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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