Jungle Fever

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In dense, exotic and pristinely preserved cloud forests, on the isolated "buffer zone" of Parque National Manu on the Amazon basin frontier, I watch the forest treetops sway tentatively in the breeze as still grey clouds and fresh oxygen usurp the heat, humidity and stale air of the morning, all in ominous anticipation of the approaching storm...

Then the rain starts to fall... A steady, cumbersome shower that progressively builds into a heavy deluge as the clouds turn angrier and the river, usually reflecting the lush green jungle landscape in tranquil glassy brilliance, is transformed into dark, muddy and malevolent rapid, reignited by the aggressive downpour...

Distant thunder draws closer and the impenetrable ink black blanket of night falls over the forest until brilliant white sheets of lightening illuminate the sky, spidery silhouettes of the treetops flashing away in an instant...

Without reaching a stupendous crescendo, the storm simply endures, reverberating through the remains of the day and well into the night... Slipping under my mosquito net, lying down on my thin mattress, listening to the rain falling onto the corigated roof above, joins aching from a grueling morning excursion hacking away dense twisted vines and bamboo with a blunt machete, I fall into perhaps the most vivid, lucid and epic dream scape I have ever experienced, living out an entire lifetime in my seemingly bottomless subconscious... Without the use of any narcotics or licking any toxic frogs, I can offer fundamentally no explanation for this experience but this bizarre trend was to be repeated every night without fail until my return to Cusco, at which point the dreams ceased immediately...

As the storms give way to blue skies, blazing sun and the oppressive stickiness of the morning, I am woken from my trance by a monkey...

Or Paula "the Howler" to her friends to be more precise...

Rescued from the Black Market, Paula, the ageless, tooth-brush stealing, tree-swinging, child like and playful Howler Monkey is among the larger of the New World monkeys found in South America, and enjoys a blessed lifestyle having narrowly avoided a life in captivity... With a gentle, compassionate and cheeky nature, it is more like a Puppy in disposition so I have no complains to allow her to curl up beside me for an hour before breakfast...

Just another day in the Jungle...

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