By Als Everest

Today was our last day of wild camp! I’m going to miss our camp, we spent so long making it perfect! It has stacks to keep the canoes in the bay, a roped walkway from the shore to the fire and sleeping area, and a handmade communal area made of tarps and wood. I woke up to the two Dans (Betney and Hughes) cooking breakfast! Although the sooty smoke from the fire seemed to be getting the better of them as they both had tears streaming down their faces! Hannah was leader for today and kept us busy as she told us about our tight time schedule which we failed to keep track of! We packed up our group and personal kit and left our base camp for the last time. Although this was sad I won’t miss the sound of mossies buzzing past my ears! We floated down the river in the current with the forest on either side of us just sitting in the comfort of a group silence looking and watching the vast range of Amazon birds.

We then canoed to a tributary with Jack expertly steering Hannah and I, while also doing the majority of the paddling as well! As we entered the tributary there was an overgrown area across our path which was hard to cross. With Hannah in the middle calling 1-2-3 we eventually got through it! As it was nearing 11am we were getting hungry so cracked open our flap jacks. As it started to rain we headed back to the Pithecia for a much needed shower, rather than a swim in the river! Knowing we couldn’t do this until we emptied the boat we unpacked in double time, thanks to the other fire on the boat who helped out.

Once we were showered and had washed our clothes we had a debriefing meeting with Andy over which were the good parts of the expedition and how we could improve anything for the next group setting out tomorrow. Once all this was done the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing on the top deck on our roll mats. In the evening Hannah and the rest of Ucayali made henna from Andy’s mix, and then having been in the jungle for 5 days I decided to have an early night!