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Goodbye Andes, We have had a marvelous time but now we must experience the wonders at your feet. Hello Amazon! We were greeted in Iquitos with smothering humidity and a little Peruvian man from Cumaceba Lodge. We piled into a van and raced from the airport to our hotel. The short trip was strangely reminiscent of my Mario cart days on the old Nintendo 64, the way we dodged in and out of tuk-tuks I had no doubt that theirs was the most dangerous job in the whole city. Coley turned to me and commented “We´re definitely not in the Andes anymore” The tropics, it appears is universal... the heat, the tuk-tuks and crazy traffic, it was like being back in Thailand. We were picked up from our hotel the next day at 7 am and taken for a rather small tour of Iquitos, 30 minutes later and we were done. Our guide prided in showing us the Iron house, designed by the same dude that designed the Eiffel Tower, as well as many other beautiful colonial buildings. However our attentions were on the Amazon and we wanted to get out on the water as soon as possible.
With the
city tour over, we got a tuk-tuk each and again found myself back in the Mario cart zone. Rappido, rappido, we were the first to the dock. I couldn´t help it, on the frenzied streets of the tropics the blood runs a little hotter. Our guide extended our city tour to the water and we did a quick trip around the floating houses, nearly all of them had at most 2 walls and no fly screens to keep the mozzies out. Our guide then took us to the Amazon and saw where the black water of the tributary that runs past Iquitos met the brown colour of the mighty Amazon. It was a really cool distinct line between the two. I don´t think the photo´s did it justice at all. Then Vamos! To Cumaceba Lodge and our Amazonian adventure.
We arrived to a downpour so we ran to the sheltered walk bridge and marveled at the sounds and smells of our new environment. When we reached the end of the bridge we were greeted by a colony of Oropendolas , a beautiful bird with yellow on the underside of it´s tail and a call that sounds like a drop
of water hitting the surface of a pond. The name comes from the pendulum type nest they make from the branch of a tree. Due to the weather we missed our initial tour of the grounds. No matter, while every one else was getting comfortable Coley and I threw our gumboots on and went exploring. On our little expedition Nicole spotted what looked like a snail in the water, but that was impossible, he was as big as an orange. We jumped in and investigated. The snail was massive, look at the photo´s, we were so blown away, all I can say is i´m glad he´s not interested in my vege garden cause he would have eaten the lot in an hour. Our guide, Louis, told us he was called a Giant Apple Snail. We also met the extra special resident of the lodge, Pancho the green parrot. He was super friendly and always up for a chitty chat or to share your piece of fruit.. or even your coffee.
Lunch was fish caught in the Amazon, so fresh even Coley had some. With fat bellies we made our way out to the boats to the monkey island which
is an island dedicated to animals, especially monkeys, in need of refuge. There were so many monkeys there, Woolly monkeys, yellow-bellied spider monkey, tamarind monkeys and many more that I forget the names of. The woolly monkeys were the friendliest, I even found one that liked me so much that it decided to sit on my head for the better part of an hour and search for cooties, must have been a good little feast up there. A quick game of soccer with the kids and we were on our way back to base.
Dinner and tunes by our favorite entertainer Oscar rounded out the evening. Oscar would serve food at most meals, and then get out his guitar and bang out tunes for the whole meal.. he had an amazing voice and a fabulous sense of humour. Oscar would become our daily entertainment at meal times. After dinner our guide Louis came saw us and informed us all we were going Caiman spotting on the lagoon. I had been looking forward to this moment the whole trip, I had even been practicing my crikey´s all day. My enthusiasm shone out as I was at the meeting spot first
with a huge smile on my face. Coley was a bit less enthusiastic; Louis had told us to put on covering clothes and lots of repellant. It was night time and the mozies were out in force and to add to the fun, the water was the blackest of black... don't wanna fall out in that! The boat we jumped in was 5 meters long and carved out of a single piece of wood, it was amazing. Armed with our torches we set off, to spot the caiman you have to spot the reflection of the torch in there eyes. We spotted many Caiman but didn´t get a hold of one unfortunately, closest we got was about a meter away before it ducked it´s head under. However while we were out in the boat the frogs were amazing. It was as if every frog was it´s own instrument and a symphony was being performed for us, I have never heard anything like it in my life. In all of the reeds we could even see hundreds on tiny spiders sitting in their webs. Our first day in the Amazon and we already knew we were going to get our moneys
worth. Sleep took us in seconds, can´t wait to see what the second day has in store.
