Kanuku Mountains Expedition Day 7

Sleeping in the jungle at night, I don't dream. How can anyone possibly dream with the energy of the forest living around you?

In the morning we woke up and found fresh jaguar tracks on the opposite bank. Later that morning, we went out on a boat in a nearby creek to watch the large fishes sleeping by tree roots, surrounded by tiny biting fish. Then we saw two foot long electric eels, so much like a log or twig when lying still, but now rippling and predatory. Their shock can knock you off your feet.

Guyana Wilderness. © Haroldo Castro

For dinner we had fresh piranha smoked over the fire with salt and lemon and a side of furine with raw onions. Furine is dried and crumbled cassava, which is best if soaked with a little fish broth to soften it up before eating. A little instant coffee finished our "jungle fast food" meal which makes light river travel possible.

ISSUE: Brazil nuts and sustainable harvesting.

We listen to the BBC World news on a tiny shortwave receiver, and it might as well have been fiction for all the relevance it has here.

SPECIES: Bird species in Guyana.

This is one thing that makes Guyana very special – huge tracts of untouched, uninhabited, and, in some cases, still unexplored wild land. In the next few years, the Guyanese will have to decide how to best protect this beautiful wilderness. It is an incredible conservation opportunity. In the last two years of working for Conservation International, I have been in some very remote and very wild places – but even with our hammocks packed into the camp last night like the proverbial tin of sardines, it was still the furthest from human civilization I have ever felt.

<< Day 6 Dispatch | Day 8 Dispatch >>