It’s Tuesday. Today is my first day on the ropes with Gaia. Adi, Val and I set off to her enclosure and get her on the ropes as before. For my first walk, I am on the back rope, with Adi in front and Val behind me, ensuring that I am doing nothing wrong. The advantage of the back rope is that you can both see Gaia and watch your footing. Front rope has to walk carefully, relying on back rope to tell them when Gaia stops. One thing you don’t want to do is to trip over a vine or tree trunk, so watching the ground where you can is the top priority. The walk runs smoothly as I get used to finding a balance between holding the rope upwards, as not to form a tripping hazard for Gaia, whilst also not putting any force on her neck. Ideally, we would let her walk wherever she pleases, with no tension put on the ropes at all. For the large majority of the walk, this is the case, with only occasional moments where we apply slight pressure to ensure that she doesn’t wander into a viney section and get tangled up. The ropes are also there so that we can block her from playfully jumping either walker, should she wish to.

Two hours later, following a decent number of rests and lie downs (Gaia, not us), we return to the enclosure. We use the remaining time to work on enrichment and to clear her home up a bit, before returning to camp. I change out of my morning Gaia clothes, and whilst getting undressed, discover a rash that has formed on my belly. I deduce that this is the consequence of eight hours per day spent wearing damp clothes, rather than the start of some horrible jungle disease I’ve acquired. I could be wrong. In any case, I’m not going to improve things by getting into more damp clothes, but find myself without a choice. I put on my Kusiy gear with the plan to slather myself in Sudocream later. I then serve myself up a plate of lunch, before heading to the Fumador to enjoy an iced coffee. This is a new part of my routine. Leaving at 7am means missing the 8am breakfast and therefore the freshly brewed coffee. There is always some leftover at lunch that I pour into my protein shake cup and stick in the freezer for an hour. This is how I always ensure a daily caffeine hit.

2pm approaches fast and it is time to head off to see Kusiy. On the walk there, we hear some sounds overhead and spot a group of wild howler monkeys exploring the area. I worked with howler monkeys last time I was at the park, and I adore them. Their fur is a deep amber colour, and their faces somehow seem richer in emotion than that of a capuchin or spider monkey. One looks down, evidently curious about us, but they don’t seem nervous. After all, they are high in the trees and we are all the way down here.

It is always the same starting routine with Kusiy. Marine and I pause a few hundred meters shy of the enclosure to grab some patujú leaves and then stop at a sign reading “cocina de Kusiy”, shortly ahead, to wrap his meat up in the leaves. It is important not to prepare his food somewhere that he can see or smell it. We then approach the enclosure exclaiming “hola, Kusiy”, to then find him waiting for us. We kneel down to say hello and he initiates affection. Next, he invites us on a walk around the perimeter of the enclosure, where he then stops 50 meters in, at the same spot every day, to urinate. Occasionally, one of myself and Marine find ourselves in the firing line. He then takes a sniff of his own urine, before continuing the stroll. We will then complete at least two laps, and if we are lucky, he will join for several more. On hotter days, he is significantly lazier and would sooner rest on his back, trying to bite mosquitos. On this day, he is lazy.

Marine and I head home and discover that dinner tonight is rice and beans. It is regretful that I forget that I am the proud owner of one avocado purchased from Guarayos. I could have turned this meal around.  Fortunately, the cook has made cuñapes today, providing some glamour to the cuisine. These are little bread rolls filled with cheese that we need to pre-order and pay for. They are worth every penny. And once again, with a belly full of mostly carbohydrates, I take myself to bed for an early night.

