The Amazon Jungle - Tambopata reserve

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Thursday October 5th - The Jungle.

Yesterday was spent relaxing in Cuzco, resting from the Inca Trail, repacking for the jungle and having a nice meal as a group at the Inca Grill. The food in Peru has been nothing short of spectacular. A wide choice, very tasty and ridiculously cheap. After the meal, Big Tony and me hit the local night club, full of young Peruvians salsa dancing. It was a great little place.

Friday was an early start after a long night of yet more noisy neighbours. Once again, I had to get my clothes on and knock on next doors door to ask them to quieten down, which they did for about ten minutes. The second time I had to go I asked them to take their private party downstairs to the bar instead - thankfully, they obliged.

We left Cuzco airport on the 10am flight to Puerto Maldonado - a frontier town deep in the jungle. It was only a 25 minute flight, on an old 737. The scenery was superb as we flew over the high Andes, seemingly at the same altitude as many of the peaks that surrounded us - then suddenly, the ground disappeared as the mountains finished. A short while later you could see the endless canopy of the jungle way below.

Puerto Maldonado airport is basically one large shed with one runway, we stepped off the plane into 40 degree heat and 90% humidity - a massive difference from the cool, thin air of the Andes. We boarded the bus which took us to the GAP office where we could store our luggage, taking only what we needed with us for for the jungle stay.

Puerto Maldonado is a frontier town, deep in the jungle. There are very few tarmac roads, most being dirt tracks. The houses and buildings are simple concrete affairs, and most people get around by motorcycle taxi. We left the offices for a one hour bus ride down a dirt road through the jungle to our boat pickup.

We boarded our motorised canoe, a wide shallow boat with a canopy over. We had a two hour ride up the Tambopata river to our lodges at the Tambopata reserve. You can only reach the reserve by river as there are no roads into the jungle there. The ride was excellent and our guide was on constant lookout for animals in the jungle as we hurtled up river. We saw vultures, macaws, side-neck turtles and we were lucky enough to see a small group of red howler monkeys.

Canoeing up the wide river, flanked by jungle, was everything you would imagine it to be - hot, humid and exciting.

We arrived at the lodge in the Tambopata-Madidi region early afternoon. We are close to the Bolivian border here. The lodges are great, there is a bar and dining lodge and several ‘bungalows’ which are basically small semi-detached wooden houses. Each has a hammock outside. There were no activities planned for the afternoon, so we had until 6:30 to relax and snooze on the hammocks. We are deep in the jungle here and the noises are amazing, birds, frogs and insects providing a constant chorus.

6:30 was a brief slideshow to show what we might expect to see in the jungle, then we went for a one hour hike in the pitch black. We saw lots of different spiders, insects a possum and a huge jungle rat and were lucky enough to see an emerald tree python curled up high in a tree. At one point we all tuned off our flashlights. The pitch darkness is unreal, and the jungle noises deafening.

We headed back for dinner, which again was superb. There is no electricity at the reserve, so dinner was by candlelight. The pathways around the reserve are lit intermittently with oil lanterns and the bar and lodges themselves are lit by candles. After a few beers in the bar it was off for a nice cold shower and an early night as it’s another early start in the morning. Once you blow your candles out, the darkness is all encompassing - it is absolutely pitch black in the jungle, and the noises at night are awesome, seemingly becoming amplified by the dark. The lodges have no glass in the windows, only nets - so you feel like you are out in the middle of the jungle.

Saturday was a 5:30 am wake up call, a hearty breakfast , then 15 minutes boat ride up river to the start of this morning trek to an oxbow lake. Once every fourty or so years, Amazon rivers change routes. They leave behind bodies of water called oxbow lakes, which provide habitats for very specific species. Over 20 - 30 years the lakes are gradually reclaimed by the jungle. During the trek to the lake we saw many large and brightly coloured butterflies, some as big as birds. We also saw the three largest trees in the Amazon - the ironwood tree, the strangler fig and the elephant tree. The strangler fig is amazing, it’s seed lodges in the very top of a host tree and it grows vines downward, using the host tree as a support structure. Eventually the fig grows enormous, and the host tree dies from lack of light and nutrients as the fig tree takes all the water. Once the host tree has died, termites move in and eat the dead wood. This can take up to 80 years. We found a fig tree where the host tree had completely gone, you could walk inside the giant fig tree and see right the way up to the top as it was completely hollow where the original tree used to be. Strangler figs are not fussy which tree they use as a host, so consequently you can get some huge strangler figs.

Once we arrived at the lake we piled into a long boat and drifted around on the calm surface. We saw a family of bats asleep on some driftwood, macaws, kingfishers and many other birds and butterflies. The lake was home to piranha fish as well as freshwater sardines and many different types of tetras and angel fish. We fed them crackers to bring them to the surface, It was pretty cool seeing the fish you keep in your tropical tank at home out in the wild.

