In the morning, when it finally arrived, I gingerly dressed in the wet clothes that had failed to dry overnight. I did have a dry shirt, so I wore that, but I was still feeling pretty wet from the waist down.

Everything was piled back into the boat, once we’d bailed the water out of it, and we zoomed back to camp, or ground zero, as it should probably now be known. Even from a distance, it was obvious that there was a hole in the forest. In the cold light of the morning, everything seemed safe and calm, but it was a complete mess; branches and lumps of tree everywhere.

We surveyed the damage. Both tents had collapsed, and mine had rolled over, apparently in both cases due to the rush of air displaced by the falling tree. Small debris littered the camp. One of the hammocks had been hit by a falling branch. It wasn’t obvious from camp which trees had fallen, but all things considered, we’d been lucky.

I didn’t realise how lucky until Alex and I tried to retrace the walk we’d done on the morning of the previous day, down past the kapok, the arched trunks, and on to the waterfall.

The path was different, to say the least. We were diverted off the track to go over and round obstacles that weren’t there the day before, and at one point I got to a trunk that was lying intact across the path. It came up to my thighs, a fairly substantial piece of timber.

“Hey, Alex – is this the one that fell?”
“Nope, that was there yesterday. This, is the one that fell”

Notice the dramatic pause there. I moved up to join him and arrived at the kapok, or at least the remains of it. It had snapped, just above the buttresses, ten feet or so above ground level, and the trunk, lying on its side, was shoulder height. It had taken down about five other trees, and had decapitated another half dozen.

I tried to gauge how much the tree weighed, and in the end concluded that quite simply if it had landed within ten feet of the tent, I would probably have been dead. If it had landed on the tent, not only would I have definitely been dead, but probably also no longer in one piece. We were saved only by the angle at which it fell. It certainly had the height to reach camp if it had fallen in a slightly different direction.

Sobering stuff. Alex looked around and started speculating about the fate of the other trees.

“At least ten will come down over the next few days. The roots will have been affected. That one, for instance…”

CRACK!

OK, it didn’t happen with quite that degree of comic timing, but no more than 30 seconds after Alex pointed at a particular silvery grey tree nearby, it gave a out a loud crack and leaned over by five or so degrees. Haji was shouting at us again, and this all had distinct echoes of last night. We retreated to the camp area, and watched as the silver tree gave one last shudder and came clattering down.

No more trees fell while we were at the campsite and we left after taking a few victory photos of ourselves. This campsite would not be used by Haji again – he’d have to find a new one.

We spent the rest of the morning on a two hour jungle hike, on the other side of the lake. The ground was sodden underfoot, and leeches were out in force. I grabbed a piece of broken bamboo from the ground and every few minutes would swat them off my boots as they tried to climb up my legs. Alex, hard man that he is (some might simply say stupid) was wearing sandals, and lagged behind as he fought a continuous losing battle against the bloodsuckers.

We made a round trip to the largest flower in the world. Except it wasn’t in bloom, so it was simply a very large bud, but I’m sure it’s lovely. On the boat I managed to successfully kill a leech, which is not easy. You see, stamping on them with a hiking boot bearing your full weight normally has no effect. They’re just infuriatingly squigy. But if one happens to have just finished a meal, they’re prone to explode if you whack them. Very satisfying.

Back at the resort, a quick lunch preceded a very well earned shower. I then set about doing nothing more adventurous than reading a book for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, we dined on fish curry, and then I went back to the room, to read my book for a few hours before bed. I was sat on the balcony of my room, and glanced up to see that there were about a dozen small lizards congregated around the lights, where the mosquitoes were being efficiently devoured. I was marvelling at their ability to stick upside-down to the roof when one fell on my head. It landed on the floor, froze for a few seconds, and then ran straight back up the wall.