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It’s a day off. That doesn’t mean you sleep in, though. You don’t know of a single person on the reserve that has been able to stay unconscious past sunrise without medical intervention. The chirps and calls of birds, buzzing of insects and drone of cicadas begins the moment the sun rises, sometimes even earlier, and while the cover of towering canopies filters out most of the light in the dense rainforest, the lodge camp is on an open meadow, and so you can’t avoid the heat that quickly sets in. You’re happy to be up early, though, as it’s become a comfortable habit to make your way through your morning routine at your own pace, finally settling on your front porch with a cup of tea, bare toes poking out the cover of shadow from the lodge and into the bright pool of sunlight that warms the grass below. Living in the middle of the Amazon rainforest wasn’t exactly something you had really planned ahead for as a young woman, but after falling in love with the place on a university trip, and then keeping an ear open for job opportunities, you had managed to land a job as a tour guide, being able to speak languages that their other employees couldn’t. It’s a busy time of year at the Cuyabeno Lodge. Both local Ecuadorians and international tourists tended to avoid the rainier months, and after a particularly long wet season, it seemed all the bookings had been bottle-necked into one month now that the days were simply humid. Barely six in the morning, guests already roamed over the camp, some socialising over breakfast, others packing for day hikes in clumps spearheaded by your colleagues.