It’s Wednesday. With Gaia having had her early walk yesterday, today is a later start. I enjoy a slower morning and I arrive in the Comedor just before 8am, in time to say farewell to Jost before he catches his 8am bus out of the jungle. The park isn’t an official bus stop, but the drivers know about it and will stop here if requested to do so. I enjoy my breakfast of two slices of bread, turned around with the presence of my avocado that I had forgotten to use yesterday. We then sit down for the anuncios, which are near impossible to make out over the sound of the heavy rain bombing it down on the metal roof above us. Usually, we set off for our morning shift by 9am. Today, everyone waits under the shelter of the Comedor, hoping for a break in the shower. As it turns 9:30am, we accept defeat and begin our walks to our cats, getting soaked along the way. With such a large amount of rainfall having already settled, the ground is more of a bog than usual and the perilous journey is prolonged further. Adi and I arrive at Gaia’s enclosure and the rain stops. We are already soaking wet though. With Gaia’s handmade vine ball misplaced, we collect some fallen cocoa pods and use them to throw instead. Gaia loves to run and it is good to encourage this. Unlike with Kusiy, it is not a good idea to run with Gaia, seeing as she leaves her enclosure three times a week. We do not want her to start chasing her volunteers on her walks. Should this happen, it would be playful, but that doesn’t stop it being potentially dangerous. We throw a cocoa pod parallel to her fence and she chases it from the other side. With cocoa pods being smaller and denser than the vine ball, they are lost more easily in the bushes. We get through about five or six throughout the session. Gaia gains a good milage today though.

Kusiy, unalike Gaia, should not be chasing balls. I asked the cat coordinator, Cleo, about this and she explained that he gets frustrated not to have actually obtained the ball by the end of the sprint. This is why it is important to speak to the staff and read one’s cat files. Every cat is different. Today is the first day that I run with Kusiy. We are walking side by side and he looks at me with a spark in his eye. I recognise his body language. Ru would do the same nine years ago. He slows down and bends his legs with his eyes flicking back and forth between me and the path ahead. He starts to run and I run with him. It is very important to ensure that we remain side by side and that I do not go ahead of him. There is a distinction between running with your buddy and stalking. With Ru, this distinction was not made clearly enough and the park has made a conscious effort in the past few years to ensure that volunteers are aware of the difference. You want your jaguar to see you as a mate, not as a toy.

Kusiy and I complete several laps together, with him always choosing to initiate a sprint right as I enter a region dense in deep puddles. The water splashes high as my legs plunge into the deep pools. Being more shallow than the bog we trek through to get here and having spent all afternoon in the blazing sun, in an area unprotected by the high trees, the water is surprisingly hot and dries off fast. I catch up with Marine who has opted to continue with walking, rather than run with us. She says that she will run tomorrow. The evening approaches and we close Kusiy in his management cage to do our jobs in his enclosure. The enclosure and management cage are separated by a tunnel with a sliding vertical door on either side. These are operated with pulleys. I remember when Ru’s rope once came off his pulley and I had to climb on top of the tunnel to get it back on, with a very grumpy jaguar right below me wondering why I’m not letting him through to get to his dinner. As I lower the pulley closest to Kusiy’s main enclosure, it produces a distinct high-pitch squeaking sound. Every day, after this sound is made, a group of birds can be heard replying in a tree in the distance, echoing the same frequencies. Marine and I hide Kusiy’s food around the enclosure and head back to camp to shower.

Wednesdays are special. For dinner, we catch a minibus into the nearby village, Santa Maria. It has been decided in a diplomatic vote that instead of choosing to stick with one catering option out of the two available, we will visit a different place each week, alternating on a fortnightly basis. I abstained having only visited one anyway. Today, we head to the place that exclusively serves meat and vegetable skewers. We arrive and I treat myself to a 30B bottle of wine. With no intention of getting truly hammered, I offer half of the bottle to Fab, who is very grateful. I have offered him approximately £1 of wine. This is substantially cheaper than getting a round in in London (by an entire order of magnitude). We play some pool on a table which has confusing shaped holes, before tucking into our skewers, which in true Bolivian fashion, are accompanied by a plate of rice and chips. Every meal comes with both rice and chips. This is great because I love rice and chips. Following dinner, a group of us head over to a nearby shop to treat ourselves to a cheeky ice cream. When going to pay the tab at the restaurant, I then realise that I have misplaced the 50B note in my pocket. This sounds sad when one quantifies it as approximately two bottles of wine, or one bottle of wine and four ice creams, or just simply 10 ice creams, but fortunately, this is just £3.50. Fab helps me out by lending me some cash and I hop on the minibus, without the fear of never being welcomed back into Santa Maria.

