Day 19 - Happy Mondays

Today all the guys here at Pie arranged to take the boat down to Lucerna, which is a very small community just down the river (people here often go down on a Sunday to play football/volleyball with them – Sunday Funday, as I’ve mentioned before!). Luix, one of the coordinators is keen to engage with the community there and especially the children. It was clearly very important to him; working with local people could greatly improve not only the way that people see the Amazon, but also the way that they treat the jungle too, so he invited everyone from Fauna Forever to come and help with the kids. Last night all the crew had a meeting explaining what was going to happen, and we were asked to try and practice our Spanish so that we could interact as much as possible with the kids – I sat from a distance watching the meeting go ahead, if I’m honest, I was feeling a little emotional that I wouldn’t be able to go, so distance was my armour.

As predicted, I was still poorly with my foot this morning, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go. I haven’t been able to do squat for days and I still couldn’t walk well on my foot, so I just let things slip now and try not to get upset about it. Just before leaving, Luix came up to me to ask if I was going, which was a clear NO, unfortunately. But he insisted that Chiki would be able to carry me to the boat and help me get around. Which again was a clear NO from me – I really, really, didn’t want someone to have to suffer because of me, the heat and humidity is enough let alone carrying a 57 kilo sack of potatoes too! I started to feel a little overwhelmed because I really did want to go, and I felt as if they thought I just wasn’t interested. For the first time, my emotions got the better of me and I could no longer hold in my frustration and sadness. Hayley and Katrin noticed, and assured me, along with Luix, that it is perfectly acceptable to be helped, and that they wanted me to come. I very soon caved in and allowed the guys to help me get there.

It felt so good to be out of the camp, the wind on my skin and blowing through my hair on the boat was just wonderful; I finally genuinely smiled to myself for the first time in days.

Unfortunately there was a bit of a mix up with the professor, and the children weren’t actually in school this morning. Vladi, the chef at Pie, managed to round up a few of the younger kids so that we could still do something with them so it wasn’t a waste of a journey. The school at Puerto Lucerna is a very simple wooden hut, it isn’t draped with maps and posters - it simply accommodates a couple of benches, tables and a white board. The school is still very young, a year old in fact, but the community itself is only young, they settled there around five years ago. The coordinators are very interested in helping develop the school and teach the children more about the animals and plants that surround them, about sustainability, conservation and how they can thrive in their environment while also caring for the Amazon.

 

           

Everyone from Fauna Forever introduced themselves to the children and said a little about what they are doing; with my pretty bad broken Spanish I said something along the lines of “My names Ffion, I’m a photographer and I love animals”. By now I can understand some Spanish, read a fair bit, and speak very little, but I’m trying. Juancarlos and Luix took charge of the class and once we told them about what we did and the work that Fauna Forever aim to achieve we played a game with the kids to fully engage with them. The game was fun, perfect for the kids, you have to be deadly serious and keep a straight face, while one player goes around pretending to be a cat, and the first one to laugh at the ‘cat’ then has to take their turn to be the cat. It was so wonderful to see the niños getting involved in the game and having fun – I think that this is really what conservation needs; teaching young children how important our forests, animals, and habitat is, they are the ones who hold the future in their hands. With a lot of hard work, and maybe even some luck, hopefully the next generation will have a better understanding of the rainforest and have the knowledge to allow it to grow and thrive alongside them without the need to destroy it for the rest of the worlds’ greed. Now, who will teach the rest of the world to not be greedy?

Once the game finished, we stopped off at the local shop for a few essential supplies like beer, cigarettes and cookies. Yes, all those things are essential, I can hear you tutting from here - you don't want to bump into an addict of cookies or cigarettes who hasn't had their daily dosage in the jungle, it's dangerous! Once our super important supplies were bought, the guys went to play volleyball. Unfortunately I couldn’t take part this time thanks to my shitty foot, but it was nice to have a cheeky cold beer in the heat watching them all getting sweaty.

On the way back to Pie, we went down a small entrance off the river; this is apparently where the guys here go fishing. Chiki is apparently an excellent fisherman too, and it’s one of his favourite spots. There was a huge tree fall in the middle of the stream/river, and we stopped here for a late lunch that Vladi had prepared and packed earlier that morning. Everyone went off exploring, and eventually ended up jumping into the river from the tree trunk.

Me being helped onto the boat by Chiki and a hand made stick, just for me.

Pedro contemplating the meaning of life; trees already have meaning 

Even though I couldn’t really join in, and no matter how tempted I was, jumping off trees and swimming probably wouldn’t have been the best idea for my foot, so I was sensible and stayed on the boat. Pedro, the botanist, was kind enough to bring back some leaflets and seeds to the boat to show me, I am endlessly impressed with his knowledge, and the different smells and details that seems so subtle to me, makes the world of difference to him. I was glad to have his company while the others blissfully played.

