We head upriver today.
For the first time, it feels as though we are properly leaving everything behind.
There is excitement more than anything else — the sort that comes with knowing the real adventure is beginning. We repack in the morning, leaving behind anything unnecessary at Caiman House. Not everything can come with us. Not everything should.
The boats leave after breakfast.
We are told it will take around four hours to reach camp, so we cover up as much as possible against the sun. It feels deceptively cool on the water, but there is no shade.
The boats drift more than race. Sometimes the engines fall quiet and we move with the current, and in those moments all you can hear are birds.
It is incredibly peaceful.
I am tempted to doze more than once, but I know if I close my eyes I will miss something.
We stop for giant river otters, their calls loud and sharp, like scolding cats. They vanish beneath the water and reappear elsewhere, watching us as much as we watch them.
There are birds everywhere. More than I can possibly photograph. Tiny things skimming low over the water, bright flashes disappearing into the trees before I can properly register them.
At one point we stop for what we think is a heron and instead find proboscis bats clinging to the side of a rock.
Time moves strangely on the river.
Four hours should feel long. It doesn’t.
Eventually we turn off the main river into a narrower channel.
The water becomes shallower. Fallen trees lie half submerged across the route, some just beneath the surface, some low enough that we have to duck beneath them. Others the boat scrapes noisily over.
It is here that it begins to feel different.
Less like travel. More like arrival.
The camp sits high on the bank beside a series of small waterfalls.
We can go no further by boat.
Everything has to be brought in — food, drink, bedding, supplies. It is a camp in every sense of the word.
A roofed dorm with no walls. Seven hammocks slung carefully inside. Mosquito nets hanging ready above them. Small shelves for the few things we are carrying.
I’d never camped before. Never slept in a hammock. Never shared a dormitory in the middle of the rainforest.
It was exciting.
And, if I’m honest, a little intimidating.
We are shown the loo first.
Sensibly.
A short walk from camp. A stick balanced on top of two others means occupied. A longer path leads to the long-drop.
I decide immediately that I will not be going there in the night.
My bright and slightly ridiculous suitcase is placed on the shelf beside my hammock. I keep it firmly shut. I am very conscious of things climbing into places.
Later, after the heat of the journey, we swim in the pool above the falls.
The water is tea-coloured from recent rain, cooler than expected, and wonderful. There is a current strong enough to carry you gently in circles around a submerged tree.
Wild swimming in the rainforest was not something I expected to tick off the list.
That evening, I head down to the river with one of the guides to photograph the stars.
It is something I have wanted to do for a very long time — a proper sky, untouched by light pollution, thick with stars.
The images on the back of the camera look good.
We keep one eye on the opposite bank while shooting, just in case the local ocelot decides to come down to drink.
No such luck.
By nine o’clock, people are already heading to bed.
So do I.
Changing under the mosquito net proves awkward. I keep my glasses and head torch on rather than leave them on the floor. We have been warned to check where we step if we get up in the night.
When the lights go out, it is pitch black.
Completely, utterly black.
The forest never falls silent. Chipping, squeaking, whistling all around us. The river below the camp rushes softly over the rapids like white noise.
I do not sleep particularly well.
Partly because I am not used to hammocks.
Mostly because I am absolutely determined not to need the loo.
Just before five, I wake to a sound I have never heard before.
Howler monkeys.
I lie there listening, wide awake, smiling in the dark.
My bladder can wait.
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