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 11 - Ride the Rio

So today, a new group with a different friend of Las Piedras,  now known as the "yoga people", will arrive at site. We’ve been told by one of the guys that’s helping organise their stay that we basically have to disappear. They are coming for a tranquil zen stay, so having a bunch of unsocialised scientists isn't cool. We’ve been moved to a small campsite (that the workers built just this week) not too far from the lodge. We had to be packed and out of our rooms by mid morning so that there was plenty of time to sort the place out before their arrival.  We were told “You guys can’t be here when they arrive”. So basically, fuck off and be invisible. I told him that my invisibility coat was still in the post, but I'll do my best. It hasn’t been so helpful that we’ve been given wrong/differing information from different people - again, the difficulties with communications in the jungle showing it's face again. We were packed to leave yesterday, then told we could have an extra night in the room as they weren’t arriving til mid morning. We didn't complain, as this was great - we had one last sleep in a room, but a little annoying as everything was now already packed, it was just prolonging the situation. We all enjoyed the last of the freedom we had around the lodge; making the most of tables, a roof, easy access to toilet/showers, the kitchen for tea, and a socialising area with comfy seats/hammocks that we all become so familiar with. 

The new campsite, "Platforms" pic by Marcus Rhodes

Inside the campsite, pic my Marcus Rhodes

To get away from the hustle, bustle and stress from the whole thing, me, Zoe, Tom and Harry went with one of the workers, Melo, to deliver a message for someone at Arcc. Arcc is another field site, which is about a three and a half hour boat ride up river. A few tourists made the journey a few days ago and were lucky enough to see a Jaguar on a beach on the river bank, so we were keen to go check it out and see if luck was on our side....

Melo

Looking fabulous in the Amazon

Fresh brazil nut

Digging in to the delicious brazil nut

Goofs

Goof

Julia butterfly that drinks salt from sweat, also decided to poo on me. Lovely. 

Tom

Zoe

Tom the Explorer

We fell at the first hurdle; the boat we were travelling in had a motor that sounded like a fucking chainsaw (a different boat to the one that the other tourists used the other day). It was SO loud, so unless there was a deaf big cat out there that had no idea we were coming, we weren’t likely to see one. And we didn’t. We did however see some tracks, which were most likely a big cat. We couldn’t see the tracks well enough so couldn’t make out what kind of mammal it was but it looked like it could have been a puma/jaguar track – and they were so fresh, seems like this cat was unfortunately, not deaf. What we did see what some turtles, lots of birds and a Caiman though!

An Amazonian beauty - butterflies drinking turtles tears

Once we got to arc, our butts hurt and the sun had gotten to us – today was particularly hot and being on a boat with no cover didn’t help. We were told we had half an hour to chill at Arcc and then we were off again. We had just enough time to see the lake at Arc and the accommodation there, which was fancy!

Lake at Arcc

We made it back to the port at 3pm, but Melo, who was driving, didn’t actually come back ‘til 4pm. Not knowing where he was meant we hung around near the boat waiting for him, where there were hungry sand flies and mosquitoes, so we all got bitten to shit. Sandflies are quickly becoming my #2 enemy after Mozzies. But, in return, we were travelling back through dusk, and it was so beautiful. It felt like the stress and frustration that’s been consuming us the last couple of days just disappeared along with the sunset. I’ve never seen so many colours in one sunset, purples, pinks, blues, yellows, oranges, and red. It was incredible. The sheer beauty of the rainforest never ceases to amaze me, it just reinforces the idea that we need to protect and preserve this incredible place. 

                        

                   

When we got back it was dark, and we still had to put sheets on our beds and hang up our mosquito nets at the new campsite. This was harder than it felt it should be, but in the middle of the dark jungle, bugs everywhere, flying into your face thanks to the head light, ants and other bugs all over the bed, and trying to hang nets on sticks that were definitely not designed around mosquito nets - it was a challenge, I'll give ya that. It turns out that the yoga group didn't actually arrive in the morning, but they passed our campsite at around 8pm "glad we're not staying there", we giggled as we overheard one of them. "This'll be a fun few days" said a scientist! 

It'll be interesting to see how we all sleep tonight... Let's hope no bullet ants fit through the gaps of the bed. Eeek.

Fx

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 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 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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