10th January 2025

I woke earlier than expected. The problem of sleeping in a shelter with forty others is that one alarm, one light, wakes us all. It didn’t matter anyhow, I had slept throughout the night and felt wonderfully rested. 

We crawled out of the mosquito nets and put on clothes still damp from yesterdays sweat, ensuring to shake them out before hand, and sat down for coffee, served in a delicate, flower-painted china cup. Camp was still dark but as we ate, a pale white glow appeared behind the mountains. The dark sky turned a faint indigo and the white sunrise continued. As dawn found us, we saw a hummingbird enjoying nectar from pink flowers lining the camp. 

We headed off but it was a slow getaway. While I was enjoying the scenery, I was finding it hard to be patient sat behind the guide and other walkers. This would be an ongoing source of annoyance throughout the trek for both Dan, I and other quick walkers of the group. Anyhow, there was plenty to see and we enjoyed the diversity of the jungle terrain, spotting many birds, red squirrels, and my favourite, large lizards scurrying away in the dirt as we interrupted their sun-basking.

The trail this morning was easy but humid. Dan looked broken and miserable. While we were all struggling with hygiene and the grimy feeling of constantly wearing a coating of sweat mixed with suncream and bug spray, Dan, who sweats excessively, had it the worst. He was feeling disgusting, wet and fed up. It didn’t help that the heat suppresses his appetite, meaning he was also running on empty. Luckily, after the first 6km we stopped at a campsite, and after a talk about the indigenous tribes, we walked off trail to a waterfall where we jumped into the welcoming cold water. Dan emerged from the water, finally feeling cool, with a new outlook.

We continued on venturing further into the jungle. The smell of sweet flora with an undertone of decay, and the feeling of the suffocating warm humidity transported me back to the green houses of Kew Gardens. The terrain of the path varied greatly, from mud so thick and sticky it threatened to pull my trainers off, deep clay trenches, crossing rivers via wobbly slippery stones, to haphazard and irregular ascending stone steps. The views were so different to what we had experience so far. While through most of our hikes we could identify landscapes which had aspects similar to that of the Lake District or the Alps, we were unable to find a comparison for the jungle. Even the Peruvian jungle was different, the Sierra Nevadas of Colombia more wild and hostile. Breaks in the jungle would give way to views of rolling hills coated with thick, green vegetation, behind which layered more mountains fading into shadows the further back they went. In jungle clearings, tall trees would stand firmly with descending vines reaching almost the same height as the tree itself. White sky could be seen above the tress and light would beam through gaps in the canopy, lighting dying leaves serenely descending as they fell.

The most dramatic part of the day involved crossing a wooden bridge which was partially destroyed in the wet season by the high river waters. The bridge had many planks missing and one side of the bridge support had partly collapsed, leaving the bridge tilting at a 45° angle. No instructions were needed to know this was a one person at a time kind of bridge.

We arrived at camp and, being the first to arrive, afforded Dan and I with the bunk at the end of the balcony, closest to the waterfall. We both enjoyed cold showers before changing into our dry kits. After dinner, Dan and I quickly retreated to bed knowing that tomorrow would be another big day.