We awoke the next day at the ripe old hour of 5.30am, Coley was thrilled. Louis had us back out on the canoe to go bird watching before brekkie, dawn was apparently the best time for good spotting. We were even up early enough to see some Hoatzin birds, which were colourful and massive. The Hoatzin bird is considered a relic from prehistoric times because it is born with a claw on the kink in it's wings. We also saw some Victoria Lilypads, massive things that can grow to 6 feet across. We saw loads of other birds, Greater Annies, Crimson Tanager, Greater Kiskadee, Jacamar.. too many to mention! Dawn was a magical time to be on the lagoon.
After breakfast we all jumped into the speedboat and headed up the river for an hour to a village with a fish farm. This farm was special because it was fighting to save the world's largest freshwater fish, the paiche. Our guide for the day, Francisco, picked up some bait fish from the owner of the farm. We each had a thin
frond from the palm tree and went 'fishing' for the world's largest freshwater fish. Francisco explained that the fish ate by sucking in with great force and gulping in the food. So he tapped the water with his fish and 7 of the gigantic fish appeared, each about 1.5 metres long and about 30cm round. Their faces were a cross between a normal fish face and that of a circus clown. Their mouths opened up to the size of a small basketball as they worked as a massive vacuum to consume the fish. One of the fish made such a fuss splashing in the water, Coley got soaked. We then headed off to feed some juvenile and mature caimans, much to my dismay though, no Steve Irwin tackles were allowed 😞. The big caiman were keen on getting close to the fence to get their food aggressively. The small caiman hid in the water with their little eyes peeking out til the food was on the ground and then scrapped over it. After the fish farm we headed back to the dock where Francisco bought a local, traditional drink and shared it around. It tasted like dirty dishwater mixed with
freaky fruit
apparently it tastes like crap but you can use the shells to make bowls and stuffpotato juice. After everybody sampled it, Francisco told us it was a local drink made from manioc. What he revelled in telling us though, was how it is made. Turns out the local women chew the manioc and spit it out into a bowl, Francisco then fought back a case of the giggles as he informed us that the women with decaying teeth are the best for this job because of the flavour it adds to the drink.. he even told us that sometimes you’re lucky enough to get a bit of that decay in your drink.. mmm yummo.. thanks a lot Francisco!
For lunch we had more delicious Amazonian fish and then were told we were heading to another animal refuge. Coley was brimming with excitement because we were told we would be seeing a 3 toed sloth..yay! We arrived at the refuge to the screeches of excitement from the resident woolly monkeys. The refuge had monkeys of all sorts of species, coati’s, toucans, anaconda, boa, snapping turtles and a 3 toed sloth called Ramon.. cool. The poor, weird little dude was passed around like a newborn at a grandmother convention and he didn’t really want to have a
bar of it, however, he was too slow to do anything about it so he just squirmed around ever so slow until he was finally unhanded and plonked back on his tree. Actually we were quite surprised at how strong he was, he had a firm grip! At this point, the dog and one of the woolly monkeys busted out in the best inter-species wrestling match we’ve ever seen. Our guides told us this happens all the time since they live together at the refuge. We then met the anaconda, the owner jumped into a muddy pool of water and came out brandishing a big snake. Coley took a quick step back while I had it draped over my shoulders for a cuddle. He then showed us the snapping turtle that shared a pool with the anaconda, scary little dudes! They look like little prehistoric transformers in super armour! We then sat down for a little lesson on local plant remedies, we ended up buying one called ‘dragon’s blood’, which is made from a plant sap and is supposed to be good for stomach upsets which was becoming a fact of life of late!
