Day 22 - Fear and loathing in las Piedras.

Suddenly, everything was strangely silent. The sounds of the jungle that have been a comfort to me for the past couple of weeks now sent a shiver down my spine. Sat alone, around 5 kilometres from camp, unable to walk, I started to become aware of every minute little sound and movement that was happening around me.

Earlier that morning, I got on a motorbike with Chiki and one of the other interns Zoe. Chiki had been amazing about my injury, and felt sorry for me being stuck in the lodge all day everyday, unable to do anything. So he offered to take me out for the day on his motorbike. Motorbikes are used in the area for local workers who pick and trade Brazil nuts; they transport their heavy products from deep in the jungle to the river on the motorbike before getting a boat back to their village.

Zoe had come with me for company, it was amazing (even if a little uncomfortable) for the three of us to be on this little bike going through the jungle, using the very narrow and muddy tracks. It was surreal. Chiki was a brilliant driver, and took great care, trying to not ruin our track traps, and avoiding muddy puddles and incoming branches. He took us down the Brazil nut trail, which was the furthest trail that we had at PIE, he carried on further down the trail that the workers take and stopped at the end of the road, now we had to walk. Chiki was telling us all about the different trees, and our surroundings. It was great to be out again, it made a nice change from the lodge, and it was always great to learn a thing or two from the locals.

After a few minutes, my ankle was in so much pain I couldn’t possibly go any further. So I sat and told Zoe and Chiki to carry on and to meet me back here – I hated the though of stopping people do what they want to do just because of me and my lousy ankle, so I told them to keep going.

After around 10-15 minutes after they left, I walked down the trail a little further once my ankle felt a little better from rest. The trail turned into 5, and I had no idea which one they had gone down. So I thought it would be a better idea if I just turned back and sat where they left me.

After around 30 minutes, I thought I could hear a machete being used, and neither Zoe nor Chiki had one. Was I alone? Or was someone else there. A slight panic started to rise in me. I tried to stay calm and reassure myself that Chiki and Zo were on their way back. They’ll be here any minute. That thought repeated through my head a thousand times.

Every so often I would shout to them, to see if they were anywhere near, I didn’t get a response. Another 15 minutes past, and that fleeting panic came back even stronger this time. I would have to rationalise the situation, and again, reassure myself that everything was fine. But with every 10 minutes, I couldn’t help to revert back to panic mode. Every possible situation had ran through my head; what if I went down the wrong trail and they passed me without even knowing? What if they left without me? I could never walk all the way back to camp with my foot! What if they’re lost? What if something bad has happened? What if a Brazil nut worker finds me? What if a jaguar finds me? (Although that last one, I definitely wouldn’t have minded). What if, what if, what if.....

It took a lot of self-control to not allow myself to enter a complete state of panic and worry. I gave them a deadline. If they weren’t here by 12:30pm, I would start walking back to camp. Did I know the way back? No. But I’d have to put my Bear grills face on and get on with it. Survive Ffion - I was very pleased at my sensibleness earlier that day that told me to take plenty of water and some crackers! I told myself I would make it, it will just take time and it’ll be painful. But I assured myself I could do it. It felt like it took forever for the time to pass - by now they had been gone for around an hour and a half - but eventually, it hit 12:30pm. There was no sign of them. I needed to make that awful decision…

I walked over to where the path split in all different directions, I gave one last loud call from them. I waited. Nothing, again.

As I was about to give up, and embark on the almost impossible journey back to PIE, beast mode on, I hear something up in the trees. I look up, and spot a squirrel monkey. I couldn’t believe that there was one so close to me, I made sure to keep as still as possible to not disturb him or scare him away. I watched in awe, and then another one appeared, and another, and another! Before I knew it there was a handful of squirrel monkeys above me, playing swinging on trees, jumping from one to another. It was incredible! I kept observing, and more of them appeared, at one point I must have counted around 9 or 10 of them, they do tend to travel and play in groups. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and they didn’t seem to mind me being there, they were only a few metres away from me, and I made eye contact with one, she looked at me, and with no concern whatsoever, she carried on swinging on the branch. They had allowed me to become a part of their journey through the jungle; I stood in complete peace, happiness. All the worry had completely disappeared from my mind and body. I relaxed, for the first time in hours.