The difference between the way I was feeling this morning, and now, are like two polar-opposite worlds. Today would have been truly depressing being totally alone in the lodge all day while the others were out. Luix, Chiki and everyone’s kindness, yet again, has brought happiness and light through this cloud of darkness that had overcome me. 

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Day 15 - Spear of the moment.

This is now my third day of sitting, in pain, and unable to do anything. The situation with my foot is now really starting to effect me. No longer can I keep saying "2 days max, and I'll be back out in the jungle", the seriousness of my injury is starting to sink in, being stuck for this long resting when I feel I should be out exploring and making the most of my time here is starting to grind my gears. It’s funny how something seemingly so small can have a chain reaction of effects not only physically but mentally too. It's only one singly part of my body that is damaged, yet it has a detremental effect on almost everything I do; it’s frustrating that even just going to the bathroom or getting a cup of tea is a hassle, and with everyone being down in the other camp does make being at the lodge here pretty lonely. But the yoga guys leave tomorrow morning so hopefully by tomorrow afternoon the guys will be back up at the lodge and things will settle in a little and maybe it'll go back to the way they were before.

I had a little moment of calmness today however, one of the guys brought a handmade spear onto camp, so Chiki and others were teaching me how to throw. There were a few of us who joined in, we took it in turns to throw, and people would go and fetch the spear for me to save me from hobbling around, it was fun to be able to join in, even if balancing on one foot while throwing has it's difficulties.  It was actually surprising how good a few of us were, to begin with most of us were a mess, but by the end, we were throwing hard, hitting targets and almost looked as if we knew what we were doing! Getting praised by the experts is pretty cool (they most likely just felt sorry for me and wanted to cheer me up).

Unfortunately, boys will be boys, and they made the target harder and harder, they made a makeshift life size target out of large tree stumps - unfortunately it was unstable, and after a hard throw, it toppled over, landing on the spear and broke it. No more spear fun for us!

Paul, the guy leading the yoga group organised a boat to go to the local community today to get some supplies (mainly alcohol) for them to have a bit of a party on their last night. We ordered some in too and we're allowed to stay up at the lodge after dinner tonight. Maybe some rum will help ease my pain! 

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Day 14 - Jungle Treatment

Screw the NHS, I have Chiki and botanists.

I'm told that certain leaflets and sap from a special tree has healing properties. Pedro, who studies trees and plants, went out along with Hayley and Derio (an ex hunter, and jungle expert who is visiting Pie) to find some. 

Their efforts were a success and they brought back a few different plants that apparently help to reduce swelling and have some healing properties for the bone too. Chiki, one of the locals who work here also does a little Doctroring on the side, apparently. He attended to my foot and reassured me it wasn’t broken or dislocated, it was likely to be muscular; torn ligament, ripped tendon, or something of that sort. The tree sap that he had brought might not be as appropriate as it's meant to heal joints, but it will still help with the healing and swelling, he told me, so it's worth a shot. 

He brought out a large leaf and a torn up old t shirt with some powder on it, after massaging my foot for a while and trying to locate where the pain/damage was he then started to mix in the sap of a tree in with the powder before then evenly spreading it onto the rag. He then put it on my foot and instructed me to not move for 20 minutes while it dries; this stuff was seriously sticky, we didn't want to spread it all around the room, so I remained as still as I could. I will keep this on my foot until it eventually falls off, I cannot get it wet (No showers!), and I just have to leave it alone and do its thing. 

Pat seems to be enjoying me in pain. 

The treatment is almost ready to be put on.

The final steps of moulding the treatment onto the ankle

It was great to experience a treatment that has been part of the amazons history and heritage for centuries. It's also great to have the experience and knowledge of the locals to attend to my injury, they are very caring here - I cannot be more grateful to Chiki and the rest of the team here for being so wonderful. It’ll be interesting to see if it actually helps my ankle at all, the jungle is so majestic and magical that I’d love to say that it helped heal me in my time of need. 

Even though I feel very useless and disconnected to the jungle right now, I do hope that in some way this will not only help me with my recovery but also make me feel part of my surroundings again... Here's to hope.

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Day 13 - Super Spy Gone Bad

So, last night we ended up having a campfire with the locals who work here at the biodiversity station along with us ‘scientists’ (yoga people were out doing cool yoga things). We had a couple of beers and Roy made a rum punch with some local fruit, which was divine - it was Marcus’ last night in the jungle so we all wanted to give him a little send off. The fire was a typical men’s fire, so much wood and gas that it was blazing hot and hardly any of us could actually stand the heat coming from it. The circle we had made around the fire was quickly dispersing, but we had some nice conversation and time to just chill – even if it felt like we were in a volcano.