We headed back, exhausted from
a long day and looking forward to an early night. But Louis wouldn’t allow that and took us all out on a night time jungle walk. We bravely set out in our gumboots, with trousers tucked into them and long sleeves with hoods over our heads to ward off the super-duper mutant mosquitos are always, always hungry (especially for Coley blood, especially). So with torches in hand and Louis in front with the machete, we headed in. On our little adventure we encountered a massive bullet ant which was about 2cm long and looked scary as. We asked Louis if they are dangerous and he said “oh yes, one bite is fine but many bites you will die”.. crazy! We also found a giant amazonian bullfrog, which was the size of a small football. Unfortunately the other wildlife we encountered were only mosquitoes and the landscape quickly turned to knee deep mud and Coley was freaking out thinking a snake was going to hang down from a tree and eat her alive or something. We were plastered with our hard core 80% deet repellant and full-length clothes, so the mozzies just went around that. Next morning, Coley was covered in
bites.. on all the bits that were clothed the night before! It seems that repellant is required over your whole body, even under your clothes.
Coley´s lack of blood that morning meant that the 3rd day started with much less enthusiasm than the previous 2. Lessened even further by the news that we needed to put back on our long sleeves and long pants because we were jungle trekking again. We put repellant on Coley´s whole body this time.. hahah mosquitoes.. we can beat you! Our mission was to trek for 1.5 hours to a village apparently still living in the Amazonian indigenous manner. We started our trail in the same way as the night before. I could see that Cole was none to pleased about that, but fortunately we veered off before the mud and mosquito area. Along the way we learnt a few survival tricks as well as learning about the different farming techniques the locals used. Of course also we managed some bird watching along the way, we even spotted a couple of toucans. We stopped off to see the largest old growth tree in the area. It was a massive fig, I was blown away
by the fact that this thing had it´s own eco-system and everything. It had it´s own colonies of bats and bees and a massive net of spiderwebs, also 100´s of epiphyte plants.. awesome! 20 minutes later we arrived at the village, we were greeted by men in straw skirts and head dresses with their topless women with red skirts and babies! We were shown 3 different ´traditional´dances and then got to use the blowgun, Coley put in a better performance than me! She didn´t get the target but got way closer than mine. After all the dances we were guilt-tripped into buying some of their handicrafts. Most of their stuff was made out of feathers, plant material and seeds etc. Like Australian customs lets shit like that through the airport! Aside from that issue, we didn´t want any of it anyway. We both had a hard time with this Amazonian experience, it felt as if their whole culture was for sale. We felt like horrible western tourists making the natives dance for our enjoyment. It was very sad and we wanted nothing more than to get out of there, but the other people in our group obviously didn´t care at
all as they were happily buying their stuff and letting the chief bludge cigarettes off them... awful! We finally escaped and headed back to the lodge for lunch.
Our afternoon activity was another adventure out on the black lagoon, we were going to venture into the flooded part of the jungle and paddle through the trees, which are on dry ground when it´s not wet season like it is now. I was very excited, the main thing I wanted to do in the Amazon was to get in a canoe and paddle amongst the trees. We had to be careful though as there were lots of palms sticking out of the water with 2 inch spikes on it´s truck and it´s fronds as well as ants nests and various spiders on almost every big tree we passed. But as always in the Amazon, besides the threat to life and limb, it was awesome. The guides threw me an oar so I could help paddle the bigger boat. The water was so glassy and beautiful, with water lettuce floating everywhere. We took a while to navigate through the trees as the path was only just wide enough to accommodate the
boat. When obstacles got in the way, Louis just smashed them up with his machete and we continued on. We finally came out of the trees to a larger branch of the river, we turned right and headed on. It was so picturesque with all the water lettuce just floating along with the current. We passed many shack houses and a couple of villages and of course spotted many species of monkeys and birds. It started to get dark so we headed back quickly, we were at least an hour away from home. It was black and we had our torches out by the time we got back to our turnoff into the trees, no idea how our guides knew where it was. On the way back through the trees we had a great time making up stories about imaginary giant anacondas coming to get us. We finished our trip with a group rendition of the Beatles 'yellow submarine'.
