'Trek', ants and more Pablo

The trek (if that's what you could call it) was pretty disappointing. Charles took us on a walk through a few foresty bits and showed us a few different plants and fruits, including one really bitter one that we pretended to like, and so he kept plying us with them. Then we took a walk on the main road, down past some rice fields and then round to the back of our campenment. Not fantastic. I was expecting more.

During the trek, Charles told us that it probably wouldn't rain for another few months, but that afternoon it chucked it down for an hour or so! On a brighter note, we organised a meeting with the King of the region! To take place the following night! Pretty excited about that.

During the evening we'd organised a meet with Pablo for some more palm wine. On the way out of the campenment, in pitch black, I stood on some ants who were migrating because of the rain. These ants are killers, well the guard-ants that look after the workers are. They crawled up my legs and back and began to attack. Really big ants with visible jaws, it hurt so badly! Had to run back and have a shower before we tried again, this time missing the aggressive ants.

At Pablo's shop he also had an ant problem - they had burrowed through his sandy shop floor, where we were sitting a few evenings before. He invited us back to his house to have a drink, and we thought it was only a few doors down. After ten minutes of walking into the dark bush, taking too many turns to remember, we arrived at a village clearing where a few people were gathered. We were introduced to Pablo's 'grandpere', who was an old man with cataracts in both eyes.

Headed into Pablo's house, which was bare mud walls and floors, a tin roof and a mattress in one room. We drunk the palm wine outside in a kind of porch, but the conversation had been dried up the night before. He showed us a handful of pictures of him on the coast, fishing, and some of an European woman, whom he called his wife? After a few long silences, he brought up the fact he had two kids who he needed to pay to get through school. We said no to any donation but did buy some necklaces from him (was going to get some anyway). Anywhoooo, meeting a King next!