Gonna miss your Marcus' big smile!

Campfire was so hot we started stripping!

Me and Hayley decided to go on a spy mission to get some more beer from the kitchen, which was on yoga territory, and they were back from their adventures by now. Our mission was successful - we upgraded to 'Super Spies' - we got the beer, but in our haste to get out, and my lack of a headlight (so that I didn’t draw attention to myself) meant that I missed one of the steps leaving the lodge and completely twisted my foot in a catastrophic fall into the mud. And before you say anything, I had two cans of beer, two little cans of beer, oh, and a rum punch! 

I howled with laughter over how ridiculous I must have looked, and at how much pain I was in. The Super spy badge was quickly removed from me, I must have woken everyone at the lodge. Hayley however, in complete super spy mode, came to my rescue, thinking I was ok from my hysteric laughing, but proceeded to helped me walk back to our new camp. Things became apparent quite quickly that I had fucked my ankle up pretty bad… I was sure I hadn’t broken it but it was not good. Thank goodness I had some beer to numb the pain (used as an icepack, and medicinally, who knew beer could be so useful). We stayed up chatting for a couple of hours and in that time my foot had completely swollen up and I could barely make it to bed. It’s the closest I’ve come to praying in a while – not that it would work – but my last thoughts before bed were “please don't let this ruin my last month in the jungle… Please.”

            

I woke up this morning, and I couldn’t even put my foot on the floor it was so painful. A sudden rush of worry and sadness came over me. No way in hell am I not being able to walk around and make the most of living out in the jungle. I held in my need for the toilet for about 4 hours. A few of the gang were chatting outside the Platform when I finally had to raise my mosquito net from the intense heat it was creating in my little bed. Hayley was kind enough to ask if I wanted breakfast, "I don't want to say it out loud, but I genuinely can't walk, Hayley". As if someone muttering those words would make it an official problem. She insisted of bringing breakfast to me, her kindness was almost overwhelming, the pain certainly was. After eating, I couldn't hold it in any longer, I had to go to the toilet. Luix, one of the co coordinators saw me struggling on the way so insisted on carrying me - this was potentially the most embarrassing 3 minutes ever, especially watching him now struggle. Am I really that heavy? Shit! I need to lose some weight. Fast!

Luix was nice enough to arrange for me to move back up to the lodge so that I am closer to the facilities, and more importantly, so he was most likely to never have to carry me again. A few people helped carry my stuff back up to the lodge which was so lovely, Zoe has also moved back into the lodge bedroom with me, so that I’m not a complete loner. The kindness of people today has genuinely been overwhelming, it's nice to be reminded that there are such kind people in the world, it’s also nice to feel looked after, even if I am stubborn and don’t like to ask. 

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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 6 - Sharing is caring.

This isn’t a place where you can be selfish. You have to share everything with the selva. 

You share a room with not just a roommate, but spiders, mosquitoes, cockroaches, you share your food with friends and flies, the kitchen with bats and rats, your showers with spiders and frogs, and ditto with the loo too. You also have to share your body; I currently have a fly on my foot and a friendly looking long legged spider on my arm, about 20 mosquito bites on my left shoulder/arm alone and sand fly bites on my hands and forearms. Wasps are a big fan of me too. I'm told I have sweet blood. I personally think they all just see me as an easy target.

My body is no longer mine, I’m sharing it with the jungle, it's about as intimate as it gets, but as long as I don’t inhabit any parasites then I’m happy!

Today has been spent relaxing around the camp, playing an awful (but secretly quite fun) game called Catan, with a few of the guys. I stayed in bed ‘til 8am this morning, what a lazy shit I am! But I guessed I deserved it after realising I haven’t actually slept much since Grand Cayman, and tonight I will be going out on a night trail with coordinator Brian and a few of the volunteers. Last night they brought back the most tame snake and a friendly frog (pics below). 

Phylamedusa Palliata

Me with the most lovely Imantodes Cenchoa

(Oh, just caught a fly in my eyelashes, what’s next I wonder…)

Some new people joined the camp today, some that have been here before and others who have not, so it’ll be great to get to know them too and to expand the team – it’s really interesting to hear what people are up to and what projects they’re doing, it’s great content for my internship too. I feel like I've already made some great friends from people all over the world, so the more the merrier, I say. 

(Oh, and now a butterfly on my leg!)

Also, today the boat came with some supplies as well as volunteers, and Bloody (Vladmir - the chef) ordered me in a big tub of peanut butter after finding out I loved it (anyone who knows me will understand how much of a big deal this is!). What a guy! 

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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!