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Published: February 9th 2007
Wooden Hut on Lake.
MONDAY: We went to a lake and paddled around on small, primative wooden boats. We saw numerous birds, though of course I can't remember any of the names.Hey everyone,
We just got back from Manu, which was fantastic. We will look more in depth later on in the blog. Here’s a recap of the past week:
TUESDAY: We continued our last week of Spanish classes, while we were both sick. Elena had to get some shots, and Tom had to take lots of medication, but everything is fine now.
WEDNESDAY: classes again
THURSDAY: more classes, Elena went to play soccer, scored three goals and totally kicked ass again (I’m not really that conceited).
FRIDAY: Last day of Spanish classes, Elena had to give a speech in front of everyone, we all cried. That night our guide came and briefed us on our trip to Manu.
SATURDAY: We woke up at 6 and our guide picked us up at 6:30. We picked up the other three adventurers. One guy from Canada and a couple from Israel. We drove pretty much the whole day stopping for lunch in a colonial town where there was a procession for the Virgin. We ate a typical Peruvian highlander lunch of soup, rice, and meat. Then we continued to drive the rest of the day through the Andes,
Statues in Paurcatamba III.
SATURDAY: Each Statue is Paurcatamba represents a different sort of dance preformed there during the huge festival in July. until about 4 when we reached the cloud forest. We spent the next two and a half hours intermittently walking and driving through the forest. At about 6:30 we arrived at the first lodge where we stayed the night. It rained intensely throughout the night, and we all learned new card games until after the electricity went out.
SUNDAY: We woke up at 5 to go watch the Cock of the Rocks, the Peruvian national bird perform its mating dance, although the female bailed on the bait. After breakfast Tom, Elena, and Josh (the Canadian) went mountain biking down into the Amazon, which was incredible. We rode for 30 kilometers, until we reached a small village where we all hopped into a raft and white-water rafted down the river. We all jumped overboard and swam for part of the float. We reached our lodge at about 2pm where we all had lunch and then went for a hike in the jungle. We saw a great variety of vegetation and animal life such as a crazy big toad that causes you to hallucinate after you lick it, and a walking tree that moves 10 centimeters each year. We went back
Typical Amazonian Hut.
SUNDAY: The hut of a coca leaf grower and his family. These are quite common in the Amazon. for dinner, and after dinner learned crazy matchstick tricks. We are going to blow you all away with our riddles once we get back.
MONDAY: After breakfast we did a Canopy Tour, in which we traversed from tree to tree on ziplines, 120 feet above the ground. It was intense. While in the canopy we saw three different species of monkeys, the noisy night monkey, and we don’t remember the names of the two others. After the canopy tour we had lunch, took a swim in the river, and then took a motor boat to the other side of the river where we went out on another walk through the forest. We got to a lake where we hopped on a wooden boat, and road around the lake. We saw various species of birds, reptiles, and vegetation. The highlight was when our guide grabbed a Fer-de-Lance by the tail for all of us to see. This snake is very poisionous snake that causes you to bleed from all of your orifaces within three hours, and you have a 40% chance of dying. After our walk we returned back to the lodge for dinner where we learned some more crazy
The Manu River at Dusk.
SUNDAY: Night falling on the Manu River. tricks.
TUESDAY: After breakfast we got back into our van and rode ten hours back through the cloud forest and over the Andes. We stopped at the same colonial town for lunch, we also picked up several random people on the way.
We are spending two days back in Cusco before we head out for a week to Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, and we will return again next Saturday, and we start volunteering on the following Monday.
Tom and Elena
*Elena's camera is broken (hopefully only temporarily) , so these are only Tom's pictures.
** Apologies for the inane titles and lack of captions, my camera was low on batteries and I needed to post quickly.
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Heidi
non-member comment
wow
wow, your blog is incredible i cant believe that your actually experiencing all of the things you wrote about, it felt like i was reading some adventure novel or something. looks like your having an amazing time, i look forward to reading more..... love you guys