Time was now playing tricks on me. It had been moving so slowly, and now I was having a moment with nature, time passed quicker than ever. 15 minutes past in what felt like seconds. I heard some rustling, and so did the monkeys – they quickly darted off into the distance away from the oncoming sound. It was Zoe and Chiki. Overwhelmed with relief, and I’ve gotta be honest, I was angry too "you didn't think to come back sooner?!" Zoe apologised, saying she had no idea how far Chiki was going to take her, and didn’t think to tell him to come back as I could be worried. Above all else though, I was glad to see them. I didn't need to walk to camp. I didn't have to worry anymore. The relief soon overrode the anger. Everyones safe, now we can ride home.

On the way back to camp, we saw some adorable saddleback tamarin monkeys, who seemed curious and happy. I’ve been spoilt for choice of monkeys today. As the gentle breeze cooled my hot face on the bike, I closed my eyes and exhaled a breath of relief and happiness. Even though I had just had possibly the most unnerving experience of my life, it in turn gave me one of the best experiences I have had in the jungle – seeing all those squirrel monkeys in their natural environment, playing, communicating, it was truly incredible. It’s what it’s all about really. Why I’m here. To observe this amazing life that these creatures deserve, and that every other species in the jungle deserves – a happy, safe, environment, where they can thrive. 

Note to self: always confirm a time for when to expect people to arrive. 

And always take your camera, even when on a motorbike, a gopro won't do for monkeys. Rookie mistake. But it did allow me to fully enjoy the experience without worrying about shutter speed I needed... 

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Day 9 - Master of the machete

Master of the machete, slave to the mosquito. 

It feels a little unsettling at camp at the moment. Something’s in the air and I can't put my finger on it. Some of the guys went back to Puerto Maldonado today, but there was an issue with gas and they weren’t sure how far the boat would actually get. We can only assume that they managed to sort everything and they got back to Puerto in good time. There’s a big lack of communication here. Being in the jungle with no form of communication other than a radio that the staff operate - which sounds a lot more like aliens are trying to contacting us, the signal is obviously pretty dodgy - so communication between us and the real world is pretty challenging. It's like Chinese whisper, jungle style.

I was planning to go back today to sort out some flight details and to speak to family but one of the girls fell ill so she was supposed to go instead, so I mentally prepared to stay here at Pie. Then this morning she felt better, so the space was there but I had made arrangements here in the jungle and promised one of the guys that I’d help him cut a new trail for his work, so I ended up staying. 

Me, Brian, Tom and Harry set off at around Noon to meet Henry at his new trail – I was told, in hindsight, that I should have read the signs that it wasn't going to be an easy day "you were going out with 4 guys, Ffion. Go figure!" It was lucky I did all that machete/zombie training the other day, I was prepared.

It took us about 45-60 minutes to get to the trail. We knew when we hit off trail, we had to pass through so many swamps and huge tree trunks and rivers and just plain "bad" jungle, it was an effort just to find Henry. "I think Henry is secretly super mario, how does he get over this shit" said Brian, "yeah, how the hell does he do this!" I thought, as I almost lost a boot in the river. 

When we finally got to him, the hard work began. The two at the front cut the high branches and began the moulding of the trail (Brian and Henry), third back (Tom) cut waist high and formed the width of the trail, and then the two in the back (me and Harry) had to clear the whole bottom of trail and get any big tree stumps out the ground and form a more finished clean trail that was safe-ish. We were doing this for about 4 or 5 hours with just water breaks to keep us hydrated in the blazing heat. I can honestly say I have never, ever been that drenched, and I’m not talking about swamp wet here, I was sweating like tomorrow was already destroyed and all existence had ceased so every pore was excreting as much water as possible.

I was even sweating off my insect repellent, which wasn’t great when we were surrounded by swarms of hundreds if not thousands of mosquitoes. All of a sudden Harry smacked me in the face, "What the hell are you doing?!", "There was a mozzie on your nose, I got it though." Thanks Harry. (I still had a big red spot form her though, those things are sneaky!)

