Into the Jungle
“Where do you want to go Daniel?”
I almost felt cheated as we started the descent. This was just like the Eden Project - “Tom, this is just like the Eden Project.” Someone has come and set up a false village for tourists and we are the absolute suckers buying into it.
“I don’t mind, anywhere, I just want to get out.”
“Erm, the park?”
“…Mhmm”
“You don’t want to go there do you?”
“Nah, I want somewhere with trees…Some kind of forest.”
And that is the conversation I have with my wife Hollie most weekends. I am drawn to woodland. I find it incredibly therapeutic. A few years ago Hollie and I were fortunate enough to go after dark to the Eden Project in Cornwall and meet Bruce Parry (the explorer, film documentary maker and indigenous rights advocate). We then sat in the depths of the domed rain forest and watched his new film ‘Tawai’. Even now, looking back, it was completely magical and about as close to a jungle environment as I could imagine being.
Until yesterday, when I went myself.
“Wanlang, are there black bears here?”
“Yes, we have black bears, they injure many people here each year.” Wanlang always seems to give me this kind of reassurance.
The journey to the region was around two hours in the car. We always drive around in a mucus green Suzuki, my knees cuffing my ears kind-of-small, with an incredible ability to just keep going despite the terrain or weather. The scenery was breathtaking. Lush green treetops for miles upon miles. The sound of what I believed to be monkeys was deafening as we parked up (they turned out to be frogs). I must have been desperate to see a monkey as I also shouted, “Monkey, there, in the road!” on the drive there - that ended up being a cat.
I almost felt cheated as we started the descent. This was just like the Eden Project - “Tom, this is just like the Eden Project.” Someone has come and set up a false village for tourists and we are the absolute suckers buying into it. That train of thought didn’t last too long. I am not sure what finally convinced me this was the real deal but it may have been the man brushing his teeth on his doorstep who then proceeded to spit on his chicken which pecked his feet. That’s a step too far to create false authenticity.
Now, this particular region is supposed to be the wettest place on Earth but as we began our first steps down into the jungle it was anything but wet. The sun was searing and the humidity was making breathing already difficult. And this was going down. Being a dad of two (my favourite excuse) has taken its toll on my body (nothing to do with my unhealthy addiction to ice-cream) but I am fairly accustomed to intense exercise when need be. I have run 50 mile races, walked 6 day treks in the peaks and I love a round of golf (Yeah, that is exercise, it also completes my power of three). They say you should always listen to your body and so when I looked down at my feet during a drinks break and they were both uncontrollably shaking I should have listened.
The sound of birds and (not very David Attenboroughesque) whatever else it was, came from every direction. Butterflies the size of your hand swooshed in and out of view and the occasional tin-roofed shack billowed smoke through the dense treetops. It was awesome.
It is important to note here that at the very bottom of this hillside jungle is a village with a few scattered huts. Locals passed us, running both down and up through the jungle with their back laden with bags full of cement, bricks, iron poles. Mental. The deeper we went the more the heat seemed to be turning up. At the very bottom is a river which I sincerely regret not going into - pure bliss. (Video below). The bridges were iffy - if it was D&T homework you’d ask the child to put a bit more effort in.
The next bridges we encountered were both surreal and impressive. This was Grade A work. The bridges are living. Using the roots of the trees from both sides of the river, they are intertwined overtime to make a usable bridge which self-supports. As the area is so wet (just not on this killer of a day) anything such as wood simply rots away - but as these bridges are living trees they get stronger each and every day.
By this point my clothes were dripping wet. I have never in my life sweated as much as I did then. It was then time for the ascent. Over three hours of uphill trekking in the hottest, muggiest conditions known. I struggled. Whilst my legs were okay, my heart quite simply could not be arsed to work as hard as I needed it to. Three steps. Pause. Three steps. Pause. It was slow and in the end, painful. I have never experienced cramp in my knee before and after declaring that out loud, I got it in both knees. We passed a group of three men on the way up, one of them was in a stretcher and they were evacuating him from the village to get him to hospital. I’ve never wanted to be injured as much as I did right then.
Around six hours after we had set off and four and a half litres of water down, we were back at the mucus motor. It took an icy bath, an emergency cramp relieving leg rub from Tom and a two hour sleep to get myself feeling human again.
Horrific and amazing at the same time.
“Where do you want to go Daniel?”
“I don’t mind, anywhere, I just want to get out.”
“Erm, the park?”
“Yes!”