It is now Thursday. We are two thirds of the way through the working week. My clothes have grown increasingly damp and I am aware that I smell horrific. It is my first time on the front rope with Gaia today. Val walks with me, with Adi behind. Gaia prefers to have more people at the front, so protests less than on Tuesday. It is worth noting that most cats have both volunteers walking behind, but Gaia is special. This is the setup in which she is most confident. Adi warns me when Gaia is resting by shouting either “stop” or “explore”, but this eventually becomes unnecessary as I get used to the feeling of the ropes. I thought it would be scary walking a big cat. Because Gaia is substantially smaller than the two other cats I have worked with, both jaguars, I feel remarkably calm. She has a river that she is allowed to swim in towards the end of her trail, but today, like Tuesday and Friday, she opts not to venture in, but does make a point of standing still for a while and protesting afterwards. You never know how long a walk with a cat will take. I remember my first day training with Ru nine years ago. Cody, Ru’s other volunteer, who was training me, arrived to lunch at 2:30pm, two hours late. This is because his cat had decided to take a several hour nap during the walk. Gaia does not nap today, but she does spend a good hour or so resting by the river. Nevertheless, we eventually make it back to the enclosure and work as a team to get all the jobs done quickly before heading to lunch.

Lunch today is fried something (and rice of course). On Tuesdays, we have a rule that we may only speak in English at lunch time to encourage everyone to do some language learning. Today, however, is Thursday, and the rule is that we only speak in Spanish – the result of which is a fairly silent meal for myself. I then grab a Kofler block (Bolivia’s least horrific chocolate bar) from the Candy Shop and head to the Fumador to relax and enjoy my iced coffee. I quickly fall asleep in the hammock. It would appear that I can fall asleep anywhere here, except my own bed.

As always, the afternoon comes around too quickly and Marine and I head off to see Kusiy. The walk there is pleasant and Kusiy is pleased to see us. We do a few laps, starting with walking, before doing a little running too. Marine has not delivered on her promise to run today. Again, I feel this is fair enough, given that the perimeter of Kusiy’s enclosure is mostly deep puddles. We close him into his management cage early today as there is a termite infestation on the platform in his main enclosure and this is something that we need to deal with. A machete is always kept at every cat’s quarters. Marine takes this machete, marked “Kusiy”, and begins scratching away at the termite trails in an attempt to remove them. I pick up the other machete that we have borrowed from the construction team. I inspect it and realise that it is labelled with “Ru”, my old friend. I wonder if this is the machete that I had used to keep the fire trails clear around his enclosure all of those years ago. 

Several dead termites later, Marine and I head back home and arrive later than usual. This evening, my camp job is taking the compost to the compost hole with the other Marine – French Marine, as opposed to Belgian Marine. There is no rubbish service in the jungle, so anything organic is deposited on our land. Meat goes in the meat hole, on the other side of the road to camp, and compost goes in the compost hole, about a 50 metre walk from the kitchen. We take one side of the bin each and carry it to the hole. The thing that makes this job ever so slightly nasty is the stench from the hole. Also, sometimes rice sticks to the bottom of the bin and one has to use their hands to scrape it out. I am pleased to have decided to shower after completing this job and not before. I then head to the Comedor for dinner, where a treat awaits. Last Friday, I made the mistake of not ordering any tucumanes from Don Victor. Today, he has offered his services once more and  I have made up for last week by ordering three. It is my first time eating these and I would describe them as the South American equivalent of the Cornish Pasty. Don Victor has also discovered soy mince, meaning that we vegetarians are spoiled to the exact same treat as the meat eaters (at the expense of a serious lack of biodiversity in the surrounding rainforest). With tomorrow being Friday, we have just one day of the working week remaining. With all three of my tucumanes having been devoured, I take myself into bed and head to sleep.