We were also attacked by fire ants, I now understand fully where they got their name from, my god do they burn. One fell down my top and bit my right under my boob and another behind my ear, the little shits! Harry and Tom were also attacked by them, by now the heat and vicious wildlife were starting to take their toll on us. Harry also managed to hit himself in the shin with his machete, I played mum and addressed to his wound even though he protested. Going back into a swamp with a deep fresh wound isn't something I wanted him to do. So he had no choice. Iodine and a bandage sorted it out, but his once fresh white socks, had a telling horror story now covered in blood. 

By the time we got back it was dark and almost time for dinner, a quick yoga session and a cold shower before food was very welcomed. I'll be sore tomorrow...

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Day 7 - Rain, machetes and caimans.

Rain, machetes and caimans. What more could a girl want?

Rain. Rain. Rain. It’s been raining here all morning, which means that it’s not a good idea to go out. The jungle reacts so much to weather, that when it’s raining and windy it makes going out potentially dangerous. Trees can fall, rivers get high and conditions are unpredictable. Just the other day there was a fresh tree fall on one of the trails, it was lucky that no one was out at that time, but it just shows how much the conditions here effect the jungle – so staying away when it’s stormy is a wise idea.

By the afternoon the weather cleared up, so Zoe and I helped out the herp team to cut a new trail where they heard some frogs the night before. The herp team usually go out at night, so listening as well as using their torches is key to finding frogs, snakes etc. They heard some noises in a swamp nearby a trail, so we just cut a new short trail that went through the swamp so they could get closer to that site the next time they go out at night. It was the first time I’ve used a machete properly. I’ll be honest, I did feel a slight connection to Michonne from the walking dead; pretending that tree stumps were zombies and that I was in imminent danger from the swarm of zombies, which were just twigs and vines that surrounded me (I was probably in more danger due to my over-enthusiastic swinging of the machete than anything else...). That’s all I need now to complete the look is a serious tan and some rippling muscles and badass hair. One day, one day... Sigh.

Me, Harry, Zoe and Tom post zombie apocalypse training

After dinner we went out caiman spotting with a few new volunteers on the boat with coordinator Luix. It was only a short boat run but we saw a young caiman that wasn’t even a foot long. Luix ran into the water to try and catch it but it was too quick and got away. I admired Louix' instant reaction, which was to jump into the water, this definitely isn't the first time he's done that, I thought. Myself and everyone on the boat just stared in amusement at the fully clothed and drenched Luix, who was empty handed. Internally I think we all thought "that's fucking brave", caimans can mean serious business if they want to fight you, it was almost a relief that it swam away. The new guys, who were only in the jungle for a couple of days, must have thought we were all insane. 

Wait, maybe we are?

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Day 5 - Early bird catches the worm, or in this case, the bird

Day 5

Another 5am wake up. This morning it was for the bird team though, I was told that there’s a lot of sitting involved, I won’t lie that it was a bit of a relief. After a short walk we got to the bird traps, a loose black net like trap that captures low flying birds. Once all three are set up we wait for a short period of time and then go to check them to see if any birds have been caught. It was a pretty successful morning; we caught many different birds, identified them, studied them, tagged them and then let them free. Louis, the bird coordinator showed me how to get the bird safely from the net and back to our site location out in the jungle.

The mist nets, by Zoe Cole. 

Zoe and Louis would go to one location, Pedro and I went to the other, and we meet back with our newly captured birds. Both Zoe and I caught and secured our own birds for the first time ever. Which is awesome. It was great to be so up close to the birds and to see them more intimately.

Measuring the birds' wings

Identifying the birds

Louis looking for signs of molting 

          

Pedro (Jesus) guiding us back to camp.

It was a successful morning for us and it was a change from hiking around looking for mammals, this morning, in my opinion was a lot more hands on and I felt I learnt a lot (but then I didn’t know much to begin with!). We came back around 10am for a late breakfast and to have to little time to relax on the hammocks. We had some crazy weather today too, there was thunder like I’ve never heard before, the whole camp was shaking and the sky was roaring. It was so beautiful in the morning, the weather can change so rapidly here, one minute it’s sunny and clear, and before you know it there’s a downpour. And it’s supposedly the dry season here. Ha!

We had another evening of dinner by candlelight and played some cards. I was able to stay up a bit longer as I knew I didn’t have a ridiculously early morning ahead of me, so a few of us stayed up and discussed life, love, religion, and finally, buffy the vampire slayer, and stayed up ‘til the wee hours of the, errr, night, which was 11:30pm, which honest to goodness is late when the sun sets at 5:45pm and everyone crashes at 9pm!  