We left the long boat and headed back to the river, on the way our guide spotted a tarantula burrow. She took a long stick with a frayed leaf at the end and used it to bait the tarantula out. That thing was awesome - bigger than my hand and was a black, ‘bird eating’ tarantula. On the way back down river we saw another red howler monkey - this time on the river bank.

Back to the lodge for a great lunch, then the afternoon was ours to laze in the hammocks once again.

7pm we headed back out on the motor canoe on the river, in the pitch black, to go caiman spotting. Caiman are small alligators. The pilot was at the very back of the boat and the guide was at the front with a spot light, looking for the reflection of the caimans’ eyes as she scanned the river banks. Now and again she would shut the light off for a bit. The pilot must have had night vision goggles as it was pitch black, yet we were ploughing full speed down the river, it was a surreal feeling - being on the river, in the middle of the jungle, feeling the speed and spray across your face but not being able to see a thing. Over the course of an hour, we saw about six different caiman. Each time, the boat slowing and pulling as close as possible for a good look. About an hour up river the pilot shut the engine off and we drifted in the dark, listening to the sounds of the jungle. Suddenly, above the general melee of jungle noises came this deep sinister laugh, very loud and rolling out from deep in the jungle somewhere. We thought it was some sort of large monkey, but our guide informed us it was actually a bamboo rat!

It was back to the lodge for dinner and a few beers, and to polish off the bottle of whisky Big T smuggled in.

They are currently outfitting the lodges with electric lighting, but it will be a real shame as it will lose a lot of the charm that makes it feel so special after dark.

It was another 5:30am start on Sunday as we had to get the first flight of the day out of the jungle. On the boat ride down river we saw bamboo rats and capybara, ( the world’s largest rodents ) - they look like small fury hippos.

We made it to the airstrip for our flight out. Security at Puerto Maldonado airport consisting of a guy manually shoving your bag through a bag scanner that was switched off, before asking you to show him your socks if he thought you looked a bit dubious??? We even managed to walk out of the departure gate and wander round the tarmac when we needed fresh air. This time we were going all the way back to Lima, but via Cuzco. I have never been to an airport where the plane has to taxi down the runway to one end, then turn 180 degrees on the spot before hurtling back down the other way for take-off before. The flight to Cuzco was 30 minutes, then we had to stay on the plane whilst they picked up more passengers, then on for the one hour flight to Lima. The first part of the flight was fine, but we flew over a couple of huge storms and it got very bumpy - violently so in fact, the whole plane shaking, banging and shuddering. Most people were a little worried, especially as it was Aero Condor and South American airlines don’t have the best safety records in the world.

We had our last group dinner together in Miraflores, the district of Lima that our hotel was in. A few of us ended up in the casino until the early hours on the Blackjack table. We lost about $20 US each, but for that we had played for almost four hours and had free lager and whisky the whole while - so we actually ended up way on top!

Monday was a nice long lie in to recover from the Blackjack, Emma and I had an explore down to Miraflores sea-front - a cold, harsh looking sea backed by high sandy cliffs. The shopping and eating areas are much nicer here than in Lima, but the air quality is just as bad. You never get to see the sun in Lima, even when there are no clouds - the smog is atrocious. We went back to the hotel to pack and get ready for the flight out of Lima at just after midnight. We tried to catch the rest of the group who were all leaving that night, but just missed some of them, and others with later flights were still out. We took a cab to the airport and managed to find everyone elses flights. We had just enough time to catch others at their various gates to say goodbye. We were so lucky to end up with such a good group of people, it really made a great holiday into a fantastic one.

We left Lima at 00:40 for the 8 hour flight to LA on a LAN Peru 767. The plane was almost new, we had tons of leg room and the flight was so smooth you barley knew you were even moving. We slept well for most of the flight and landed in LA around 7am local time.

The jungle was a fantastic experience, and one we would both love to do again - but for a longer period of time. The whole GAP trip has been amazing, and we can’t recommend it enough. We never thought in a million years that we could ever go hiking in the Andes, see one of the wonders of the world at Machu Pichu and then go deep into the Amazon jungle, yet we have done it - and it was awesome.

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Photos

Puerto Maldonado
One of the main roads!

Avon Calling....
Hey, even in frontier jungle towns a girl has to look her best.

Comments

[Yuri]

wow
Sounds like you guys had a great time in jungle. But, I don't think it is for me. I would faint at a sight of trantura, and would have a heart atack on a bumpy airplaine ride! What is a bamboo rat anyway? I assume they are pretty big, for making a big noise.

[Tony Emma]

You'd love it.
It was awsome - you would love it once there. We saw a bamboo rat behind our lodge, it was the size of a medium sized dog!