The Amazon Jungle


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Published: July 27th 2008
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We flew from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado in the Amazonnjungle this morning. It was the shortest flight ive been on, litterally as soon as we were in the air we began ourt decent! The temperature was so different, its been really nice weather the whole time in Peru so far but this was the hottest. It was really humid too which made it worse.

We were given another duffle bag each wich I crammed full of stuff (we had no weight limit this time unlike on the inca trail!) including loads of insect repellent and sun cream! After that we got a bus to the Tambopata river where we picked up a boat to the lodge. The boat was really cool, totally open to the elements and it went really fast too! The guides had prepared a lunch for us all so just as we were tucking in Ann turned her head a bit too quickly and her sunglasses fell in the river! I was just in time to take a picture of her looking slightly gutted!! The driver tried to stop for her to get them but it was too late, they had sunk!

The guides were on the look out for animals on the way to the lodge, we managed to spot Macaws feeding on the clay cliffs (they need to do that so they neutralise the toxins from the seeds and fruits they eat), turtles, vultures, cayman, and the biggest rodent whos name i can't pronounce let alone spell!!

The jungle lodge was really nice, it was right in the middle of the jungle, and there were so many different jungle noises, it was very surreal! The bungalows we stayed in were really modern and no where near as animal infested as I expected them to be. All the beds had a mosquito net and the windows were all just netting. They were a bit weird though as there was no ceiling so you could hear everything from the rooms next door!

In the evening we were educated by a slide show about the jungle inhabitants and after dinner we went on a night walk with the guides to spot insects and other crawling things. It was pretty scary at first as we had to take torches to see where we were going, I was a bit afraid of walking into a big spiders web or something but luckily that didnt happen! We saw loads of frogs, butterflys, spiders, stick insects and ants. The leaf cutter ants were really cute all walking along in a line carrying leaves! I wasnt so convinced by the bullet ants as one bite from then can give you a fever for 24hrs! We finished the walk around a walking palm tree (what the Ents from LOTR were based on) and turned off our torches. Ann and I were convinced something was going to jump out of the dark but it turns out we were just listening to the sounds of the jungle. It was really weird, one of the birds sounded like dripping water but it was so load it didnt seem real. I was a bit concerned it would keep me awake!


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