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 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 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!  

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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Day 2 - Jungle Mania

Day 2 – 2^nd May

Tired eyes and sleepy mind awoke early today for the early morning trip to the jungle where Pie camp is. We all packed what we needed for the trip and got ourselves prepared with a big breakfast and water on hand. Our ride came at half 9 to load our stuff, the car journey took us around 3 hours, the roads were great and then the final road to the port was slow, bumpy, wet, and then very bumpy, and then very wet. We had to get out of the car in preparation to push the car out of the water, luckily we didn’t have to, but we did get pretty muddy in the process.

Lucerna

Once we arrived at the port at Lucerna, we got on the boat for the final let of the journey to the Pie. The boat trip lasted about 45 minutes, and we pulled up just after a waterfall, Zoe told us, “Oh, that’s where we’re getting dropped off!” My immediate reply was, “fuck off, really?!”. She was pointing towards a steep, muddy cliff (at this time it was also raining), this was going to be fun with all our heavy bags, I though. We managed to clumber up, we got super soaked (and I’m not talking about the rain this time!) the humidity here is pretty brutal, it seems that just breathing makes you sweat, but hey, I was embracing the hot, red, wet look. Sexy. The site was another 500m ish away, up hill. This wouldn’t be a problem but after 5 hours of travelling, no food since 8am and with the intense weather, it felt like I was climbing a mountain. When we arrived at camp it was like something out of a fairy tale, the huts here are super cool, and there is no electricity other than a small generator that goes on for a couple of hours a day for laptop chargers etc, and there are hammocks to chill out on and a great open space for all us interns/volunteers/coordinators to relax and socialise. I was even happier to be greeted by food. I almost shed a tear with happiness.

The sun sets here at about 6pm, we got out a few candles to eat dinner with and then played some cards, Ass Hole, to be more specific. I was pretty tired at 7pm, I’d like to say that the 23 hours of travelling got to me but I’m not sure I can blame the lack of sleep. I was ready for bed when I saw thunder across the canapés of the jungle, holy shit I was excited! The storm was moving really fast and before I knew it, it was behind me, I looked out and I suddenly saw the night sky – why did it take me so long to look up – I was amazed to see the amazing, cloudless, southern sky, and what a sight it was. For the first time EVER in real life I saw the Milky Way galaxy, suddenly the exhaustion left me and I was running to get my camera. I didn’t bring my beastly tripod but Zoe luckily had one, so we, along with Corrie, stood out watching the sky while I zoned into my photographer mode... 

A few distant lightning sparks filled the night sky, along with a couple of comets and of course, that beautiful milky way. My heart felt full. Happiness overwhelmed me. I like the jungle.

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