Blogs from Amazon Rainforest, Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru, South America - page 8

"There are 200 species of snake in our jungle, 4 of them are deadly. We don´t stock any anti venom in our lodge and if you are bitten by a bushmaster you have 4 hours to get it administered. I have to warn you now, that you won´t get it in time and you will most probably die." You gotta love these introductionary pep talks! Nothing like putting the mind at rest. Yes, we are in the jungle baby, and as Axl Rose once howled "we´re gonna die!" OK so melodramatics over, there is actually no (known) history of anyone being killed by a deadly snake in this part of the forest, so we were in relatively safe hands. This part of the adventure finds us in the Tambopata Reserve in the Peruvian section of the ... read more

It seems like yesterday that I was in the Huancayo bus station with the family and volunteers cheering "Karencita! Karencita! Karencita!" as I got onto the bus to begin my next adventure. Now I am in Cuzco, returning from the remote Amazon Basin (no electricity, no internet, no phone). In fact, I did not know about the terrible earthquake, south of Lima, until Thursday. It is a tragic event. All the major tv stations are airing live, with family members begging for their loved ones. I have only spoken to a few travelers about the earthquake. One said he was 20 miles south of Lima and was in a bus, in a parking lot when it started. They ran out of the bus, just in time, because all of the windows burst. Travelers could feel it ... read more

A 4am wake up call, followed by an announcement that the winds from Patagonia in Argentina had blown in overnight, so the original schedule had to be put back 3 hours. Eventually we got to go downriver to an oxbow lake just off the Rio Tambopata. On the lake we spotted numerous birds and a caiman. But we were out of luck when we took up piranha fishing! Just before lunch, we took a hike through the jungle to a clay lick where evidently Macaws come to feed on a regular basis, unfortunately we were out of luck again! However, after lunch we had a trip downriver to a Medical Centre. This was no ordinary Centre though! We were introduced to a Shaman dressed in a hand-made bark costume. Through an interpreter we were introduced to ... read more

The next day is another 5am wakeup call. It gets easier every time. Alli sleeps in for this one, but Michael, Tricia and I head out after an early breakfast. The day before, we had fitted ourselves with wellington boots, knee high rubber boots, to wear into the jungle. It was quite a comedy trying to find a matching pair that fits. The reason for the boots is that, after a 45 minute peke-peke ride to the dock, there is an hour and a half hike to Lake Sandoval along a muddy trail. Sometimes the mud reaches up to mid-calf, or depending on your height, to your knees. At first, it seemed quite fun to step into the sticky mud. But after a while, we started to look for the dry paths around or above the ... read more

We have just returned (filthy and stinking to high heaven) to Puerto Maldonado after nearly 2 weeks in deepest darkest Peru looking for Paddington. We didn't find Paddington but we did find a baby capybara, a crazy spix's guan and more cockroaches than we ever hope to see again in one place! Picaflor is a research centre on the banks of the Tambopata river in the Amazon Basin. As a research centre and a family home Picaflor is trying to create a model for sustainable living in the rainforest with the hope that local farmers and landowners will follow in there footsteps. The centre doesn't have much to do with biological research at the moment as some illegal loggers have moved into their conservation area and they're currently fighting a legal battle to keep the ... read more