They come in all kinds of colours, blue, purple, green and red. After seeing them eating fallen papayas I'm afraid their grey city cousins will forever remain ordinary and dull. What a metaphor. And I remember how surprised I was the first time I spotted them. Because who knew pigeons could be anything but grey? There are so many things here that regularly blow my mind and cross the boundaries of what I thought was normal. Growing up in the Berlin, I would never imagine that trees could grow on top of other trees, that little bush chicken could build nests up to two meters high and that there are blue bees. Right!? And I am so grateful that I got the chance to experience all of that. Gratefulness might be the one emotion that connects everybody that lives here. They overcome all these obstacles every day and in return the jungle grants them a peak of a rainbow snake, black by nature, but sparkling in all colours in the rare sunlight. One of the many stunning things here which are only visible in the absence of civilisation's artificial lights. Like old discarded bark that glows softly green at night after a refreshing rain shower. Now does the jungle have a soul? The indigenous people believed it and some of the locals still do. They shout out into the night to present themselves to the forest spirits and ask to be treated kindly. And even if I don't believe in that, it can't harm to have someone there to ask on my behalf before I step foot into the pitch-black wall of trees equipped with only a head torch to go on yet another night-walk, during which our guide tells us stories about giants, amazons and bouncing rocks with bad juju. But I have too much respect for this place and its people to desecrate their holy places, even if the water hole is as unbelievable blue and heavenly. And I quietly judge the people that do come with their cars and fancy cameras to take a picture in this Instagram-worthy spot. Without those guests in our little eco-retreat, though, we would all fall subject to the risk of forgetting about the outside world in a matter of days. It just has so little significance in the jungle. Although that took me a few days to understand. Admittedly, the realization upon my arrival that we were completely off-grid, with a supply of satellite Wi-Fi only for limited hours a day, caused a heavy outbreak of FoMO regarding my not even very active social life back in Sydney and it took me several days to get over the shock of how different these two places are, before I learned to embrace the tranquillity of turning my focus away from my phone and towards the people around me. By now I even cancelled my Netflix subscription. How bold, right?