I hadn't planned on blogging during this six-week trip that we are taking to South America - the first couple of weeks have been pretty internet-light, and that's before we even get to Bolivia, where I've heard that even heat is a rarity - but then I saw this squat toilet and thought, wellll, there are certain things the world deserves to see.
I have a long, somewhat torrid history with squat toilets (see Squat Toilet: Still Not Owned and even better than set or scrabble, among others), so it's with some degree of certainty that I say that this squat toilet was fucking terrifying. Sure, that picture looks innocent enough - you might argue that, hey, it's far from the tents and at least there's a weighted shower curtain in place to give some semblance of privacy.
Here is what's next door. I visited the toilet for the first time after dark and could not figure out where the oinking was coming from. You know what's not fun? Worrying about a pig charging you when your pants are around your ankles. I was pretty certain that the pig had been in some sort of pen, but in the morning I noticed that there were stone steps leading out of the pen to freedom.
In any case, I can handle a pig. What I can't handle is fearing that I'll fall 15 ft through the planks into a giant cesspool of diarrhea. Which is exactly what happened every time I tried to position my feet onto two wobbly planks of wood balancing precariously on some wobbly logs. Michael actually discovered that the front plank slides back and forth. WTF??