MAYAN TEMPLE IN THE AMAZON

Sorry for the delay - it has been a huge filming week in the Amazon, no hot water ( will never take hot showers for granted again) and no power, only romantic candles and head torches! We geared up and headed into the jungle today to shoot at the Caxiauna Drought experiment which is a 32 hour boat trip away from civilization. After hiking in, watching for anything moving on the trail, namely scorpions and snakes, we came across 2 hectares of jungle that has been roofed in - it looked like a Mayan temple in the middle of the jungle. Amazing to see what they have created to try to simulate what the rainforests resilience is to drought - one of the key tipping elements facing the Amazon jungle this century.  This part of the forest receives 50% less water, and through this experiment that have been able to measure and see that it is the largest trees at risk not the small trees which was contrary to their initial models. The large trees need more water to move the hydrolics/water up to the top of the canopy, and so they suffer the most after a threshold of 3 years. To view the project they have built a 50 metre tower so we climbed up to the top viewing platform - crew and all - no need to go to the gym, best step machine I have walked up yet and in 35 C with 99% humidity! We completed filming around 3pm, and Prof Peter Cox was a great sport and climbed down into the soil pit after we checked for rattlers, yet we missed seeing the scorpion hiding in the corner, so he made a hasty retreat out. End of day we took 2 hours off and I went for a kayak down the river with Prof Peter Cox, we could hear the howler monkeys all around us, but I just couldn't see one. No one there but the forest, the monkeys and us - really such a privilege to be doing this have to pinch myself some days.  The river is so dark nearly black water, so it is hard to tell where the land starts and the water finishes as it is like a giant mirror reflecting the trees in the water. Off to bed, love to all LC x