Dispatches from Amazonia: 1. Mud, sweat and tears

I’m dragging bruised feet through thigh deep mud. The swamp began 6km from base camp, itself a good hour and a half walk from the jungle choked landing strip. And it is here, with one week left to the expedition that I strike my wellington boot on a jagged tree stump with just enough force to pierce the rubber. Thus begins the drenching of my socks, and the eventual fungal rot and infection of the central toe of my right hand foot.

A jungle can over-weigh on arrival, a visceral screaming spectacular for the sensory organs. On certain days this cornucopia of flora and fauna can cease to exist, instead replaced by a dripping wall of verdant monotony. For a field biologist such as myself, a jungle can fracture the spirit, instilling in its visitors a schizophrenia of awe and bore. The leap of the heart upon discovering a new species, quick dulled by the throbbing itch of your one hundred and seventy third mosquito bite (the window to your next bout of malaria/dengue/yellow fever). The wanderlust inspired by its unending entrails quick dulled by only ever seeing 20m ahead.

Once the mud has soaked through and my sweat has dried, I reload the weighty bags of sampling equipment onto my back, and continue to trudge. But not without smiling, and upon reflection with my colleagues, I realised that I would struggle to be happier elsewhere. I pictured friends in London, hunched over office computers, lab desks or hospital beds, or others in Paris struggling to find work at all. I may be paying the price in mud, sweat and tears, but in the heart of the jungle I have found a life of my own.