Happy New Year to all! May this be a year of increased health!
I promised a few patients I would put a few words in my health tip this week about my time in Belize.
I was pinching myself one day when we were picked up in a boat by a real life Tarzan. He calls himself Rambo but his name is Percy. He was hilarious and so much fun. He is the real deal. By boat, we went up “his river,” the Monkey River, to “his jungle” where he hollered at the howler monkeys. They were up in the tree and yelled back at him. When he got out of the boat to enter the jungle, he did so barefoot. He walked all the way through the jungle with no shoes and not a whimper. (I could NEVER do that!!) He told us the names of the trees and how he used them for medicine. He had an eye for birds, bugs and animals. He said this is a glue tree and hit it with his machete and white glue seeped out. We got back in the boat and he took us to a place and said we could swim there. Just up the river we had seen small crocodiles in the river. He said he always goes swimming there. He always had, forever, his whole life.
So, if you can believe it, I jumped in the river. Then he took us over to the side and found, with his toes, mud they use for mud packs and I put it on my body. I even put it on my face. I only had it on for about one minute, at the most, and you won’t believe how soft my skin felt afterwards. After getting the mud off, we returned to the boat, looked for the manatees, and it began to rain. It started raining like crazy and I was thankful he had a roof on the boat, but that didn’t mean we didn’t get wet—a lot. All in all what a fabulous day! You can see him yourself right here. But it was so NOT like me!
The health tip is, when you go on vacation, don’t completely lose your mind and jump into a river in the jungle like I did. Enjoy life, but why take that kind of risk? You know there were snakes in that river. What about parasites and bacteria and virus. OMG! What was I thinking?