Escape from the Jungle…
Yes.. the day had come where we would make our escape! Although we actually really enjoyed our time at Aldea Luna, we were ready to leave after a week, and we planned our escape with another volunteer called LG.
Due to the lack of coffee, chocolate, and alcohol, we had nicknamed Aldea Luna as a ‘rehab’ centre, and we were going to escape from ‘rehab’.. although actually, it seems that usually Aldea Luna is full of booze – as the English couple would make homebrew and sell it to the volunteers, and also the owners would have wine and beer brought up from town, which also would be for sale.
In our case though, the English couple had already sold their beer-making equipment because they were planning on leaving Aldea Luna the following month. Also, as the owners were not there, there was no vehicle on the property – so no beer and wine deliveries from town either. So you could say that our experience in Aldea Luna was a unique one! This was also the first time that the owners had accepted volunteers while they were not there…. So therefore we were PIONEERS!
Anyways, we were ready to escape from the jungle – which meant walking back down the 3km track that we arrived on. The only bus back to Jujuy passes the entrance to the track at around 4pm – 4.30pm, so it was the morning work as per usual, and then after lunch we were off! We were glad that LG was coming with us, as we couldn’t actually remember the way out… 🙂 LG was a long-term volunteer and part of that job was to meet the new volunteers – so she knew the way very well, having been to the road and back several times already.
Whenever a volunteer takes the ‘walk to freedom’, a leaving photo is taken of everyone there at the time. Two volunteers had taken the ‘walk to freedom’ earlier in the week, and this is their leaving photo…
But now it was our turn, and this is our leaving photo…
The track out of the jungle was even more difficult and arduous, as we didn’t have two German volunteers helping to carry our bags…. we crossed rivers, scrambled down slippery slopes, navigated through difficult forests, evaded dangerous dogs, and climbed gates and fences…. but FINALLY we MADE IT!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
The reward at the end of the escape was Carlito’s Tavern – home of a cold beer! We had deliberately left an hour earlier than we needed to for the bus, so that we could sit and relax with a cold beer at the bottom of the trail.
Well, let me tell you this – after a long hard hour on the track down, the beer that we had could only be described as ‘THE BEST BEER IN ARGENTINA’… Yes, truly I have to say that I enjoyed drinking this beer more than any other beer that I had drunk previously in Argentina…
Yes, even Quilmes beer tastes AMAZING when you escape from the jungle…. 🙂