After dinner the guides had no plans for us so we just had a few beers, hung out with Pancho and did some tarantula spotting. It wasn´t hard to find the buggers, they were everywhere! The biggest was about the
size of my hand with legs almost as thick as my fingers. Day 4 and we were heading out piranha fishing.. yes! The fishing spot wasn´t too far away from our lodge. We pulled up and each got a sophisticated fishing rod.. a stick of bamboo with a line and a tiny hook on it, attached with steel wire so the piranha didn´t bite through it. Put a small piece of steak on the hook and we were all fishing for piranha. We got bites in seconds and proud as punch as I pulled up the first fish. I was so stoked, he was only about 3 inches long but his teeth were awesome. Now, all I had to do was remove the hook.. hmmm.. actually it was really easy because the fish were small and easy to handle.. just mind those nasty teeth! Almost everybody caught some fish, Coley however missed out, she didn´t seem worried though, I don´t think she wanted to get too close to those teeth. We saw some pink dolphins surfacing on the way back, the locals call them ´buffaeo´ because of the sound they make when they surface. Most of us were prepared for
swimming, so we quickly jumped in the water to try and swim with the dolphins. The dolphins however, swam away and we ended up swimming by ourselves in the brown water that you couldn´t see in at all. The water was lovely though and we felt awesome to be paddling around in the legendary river.
After lunch we reached for our gumboots yet again and headed for another jungle trek. We rode our speedboat back to the animal refuge to head off to a village from there. Coley quickly spotted her mate Ramon the sloth and insisted on another cuddle. Then we spotted a new little squirrel monkey that we hadn´t seen the other day. It was tiny, only about 25cm tall and the cutest thing in the world. It took a while for Louis to drag us away from there. We learnt about other plants and farming techniques. Louis taught us how to make a cute sunhat out of a leaf and which leaf to use as toilet paper! Our trek took us to a working Amazon village. This differed from the so-called indigenous village, these people were a real amazonian community in the modern world. They had
their own little town there, complete with kindy, primary and secondary schools, small shops and many shack houses. Some even had tiny little solar panels. I ran off with some of the kids to kick the ball around. I took my boots off so that I could run easier, 15 minutes later Coley calls after me Aaron, Aaron come get your boots on¨. Turns out there is a small fly in the grass that would think my soft white feet are a great place to lay it´s eggs as the guide told us, so I quickly put my boots back on.
That night while we were eating dinner, Coley was introduced to more of the insect species of the amazon. A cockroach 10cm long flew into the dining room and landed right on her head! Her and the other girl at the table screamed and quickly jumped up from their seats while me and the other guy laughed hysterically. This thing was massive, while all this was happening, Oscar plucked his guitar and started singing ´la cockaracha la cockaracha´, shit it was funny. After that event the girls were laughing, albeit with a slight anxiousness and making sure they
kept their feet off the floor.
Our final day we got to choose an activity. We were supposed to be camping in the jungle, but the water is too high in wet season so we couldn´t do that.. also Coley didn´t want to donate more blood so that plan was off. We chose to go canoeing again up the lagoon. We saw even more wildlife this time and I went swimming in the amazon fo the 3rd time. We said goodbye to our amazonian friends and headed back for Iquitos and civilisation. Tomorrow we say goodbye to South America and board a plane for Mexico City.... Ole!
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