The average person has a whole list of reasons why not to visit the jungle. They have seen programs on man eating beasts from around the world on the Discovery Channel. They have heard of exotic sounding diseases like Ebola, Lassa, Yellow fever and Malaria. They fear the swarms of nasty, stinging, blood thirsty insects that await them as soon as they step foot of the plane. But not many people sit around discussing one of the more common killers to be found in the tropics. One that can strike you down quicker than snake venom or a dose of Malaria.
It is one, however, that is the easiest to avoid.
Dehydration.
The rainforest thrives on the equatorial sunlight, our bodies, in the hot humid environment, don’t! To survive in the jungle or even to have a more pleasant visit, we have to drink more water than we are used to.
I can’t sit here writing this and give you a quantity of water to drink. The only true way to gauge your body’s needs for water is by the colour of your urine. This should at all times be clear or as close to it as you can possibly get. Thirst is an extremely poor indicator of your state of hydration, in fact if you are thirsty you are already dehydrated.
If you are on a guided excursion always make sure the company you are going with has enough water for you during the trip. If it is not out of a new bottle ask where the water came from.
If you are trekking as part of an expedition or doing your own exploration make sure you either have enough water with you or a means of purifying other available sources, like rivers, lakes or, in some countries, their tap water!
In later post we’ll look at water purification and self help dehydration solutions.
