It is Friday 21st March and the sun is shining brightly. I get out of bed and crack straight on with the camp job I have been designated with today – emptying the bins and sweeping the Fumador. This is quite a quick one, fortunately, and the general waste is far more pleasant to deal with than the compost bin. I then wash some clothes and head to breakfast. A new volunteer arrived last night, so to my relief, I am no longer the newest person here. He introduces himself and explains that he is the administrator at the charity’s other park near Rurrenabaque and that he is visiting for just a couple of weeks to see what this place is like. Now I somewhat feel that I am back to being the newest person here, as it turns out that he knows all the staff. That being said, he is very social, and I learn a lot about the other park from him. My original plan was to perhaps spend one month here and one month there, but as it currently stands, I have no idea what I will do.

Adi and I head over to Gaia. Today is not a walking day, so the plan is to spend time with her at the enclosure and encourage her to do some running and get some exercise. We arrive and enjoy a very friendly hello before she takes herself into the bushes for the majority of the rest of the session. It would appear that she is feeling antisocial today. Adi and I use this opportunity to clear her trails with a machete. The jungle grows out of control pretty quickly, and just from one day to another, new vines can be found hanging in the way and bamboos will fall to block pathways. It is good to stay on top of these things. With only one machete, Adi walks ahead slicing through the branches, as I trail behind moving the fallen debris into the bushes and studying the route as I go to ensure that I actually learn the way, ahead of our future walks.

Following this fairly unexciting morning, we head back for an equally unexciting lunch, and once again, afterwards, I find myself resting in a hammock in the Fumador. I rate this as the ultimate place to have a sit down outside. I enjoy a nice chat with Cleo before making way to Kusiy with Marine. It is very hot today, which is good news for my laundry, but terrible news for us. I wear a thick sweater in the afternoon as the mosquitos are awful at Kusiy’s enclosure – this gets damp with sweat very quickly each day. As a special treat for him, Marine and I have brought a bottle of ice. It is just an old Coca-Cola bottle filled with water that has been living in the freezer for the past few days. We slice it open with a pen knife and leave just the ice inside Kusiy’s management cage. He is a big fan. It is a nice way for him to keep cool and provides a good hour of entertainment as he licks and crunches it. Cats in the wild get most of their water from their prey by consuming the blood. The meat we give the cats, like all meat, is usually drained. This means that the cats need to actively drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. Ice is a simple way of encouraging this. This lengthy distraction then gives Marine and I the chance to enter Kusiy’s main enclosure to continue our battle with the termites. To our joy, many of the them seem to have dissipated now that their trails have been destroyed. Nevertheless, we wipe what we can with the machete and scrub with the brush. One of the planks on the enclosure came loose yesterday, and we also use our time to fix this with a hammer and set of nails borrowed from the construction team. Kusiy is remarkably unbothered by the banging.

When all of our tasks are done, Marine and I head back to celebrate the weekend. Things start well, with no queue for the showers and the knowledge that it’s pizza on the menu tonight, but ends in chaos as half the camp decides to wash their work clothes at the same time, with myself included. We get this done, then a handful of us embark on a taxi ride to the Laguna. This is a drastic change from the usual Friday routine, in which we head over to the park’s cafe, a mile or so up the road. Usually, it is then Saturday morning in which we head for the Laguna. This has not changed since I was here nearly a decade ago. This week, someone suggested that we could stay at the Laguna hotel and spend the night there instead. For 150B, about a tenner, I had the option to have my own room for one night, with a real mattress and air conditioning. Naturally, I took it. So now we are heading into Guarayos to pick up some booze and snacks, before heading onto the hotel. We find a small shop and designate ten minutes to get what we need. There are no prices to be seen, but I try to pick the most expensive-looking wine that I can, in order to avoid drinking anything too horrific. I pick out a one litre bottle, a packet of crisps and a packet of biscuits. All of this comes to less than 30B, which makes the upper bound for the cost of the wine bottle to be about £2. Hope for something decent is lost.

