My First Night in the Jungle

My first night in the jungle was wild, as I’m sure you can imagine. I am living in a bungalow with three other girls and there are about 25 other volunteers and interns at the station.  Out of the 25,  there are only three Americans, almost everyone else is from England or other parts of Europe. I spent the rest of the afternoon marveling at the beauty of the jungle and trying to get to know the rest of the people. The station we are at is called Kawsay, located 50 minutes down the Madre de Dios river from Puerto Maldonado. This station was founded in 2018 and exists on a plot of land that is a concession from the government – meaning while it is still officially owned by the government, the founder of the project has been given to use the land like his own for 40 years. Concessions are extremely important in protecting wild places, such as the Tambopata National Reserve we are bordering, by creating buffer zones for the animals inside the reserve and allowing them to move with more freedom through protected spaces. This station also contributes to long-term research, supports students from around the world in research and learning, as well as rescues and reintroduces endangered black spider monkeys to the wild and conducts post-release surveys. 

  As soon as I began unpacking my things I was introduced to our room's tarantula, who lives in a cardboard box under our desk. Later at night as we were all about to fall asleep we heard scuffling and banging noises coming from  the shower. When my roommate opened the bathroom door she jumped back with a scream and naturally we all rushed out from under our mosquito nets to see what it was. We found ourselves staring face to face with a large rodent, its eyes wide and nose quivering as it stared back at us. Then with a start, it ran straight towards us, pushing our fresh roll of toilet paper right into the toilet as it passed by. It scampered up a beam and out of the bathroom. We thought it had left the room until I sat back down in my bed and it ran above my head across the beam that holds up my mosquito net! 

After the rodent incident, the rest of the night went smoothly and surprisingly I slept through the whole night until the chickens came scratching around outside our door about 10 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I am loving the jungle and cannot wait for these next four weeks.

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