A tip to all you engaged couples out there: When planning your honeymoon, cross off any locations which require you to take malaria prevention pills. First off, these are generally anti-biotics and therefore render birth control ineffective.
Not that we needed additional birth control measures during our stay in the Peruvian Amazon. Nope, our complete lack of privacy was deterrent enough. Now I’ve posted pictures before of our hut in the Reserva Amazonica which was splendid.
What the pictures didn’t show you is that the detached huts were placed about 4 feet from each other and rather than walls, only had screens and mosquito nets separating us from the couple staying next to us. While the ‘walls’ did little to protect our visual privacy, they did even less to protect sound.
I’ve always been very modest and the idea of anyone seeing or hearing any honeymoon business from our hut was appalling. Not to mention that the couple staying next to us were a pair of loud talking lesbians who also weren’t enjoying honeymoon festivities. I know this because one of them was on their period. I know this because she liked to talk about it. Loudly. It was quite the mood killer.
You know what else was a mood killer? The Amazon. Nothing screams romance quite like stinky birds, bats, tarantulas, giant slugs, and boa constrictors.
To top off the whole experience, I ended up with a parasite which kept on ruining the mood well after the honeymoon was over. So to all you engaged couples, please trust me on this one: If it requires malarial prevention, just say no.
(As a side note: Our trip to Peru was a fabulous once in a lifetime experience. I don’t regret going. I just regret going for my honeymoon. I'm sure Jonathan would agree with me on this one.)
