I grew up in New York, so I didn’t have too much access to real, wild nature. As a little kid I’d go to the woods as much as I could, where I was fascinated by the wildlife and would spend my time catching snakes and bugs.

By the time I’d turned 18, I had it in my head that the rainforest was where the adventure and the excitement was at. I searched online and found a really remote research station in the Madre de Dios – or Mother of God – region of the Amazon Basin, Peru. It was being run by a British biologist and her Peruvian partner, who were working to protect 27,000 acres of rainforest, just by themselves.

I worked to save money so I could join them. When I told my friends and family I was going to the jungle, a lot of them thought it was like suicide; they told me I was insane.

It took three flights deeper into the jungle, then two days going up a river to reach the research station. But within two minutes of arriving I knew this was what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. Everything you see in those BBC documentaries is there. All the sounds were so alien. I was exhausted but instead of falling into a hammock or orientating myself at the centre, I ran down a trail and off into the forest.

^{Macaws in the Madre de Dios regision (PAUL ROSOLIE)}

I was only there for 21 days for that first trip, but from then on I’d come back whenever I could, often bringing groups with me. I started researching anacondas, because I had always found them fascinating. At the station, we realised they were disappearing rapidly from human-populated areas, because the local people kill them and they also hunt their prey.

One time, I travelled with a naturalist from the research centre to a place where all the anacondas go in the dry season, to interact and breed. It’s a floating forest, this completely unique eco-system where there are trees growing from the bottom of a very deep lake. If any other animal approaches it, the snakes can tell because the water and the grass act like a sort of panic alarm; they are very well protected and for that reason they tend to grow larger than they do anywhere else.

At about two in the morning on the first night we were there I woke up to see an anaconda lying in front of me. It was about seven metres long and the girth of a small cow. I wanted to restrain the snake so I could measure it. I got on her back but she started sliding away; I was literally riding on an anaconda. After about five metres she dived into the water. I got to the point where my head was going under and I had to get off. It was terrifying but it was one of the best, most insane moments of my whole life.

Paul with an orphaned anteater

The only point I wondered whether I’d done the right thing in coming to the jungle was when I encountered an uncontacted nomadic tribe. I’d heard about a place that people hadn’t been to in almost a century, so I took my backpack and headed off for a week to find it. Just as I was approaching where I thought it was, I saw a few people from this tribe and they saw me. Ever since the Spanish first arrived these people have known that outsiders are trouble, so they will kill people when they encounter them. Also, entire tribes have been wiped out because they have no immunity to the germs westerners carry on them, so I knew that even if they did kill me they might all end up dying because of the encounter. I just ran and fortunately I managed to get out.

Apart from that, I have no regrets. Sometimes it can get lonely though. After a week of being on my own I used to wish I could talk to someone. When you see something amazing, like a jaguar sunning itself on the banks of the river, you want to be able to turn to someone and tell them how cool it is. One time I was standing on the edge of a body of water and all the stars were out above me, but they were also below me because of their reflection on the water. It’s a beautiful thing to experience alone, but I thought ‘I really want to share this with someone’.

It’s been eight years since my first trip and I’ve now spent about half my adult life in the jungle. In fact, I now run the research station I originally visited and have a company which brings people to the rainforest, allowing them to take part in research. My wife, who I met in India when we were both called to rescue a snake that had escaped into a musical festival, comes with me too. There’s not really a way to separate me from the jungle at this point.

Mother of God by Paul Rosolie is published by Transworld and priced at £18.99 in hardback