We hop back in the taxi and head for the Laguna. We are greeted by the usual gentleman who runs the place on Saturdays and he shows us to our respective rooms. Each is a very respectable size and has its own unique, occasionally garish, wallpaper. We settle in and all discover at least one thing that is slightly dysfunctional. For me, it is a lack of toilet roll and for Val, it is a lack of air con remote. Amongst other things, there are broken power outlets, dodgy fridges and faulty showers. One thing that we all have in common is a lack of water. This is rectified after about 10 minutes and then we all head over to our usual spot by the water to drink and play cards. One of the things that we love about the Laguna is the lack of mosquitos. It turns out that this only applies in the day. Undefeated, however, we light up some mosquito spirals and the smoke encourages them to dissipate. I then crack open my wine and quickly discover that it is indeed horrific, but drink it anyway. I am then introduced to a new game called 21, in which we go round in a circle citing the numbers 1 to 21 in order, with a different rule being added after each successful round. These include swapping numbers round, doing a specific dance for certain numbers, or perhaps saying odds in English and evens en Espanol. If you mess up, you drink. That part was inevitable.

Following a cracking evening, I take myself to bed a 12:30am. This is half an hour later than last week, but still regarded as pathetically early by the cohort. However, as much as I have enjoyed the socialising, I am primarily here to have my first good night’s sleep in a week and a half. I chow down on my packet of biscuits and turn the lights out.

Happy Saturday. It is 10am and I feel well-rested at last. I go to fill my water bottle from the tap in the bathroom and decide to discard it, given that it is slightly brown. I then take my first hot shower in nearly two weeks and decide that it is too hot and switch back to cold. Finally, I get dressed and head out into the world. Wow, that’s disgustingly hot air. The air-conditioned room was too easy to climatise to. Furthermore, I am used to waking up at 6am, when it is still slightly cool, as opposed to 10am with the sun shining.

I head over to our Laguna spot, passing the owner on the way, and ordering a few empanadas and a coffee as I do so. I find Mario and Marine waiting, and the coffee arrives shortly after. I did wonder if this man would own a coffee machine. I quickly learn that he does not as he brings a jug of hot water and a jar of instant coffee powder to the table. Classy. At least the empanadas are decent. That being said, we are here all day, and with these and chips being the only vegetarian food on the menu, it is going to be a very beige day.

The rest of the team start slowly joining us, with a few others who had stayed in camp arriving by motor taxi. These are small motorbikes that act as a taxi service. It is not uncommon to see several people sharing one of these in Bolivia. In fact, I have seen as many as four on one bike. Last to turn up to the Laguna is Adi, who got up early and went into town to buy the ingredients to make shakshuka for everyone. This is the only opportunity to consume something with a fruit or vegetable in it today.

Following a communal feast, we spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. We endure just a brief shower and spend most of the time chilling in the sun. I find safe haven in a hammock and enjoy a peaceful nap. The sun slowly sets, and with this, the mosquitos naturally rise. As usual, our taxi man arrives late, though this time with warning, and decides to fill up with fuel en route. As before, with a reluctance from the locals to sell fuel to tourists, we are asked to vacate onto the side of the road again. This time, he at least takes us as far as the petrol station before doing this.

With news from camp that there is very little food to go around for dinner tonight, we agree to stop in Guarayos to get an evening meal. The vegetarian options are not good here. A group of us head into “Nandos”. I use the quotation marks because this is definitely not a Nandos, but the shop has stolen their brand and named itself that. I have no idea of the legality of this. I communicate in Spanish that I would like to have the large portion, only without the chicken and the waitresses understand, but decide to point and laugh every time they look at me. Not eating chicken is very funny. I collect my chicken-less bag and head for the taxi. I then sit in the front seat (I am special today) and start exploring the contents. Inside it, a box of rice (obviously), fries (again, obviously), and more excitingly, spaghetti. Beneath the box is two sachets of mayonnaise and ketchup and a mysterious sauce wrapped up in a clingfilm pouch. I squeeze this pouch in an attempt to open it and learn that this is a spicy sauce, as the pouch explodes and squirts all over my face. Not ideal.

After what I would describe as not my favourite car ride in Bolivia so far, we arrive back at camp and head to the Comedor. I don’t feel amazing having more or less only eaten beige food today, but fortunately, I had the time in Guarayos to pick up some fruit again and I tuck into an orange before bed time. I then bid my campmates farewell and head into my dorm. Regrettably, as much as I enjoyed my slumber last night, I was a little too spoiled by the air conditioning, and am not delighted by the prospect of another sweaty night’s sleep. It is important that I at least try to rest well. After all, I have a puma to walk in the morning.