Back down the river in the bush north of Ruarwe, we found a new splotch of blood on a large rock by the river. This time, it wasn’t from the floods that came spurting out of my finger. Apart from my unfortunate digit, I haven’t called for the medic for many weeks now! On the path we loosely made, more blood makes tracking relatively easy. It’s being spilt in all the places where we might have leant with a left hand when making our way along the river bank. It is relatively fresh (in the last 5-6 hours) and for a few minutes we have all been slightly concerned that we are either being followed by an injured person or that one of us is unaware we are injured. However, the blood is now accompanied by an outrageous stink. There must be a decaying carcass (or corpse) nearby.

A little further along, in clear sight above our path is a body of a jennet with its throat ripped out. With claw marks down its rib cage, there’s aren’t too many predators that would kill and more importantly, store its prey in this way; a leopard being the main culprit. It has likely been dead (or near death) for more than a day, but it has been hung here very recently.

The spur nearby seems a bit small for a leopard and the only two other possible candidates would be a serval or the rare caracal – neither of which are famous for putting their kills up trees. It’s fairly conclusive evidence, and along with the scrapings on the base of the trees we saw a couple of days ago (distinctive claw-sharpening methods), there are leopard in this valley. Sherlocking around, we’ve seen plenty of reasons to suspect bush pig and other small mammals are enjoying their surroundings. Leopard, it seems, are hunting successfully and are the king in this part of the jungle. I recently mentioned a silencing purr which occurred in the middle of night, making all wildlife quiet during some interrupted sleep, but due to the hallucinogenic dreamscape I was encountering with some troubling atmospheric temperatures and my ears plugged up, I’m not wholeheartedly reliant on the midnight growl. My mind could have been confused with a nearby serval, a heavily-breathing ape, or it could have even been the Frenchman’s stomach. Now though, a roughed-up, disembowelled jennet with a Chelsea smile in it’s ribcage, hung with a deathly stare across it’s lifeless face, is undeniably the work of a lethal and agile predator. Stalking these forests, it’s comforting news. With numerous cave dwellings that we found where it’s impossible to imagine anything but a big cat relaxing with it’s young, this wild isn’t lacking.

Camp was made by us a few days ago, so we are familiar with our sleeping arrangements and where to light a fire. It’s a quick set up. The first thing that happens when you light a fire under a canopy is all the bugs drop out of it. Understandably, anything living doesn’t like smoke, and heat is normally a good indication to start evacuating the area. If you want to find out just how much the forest floor crawls with creatures from the Miniature and Beautiful World of Exoskeletons, light a fire.