Jacj Cuisi - Day 8
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2010
1
31
136
Trip End
Dec 20, 2010
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Its really interesting to see the way that he handles Luna. He is really affectionate towards her but a lot rougher and where KP was all about not encouraging her jumps or getting her playful Manuel seems to do exactly that. At one point while I am walking her Luna jumps up a tree and attempts to pounce Manuel but I manage to shorten her lead just before she jumps so despite being a high jump she doesn't really catch him. He only speaks spanish but when Luna has her hour long rests we still manage to have a decent conversation in broken spanish.
After lunch Manuel heads back to look after his own cat so I take up Iris the girl from Hong Kong to walk some of Luna's trails and to meet Luna. Becuase its just me and her and she doesn't have any training I won't be able to take Luna out this afternoon. I take Iris on a walk around the steepest section of her trail and in the end we pretty much do the whole perimeter which on your first day is a lot! In hindsight it was probably too much to do on her first day and I do apologise to her but in her favour even though she was struggling she was extremely determined and battled through her lack of fitness and inexperience with jungle walking. As I kept telling her afterwards it will never be as hard as that day.
At the cage we play with Luna. I have bought my trainers today so I can run at full pace with her when we play the chase-the-stick game (which is more like go and hide within the bushes in her cage and slowly stalk me, crouch ready to pounce and then the second I start running to pounch & chase me along the side of her cage. Without my gumboots on I feel like I can run alongside her cage as fast as Luna although in reality I am probably only at 50% of her speed. Still its more of a rush for me and I hope that she enjoys it more.
Back at camp it is quiet so I put on my ipod to listen to some tunes. Its strange to lie back and listen to songs and think that the last time I listened to a particular song I was back in Lonodn on Clapham Common or on the tube or in my old bedroom in Tooting etc. I play a game of chess against Manuel but it only lasts about 10 minutes as he easily beats me. I'm not the worst chess player but I'm not great either but I bet for him it was a bit of a thrill to beat an (seemingly) well-educated boy from the western world - good on him.
Tonight we have a soya mincemeat dish for dinner which is really tasty before we sit around chatting (everyone is back from town now). I talk with the Victor & Iris (the HK couple) about chinese medicine compared to western medicine. Its really fascinating to hear their views & the philosophy of chinese medicine. Their analogy is that if you have rats in your house then western medicine would be to focus on killiing the rats whereas chinese medicine is more about cleaning the house so rats wouldn't live there. I agree with what they say although I think a balance between the two is best.
