Tour. For the rest of this blog and trip we will be going by our latin code names of Lupita (Amber) & Juanita (Bri).

Stay green...hasta la vista. L&J