Jaza's World Trip

Emergency playing cards

Our trip to the Madidi jungle may have been full of activities during the day-time, but there wasn't an awful lot to do at night. For the several hours that we had before and after dinner each evening, we had to somehow keep ourselves occupied at our campsite. Unfortunately, since nobody in our group had any playing cards, things were starting to get a bit desperate. Which is why we took desperate measures. We were forced to manufacture our own emergency playing cards.

We made the cards by ripping a few pages out of Chris's notebook, tearing them into small rectangular pieces, and writing the number and the suite on each of the 52 little rectangular pieces of paper. The cards weren't sized or written on perfectly, but it turned out to be done well enough for our dire purposes. Once the cards were ready — thank heavens! — we were able to break the spell of evening boredom, mainly with games of $&%#head and a$$hole, both of which seem to be very popular at the moment.

We also played quite a few games of Yahtzee, which the French girls (amazingly) knew how to play so well, that they were able to draw up complete score cards for it from memory. However, Yahtzee play was limited, as we were borrowing the dice from the tourguides at the campsite, who also wanted to use them, for playing the same game. Plus, there are only so many games of Yahtzee that one can play.

In future, tear a piece out of our notebook, and learn from our tragic experience. When in the jungle, don't worry about forgetting insect repellent, or hiking boots, or any of those insignificant little things. Just remember to bring a pack of cards!