A Note about Toilet Tents
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2010
1
3
5
Trip End
Aug 14, 2010
Oukaimeden, Morocco
Friday, August 6, 2010
Toilet tents are always pitched just outside of camp, for obvious reasons. It is a rudimentary tent - a length of tarp thrown over a crude pole structure. It has a 'door' but often the tarp doesn't reach the ground, and in high winds it can flap alarmingly, exposing you and your backside to anyone glancing in your direction. The toilet part of it is merely an area created by several bricks, into which you should aim. If you are the first to use the tent, this is a not-unpleasant experience. If you are the fifth, and two of those people have very bad stomachs, and it is a hot day, you should fear for your life. You should approach a toilet tent in stages:
1) Stand outside. Inhale lungful of fresh, un-toilety air. Do not exhale.
2) Ensconce self in tent. Ensure door flap is kind of held down. If it is windy, you may need to hold it shut, which will make everything else that is to follow that bit more interesting.
3) Take down shorts and knickers - loop to one side around ankle. If tent is on a rocky slope, you may need to hold on to one of the poles to retain balance - don't pull too hard though, or you'll brign the whole thing down.
4) Brace feet on either side of 'toilet area'. Try not to look into the pit, but ensure your aim is correct.
5) Relieve self.
6) Clean self up with handyt toilet tissue that you will of course have brought with you from your tent. Chuck tissue onto pile of already festering used tissue in corner of tent.
7) Bring foot back fron other side of pit, grapple with shorts and knickers.
9) Exit tent
10) Exhale and try to forget what you have just seen.
On the Inca Trail in Peru, the toilet tent contained an actual plastic contained with bin liner. You'd tink this would be better, but there's something about the enclosing of the shit that makes it smell even worse. On a hot day it is enough to almost make you pass out.
