The jungle

Never spent much time there, but I've always been fascinated by the Darien Gap.

Snakes! No fucking way. Unless it's an Hawaiian jungle.

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Huge, hideous bugs and humidity!! Hard pass.

Yes, in the Caribbean. It was fun overall, but our hiking shoes were made useless by mud so we slipped and slid a lot; also, it was very humid, but that's to be expected. I was expecting tons of mosquitoes but that wasn't really a problem. It was very quiet on ground level. A couple of times we encountered men with machetes -- farmers.

Yes. In Venezuela, up the Orinoco River Delta. Tour boat stopped for a hike. Kitschy tour guide led us though a small loop. So much stuff growing and squirming and sucking your feet into the earth. 5 minutes was enough.

Do Tulum and Chichén Itzá count?

No just the beau rain forests of the PNW.

A long time ago, I was visiting a friend working in Brazil, and we landed at Manaus (the capital of Amazonas) and took a boat trip on an Amazon tributary. We would camp out sometimes in hammocks in the jungle. I remember it was pretty scary at night, lots of animal noises, and one night something big fell or jumped out of a tree near us. I always made sure my hammock was right by our tour guide, who slept with a big machete. There were snakes, and a lot of bugs. I was bitten by a huge ant and it was very painful. I met a young woman who had been bitten by a large turtle, and she had a big wound on her leg.

The jungle forest is so dense you couldn't see the sky at times. It was beautiful, but of course hot and humid. To cool off we swam in water with snakes and piranhas. I was very young and more risk taking then!

Basically, in the Amazons every living thing is trying to attack/eat other living things. Sometimes you have to move quickly to get out of the way.

R9 again. I remember when we first saw capybaras - they were swimming along the river, looked like giant rats. I wasn't sure if they were friendly so I stayed back while this other American kid run down to get a closer look. As it turns out, they aren't very interested in attacking people.

[quote]Snakes! No fucking way. Unless it's an Hawaiian jungle.

I feel the same way., but you can add the nearly all of Polynesia and most of the Caribbean (only the islands very near central America and South America have them). Also snake free: New Zealand, Ireland, and Bermuda. Madagascar and Mauritius have them, but none are venomous. I trace my venomous snake phobia, and resulting obsession, to spending my early years in Minnesota (where the only poisonous snakes are pygmy rattlers isolated to the bluffs along the Mississippi in the far southeastern corner of the state) and moving to central Florida in my early teens living in a house with a swamp in the back yard several miles out of town which was crawling with the fuckers. My dad started keeping a pellet gun on the front porch in cooler months because the rattlers would coil up next to the house to keep warm. The fucking lizards would chew holes in the pool enclosure so we also had the occasional chlorine poisoned, but still dangerous, water moccasin lurking in or near the pool. Our second year there, we had a rattler nest in the grove on the edge of our yard and for a month after they hatched (or whatever rattlers do) you had to wear army boots to mow the lawn and have someone stand on snake watch any time the garage door was open.

Yes, Ireland. One of my great aunts was from Ireland and she said they were told St. Patrick killed them all.

Yes - Temperate rainforest in Tasmania. Cool, very humid, very quiet and very dense. No way you could stray off the track and survive for long.

They make it look so glamorous, inviting, and exotic on TV and the movies.

Thank you for the vivid reminders, R11. I also grew up in Central Florida though my life wasn't quite as alarming. I would rather be intellectually and sexually adventurous. Minds and cocks rarely bite.

Yes, the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. It was beautiful. Got caught in a huge rainstorm as we drove towards the entrance. The place was dripping wet and so green. Saw some really large snails and beautiful flowers. It was badly damaged from the recent hurricane.

After the hurricane.

Oh it was probably too big anyway. Don't worry. We'll just shrink it to a tropical plant.

No! Spiders!!!

At least in central and South America you don't have to worry about huge crocodiles and hippos trying to kill you.

R20 R9 here. Meet the black caiman.

We were swimming in the Rio Negro and we noticed everybody was getting out of the water. One of these creatures was coming in to shore, and it was huge. We got out quickly.

I can't think of anything more frightening than getting lost in the Amazon rainforest. I just saw the film, The Jungle (2017), with Daniel Radcliffe where his character gets lost in the Bolivian Amazon. No thank you.. I'll take the forest, desert or tundra before any place that is crawling with unknown bugs, insects, snakes and spiny plants like this:

The plant at R22 is quite lovely. It is called the Black Palm tree and it is armed with slender, brittle spines that penetrate flesh and break off under the skin. This will cause an infection.

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Here’s a flying capybara.

Yep. Horrible. Some stinging plants left me with rashes. Hornets trying to drink my sweat before stinging me. Jungles are a 'jungle'. Never again.

I also visited the El Yunque “rain forest”. It downpours there every day at about 4 pm, for 20 minutes. Then it stops. By sunset, most puddles had dried already. It was great because it really cool things off. I stayed in nearby Luquillo Beach. I suspect the whole island is that way. Is it?

Me fuck Brendan Fraser there once when he do research for movie.

R11 I didn't realize C. Florida was that crazy but make sense . Yet people flock there by the thousands

Welcome..

We've got fun 'n' games.