Day 4 - Sunday Funday

5am alarm. That was painful. The only reason I’ll awake early (before noon) on a Sunday is at the potential chance to see some wild mammals in the jungle. I went along the PC loop trail with Juancarlos and Corrie again (not so sure what’s so politically correct about it, but I went along with it). It was a pretty chilled walk as we wanted to be pretty slow and quiet so that we could look out for animals. Juan pretty quickly spotted some movement up in the canapés, it was a couple of squirrels. Further down the trail we saw some monkeys howler monkeys, it was pretty awesome to see them out in the wild, but of course they had to be in a tree that was rooted in a swamp, and of course I had to have the wellies with a gaping hole in them - squelch, that's my word of the day. It was really difficult to get a picture of the monkeys, they were so high in the canapé and with the morning sunrise brightening the sky and being in the darkness of the jungle it felt almost impossible to get a decent picture. However, I did get a picture of the monkeys tail. SCORE! We then spotted a deer and I got a kick ass picture of its butt - Second word of the day is 'rear'.

The highlight of the trip has to be the fact that Corrie spotted a puma track. It was so fresh, it was amazing to think that just a few hours ago there was a puma walking in the exact spot that I was walking. We took som measurements and pictures of the paw print and noted were it was sighted so that we could determine weather it was worth putting a camera trap in that area. A little further down he trail I spotted another puma track, this time, a very small one. The puma had a baby puma with her! Excitement filled me at the thought of the two of them roaming around the jungle. It would make my year if I was to spot a wild puma, but it was great enough to know that they are here, within walking distance of me, and there’s some cub pumas trotting about too. Fucking awesome!

Adult Puma

Juvenile Puma 

We got back in time for a late breakfast (9am - still can’t believe I was up that early) and chilled for a couple of hours. Sundays here are usually a day where the volunteers/workers can chill and have a bit of a rest. They also often go down to the local community – which is a 30-45 min boat ride down the river – to play football/volleyball with the locals. Me, Zoe a few of the other guys and the staff here made our way down the river towards to Lucerna.

We watched the guys who were crazy enough to play football in the immense heat, and cheered them on. It was amazing though, between the first and last game the weather had completely changed, blazing sun to cloudy and raining, to mild and sticky. The weather here is so intense, but I still can’t get over how quick changing it is. Once they finished football we decided that buying a beer from the local ‘shop’ was a good idea – it was indeed a great idea. Pedro, Tom Zoe and I were roped into playing volleyball. We had a blast playing (and losing miserably) and rewarded ourselves with the now warm, beer! 

Half time

Team Fauna Forever

Us playing Volleyball with the locals

It was a bit of a rush to get back to boat as the sun was starting to set. The trip back was epic. I usually hate that word, but I am using it in its most sincere meaning. The sunset was magical, it was so bright and powerful that we were all in awe. The clouds started to gather on the way and I could see mist in the far distance of the river. This mist was rain, and I mean, rain!  It was getting darker and darker and the rain was hitting us hard. We were using life jackets to cover ourselves but I was far too excited, I pushed my camera to the limit and when I thought that was too much, I had my GOPRO. I love weather. No, I really fucking LOVE weather.

Once we got back to our port, it was dark, wet and the steep hill to get to the top was slippery and unforgiving. I didn’t have my torch on my (well actually I did, but I put it in a silly pocket and didn’t realise, so I fully believed I didn’t, Zoe did the same thing - we’re such twats!) Pedro also didn’t have one, so we just went for it and paced through the jungle with no light, and with the rain beating down on us. It was so exhilarating. We got back to camp safely, we were all hot, sweaty and soaking wet so we all went for our freezing cold shower to cool off.

I love the evenings here, as it’s so peaceful and tranquil. The sound of the jungle is constant and comforting, while the candles at the table make a perfect evening ambience. Me and Pedro did some stretching/yoga in the communal area after a long day to unwind before we sat for dinner. We all have eat together, with the just the two candles to light us up. We all get along together so well that conversation is always flowing we’re always laughing. There is something really special about being here.

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