It is Monday 7th April. The day starts at 7am with a little gander into the jungle to feed the birds. This is the most animals one will ever encounter at once here at the park. There’s more than ten of them, each with an outrageously human name, such as Brandon or Troy. These two, as it happens, are also my least favourite of the lot. Brandon because he pooped all over his food bowl the second time I had to wash it, and Troy because he likes flying into my head.

The next task I land myself with this morning is breakfast com. Today is boiled eggs. In an attempt to land myself and my British comrades, Abbie and Bex, with a softer boil, I remove our eggs after six minutes, short of the usual 10. To my disgust, this achieves very little and similarly to as one performs a sexual health conscious blowjob, we still find ourselves eating rubber.

Today is my first day working alone with Aeddie. We head to Gaia’s enclosure and spend some time with her, before heading onto the trails, without our feline accomplice, to learn the route and clear it of fallen branches and the like. As we are walking along the river, Aeddie notices a snake lurking in the tree we are about to squat and shuffle under, about a meter above the ground. We wait and they ask me what we should do if this happens when we are walking Gaia. This is a question that I have no answer to…

On our way back to camp, we discover a collection of sticks at our usual swamp crossing. This isn’t like the swamp to Kusiy, which is waist deep and goes on for a hundred meters. This is shorter and the water only just fills our wellies. Someone recently chopped a large bamboo down to serve as a bridge, but none of us have ever dared attempt the balancing act. I take a stick from the new pile leaning against the tree and realise that they are here to guide us over the bamboos. I proceed slowly and, with only a few wobbles along the way, reach the other side. Aeddie follows and we share joy in that our feet have remained dry. We then proceed to the bone hole to dispose of Gaia’s leftovers, before heading back to the Comedor for a slightly late lunch.

Following a cheeky nap in the hammock in the Fumador, Luca, Marine and I then head on to Kusiy. Despite the agonising heat, our boy starts the session with plenty of energy and completes several laps before resting by the fence with Luca. Marine and I take this chance to do our daily clearing of the termite trails. With Kusiy settled in his main enclosure, I decide to access his management cage in order to thoroughly inspect the termite situation. We have cleared away the same trail every single day for the past few weeks. Having spoken to Jenni, Kusiy’s morning volunteer, it would appear that she is doing the same, meaning that these little sods are rebuilding this particular trail within just a few hours over our lunch break. I follow the termite path with my eyes along the frame of the cage and up to the roof. There, I find a termite nest three times the size of my head. That explains where they are coming from. We decide that a nest of this scale needs a plan of action and agree to come back to it tomorrow.

We arrive back in camp and take our evening showers, before heading in for dinner. I get chatting with Abbie. She was on baños today, meaning that she had to clean the toilets and carry the bins full of toilet roll over to the fire pit for burning. There are five toilets, two male and three female, each with their own bin for used toilet roll. Three of these bins are in excellent conditon, whereas two are completely split and falling apart. Abbie explains that each time she does the baños task, she makes a point of returning the dodgy bins to the men’s toilets. I reveal to her that I have been doing exactly the same, but returning them to the women’s. It turns out that we are the ones who have been responsible for the endless dance of the filth bins.

It’s Tuesday, which means that we are back to walking Gaia. Val, Aeddie and I leave on time for a change and reach Gaia’s enclosure with dry feat, thanks to the new bamboo and stick setup across the mini swamp. We get Gaia clipped onto her ropes with no struggle and proceed on her walk. This is Aeddie’s first time on front rope. Val is walking with them for support. We reach Gaia’s favourite branch for scratching and she takes a little break. There is definitely something about this spot that is bothering her. Val hypothesises that perhaps there is the scent of a wild feline who has paid a visit. Out of nowhere, Gaia leaps up a tree and bounces back down to the ground. We are quick on the ropes to ensure that she lands on the same side that she started on in order to prevent her from getting tangled. She shows signs of stress and decides to charge at me. It is strange watching a wild cat look you dead in the eye whilst running at you at full pace. Oddly enough, I feel no fear. I simply hold my ground with every confidence that Aeddie will block Gaia from reaching me. Despite this only being their second time on the ropes, they do this perfectly. We all step back and allow Gaia some space as she calms down. Once she has settled, we then proceed on the walk. As we stroll, a loose dead branch gets caught on Gaia’s shoulders and she continues on with the twiggy hitchhiker. We are all slightly nervous given that she is not in the highest of spirits today and this must be rather frustrating for her. What would be more frustrating still is if we make an active effort to knock the branch off by swinging the rope. Instead, we wait, and after a couple of minutes, the branch is pulled off as Gaia passes a tree. The rest of the walk is easy and we make it back to the enclosure after two hours. Gaia’s mood was peaceful for the remainder of her outing and importantly, on their final training walk, Aeddie has experienced the highs and lows of a stroll with Gaia and knows exactly what to do in a difficult situation.

The three of us complete some laps with Gaia, before heading in to do our end of session jobs and work on some enrichment. Following my discussion with Cleo the other day when we were drunk at the Laguna, in which I learned that peeing in the cage is good enrichment, I decide to do this for the first time, begging some privacy from Val and Aeddie. It is worth noting that I did double-check this with Cleo whilst she was sober some days later. She respected this desire for clarification.

We return to camp and I discover half a jug of coffee leftover from breakfast, allowing me to get back into my routine of filling up my bottle and placing some in the freezer for an “iced coffee” after lunch. We then tuck into a sort of pasta bake, though made out of spaghetti, with a side of yuca, otherwise known as fake potato. Why anyone would opt for yuca over potato is beyond me. I then venture over to the Fumador for a quick hammock nap, but instead find myself chatting with Cleo and learning of her life. Of the past six years, she has spent all but 17 months of it right here in the Amazon. Now, that is respectable.

Luca feels a little ill today, but well enough to work. She requests that we walk slowly, so I suggest that we set off at 2pm at whatever pace we like and that Marine can catch us up whenever she leaves camp. Luca does well and we use our extra time before Marine arrives to build some new enrichment at Kusiy’s kitchen. This means that all three of us can arrive at his enclosure together. Today, we have a mission. Having discovered the termite nest in his management cage yesterday and having received the green light from Jenn and Cleo, today we will destroy the nest. We complete a lap of Kusiy’s enclosure with him, keeping an eye out for massive branches along the way. I am lucky enough to find one and begin snapping off its loose twigs as we walk, so that I am left with an almighty poker. We then close the tunnel to the management cage and enter. I get myself up on the platform and Marine hands me the stick. So begins the invasion. It turns out that destroying these ginormous nests takes quite some prodding. Marine and Luca stand back as dust and termites fall to the floor. The end result is chaos, as Kusiy’s management cage is carpeted with the beasts. I watch in fascination as the creatures reorganise themselves into queues and set to work on finding their new home. I whisper gently that they should build elsewhere. We allow them two hours to collect their things and leave the cage, as Luca, myself and Marine complete our session with Kusiy. Sure enough, by the end of this time, all but a few straddlers have fled for a new life. This triumph is quickly overshadowed by horror as Marine announces that mine and Luca’s enrichment has been overridden by fire ants. The jungle has taken her revenge.