So today, Baby monkey tour – the responsibilities I like least, not because it’s the busiest & has far more to do but because I do not like nor trust the deer who roam free in their enclosure and I have to get in with them to clean and feed them. My heart races every time, I worry when I can’t see them and terrifies when I do!!

The thunder roared this morning and the skies opened and emptied it’s cascading water all over Esperanza Verde. It was truly awful to work in the torrential rain and mud. I wore a poncho which protected me from the deluge but the ground was so slippery and I fell, I fell so many times flat out. Nothing else to do but just get through the day

In the evening Dylan came for a wee chat and it was lovely. I found out that this was his first trip away from his home in Holland – in fact it was his first time in a plane, he also had a birthday at E. V he turned 19. What a character he is, he knows no boundaries to his safety but what a wonderful genuine person – a boy who oozes confidence.

Then Rodger came for a wee chat – made me a wee bit suspicious that they had been talking about me – not in a bad way probably quite sympathetically.

I’m setting my alarm to get up at 5am to take a trip to the plantation to try to get a photograph of the humming birds – only if it’s dry though. The steep path will be treacherous if the ground is muddy.

Curimana tomorrow to find out what plans Rachel has made for me – bit nervous- but excited too

Nite

😘

20th October

Up early and packed my wee rucksack for my journey hopefully for some good news. All the rain last night brought out the ants and I had to be careful where I put my feet

Alex gave me a list of messages to get at the market in Curimana: 2kg potatoes, 2kg cabbage, 1 kg onions, 3 garlic and 1 huge packet of fresh bread from the bakery 😳

The short canoe trip was beautiful as always and the current was strong because of all the rain.

Internet was working 👏👏👏👏 and my text were coming in and the one that excited me most was the one from Rachel. My flights were changed and I was leaving on 22nd of October. This was 20th – one day left and I’ll be heading to Lima. Heading back to Pucallpa and flying straight to Lima 😘

Without a moments hesitation, I phoned Rachel on WhatsApp – it was wonderful to hear her cheery voice and I wasn’t emotional like before because I was in a much better state of mind. I was leaving E.V and it was happening so soon.

OMG, an enormous, gigantic cockroach just flew past my ear and landed right beside me – I’m not talking mm here, I’m talking inches…..at least 4 inches. 😱😱

Where was I?……oh yes phoning Rachel. We tried Facetime and it worked, how amazing it was to see her face, it was wonderful to talk to more than a voice – I almost lost it again but I took a few deep breaths and sucked in the tears!!

I repeated facetime with Bill, mum and dad and Craig in Australia and by the end of my comforting sessions all I wanted to do was go into a corner and bawl my eyes out to release all of these emotions.

Off I went on my errands to the market and bakery with my uncommunicative Spanish to point to things on the shelf. Success, I got everything, nothing more or nothing less, everything that was on the list was in my bag, all 6 kgs so off I trotted back to the bus station to catch the pickup to Curimana. I was strange to see Ant and Dec being translated on the old telly at the bus station in the middle of the Peruvian jungle – it made me laugh!

Once back at E.V, I dropped off the shopping and headed to the port towatch a sunset with Dylan and Rodger. The sun was just setting and the orange glow of the evening light was reflecting off the boys as they sat on the sandbank to watch the sun disappear at the far end of the river. I took a beautiful photo of them before the shadow engulfed their entire body.

They asked me for my reason for leaving and I told them the truth.

Spagetti for tea with cooked green banana spicy sauce, it wasn’t the best thing for my liquid intestines – so I refrained and ate some plain pasta.

At night in the Volo house we had a night of ‘lets kill all the cockroaches that were either scuttling around on the floor or were flying erratically through the air without the ability to steer or stop – grosse, just bloody grosse. I quickly stripped and dived under my mozzie net for protection a security. Poor Liza who had her bed on the top floor was having the worse time ever – she was sharing her room with more spiders (and their thousands of hatched babes) and families of huge cockroaches than us all put together.

Lights out at 10pm, I have a half day in the clinic tomorrow morning then I’m done 😬. The rest of the day will be spent packing my oversized rucksack. I have book a solo canoe trip down the river back to Curimana for Wednesday. It takes an hour and costs 150 soles which is expensive but I’ll never have the opportunity to ever do it again and I can always say I rode down a tributary of the Amazon in a little wooden canoe 🛶

👏👏👏

Nite

😘