Blogs from Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru, South America - page 15

We finally arrived in the quintessential South American country of Peru on 11 July 06, a day ahead of schedule. We had decided against traveling through Bolivia due to time constraints and the fact that we wanted to stay longer in Argentina. Peru is a country which once played host to the fabulous Inca empire, the last of the complex pre-Columbian civilizations. We arrived in its Capital Cuzco to begin the next leg of our adventure. The city, at 3325m, is nestled amongst the beautiful Andes and is surrounded by some of the continent's most stunning archeological sites. We will come back to Cuzco and the few days that we spent exploring the charming colonial back streets and plaza, and our Inca ruin crawl to Tambomachay and Sacsaywaman (sexy woman) in our next blog. Before we ... read more

June 30, 2006 Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios River, Amazon Basin The place we stayed in the Rainforest was freaking unbelievable. I know I know I keep using all these crazy descriptions but seriously. It was like being at Club med in the jungle or something. Check out www.inkaterra.com and go to reserve amazonica to see what I´m talking about. We went into the canopy and on a boat tour at night, we went to a lake and on a jungle walk at night. We saw a lot of caimans and spiders and giant rodents (I tried to get a photo for Justine to send to cuteoverload but alas I was not successful). I was sad to leave but only because it was the most relaxing thing we´ve done so far and involved a lot of ... read more

Hi everyone, We´ve just returned from 4 days, 3 nights in the Amazon rainforest! We had a great time and have a ton of pictures, but not our photo uploader! We´ll get them up ASAP though once we have it. We arrived in Puerto Maldonado on Saturday the 24th and were met at the airport by heat, humidity (which felt wonderful) and a friendly taxi driver named Juber. After finding a hotel for us, Huber set us up with a guide who would take us into the jungle. He did a good job of recommending us to Victor, who was actually recommended by the guidebook for Peru too. After hanging out with Juber and some of his friends and sampling plenty of the local beer, Cusqueña, we rested up one last night before heading out in ... read more

As Rod saw it, we were practically obliged to go to the Jungle on the basis that “we’re never going to get to go to the Amazon basin again”. That was true, but I wasn’t convinced that it was a good enough reason to put myself at the mercy of tarantulas, anacondas, snakes, piranhas and…..well, you get the idea. Eventually, though, we agreed to a 3 day trip to a Jungle Lodge in the Tambopata Reserve. Day 1. After a half hour flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonaldo we met our group while we waited for our Guide. Jenny, Shane and Kev were all from Melbourne, Australia and on various South American itineraries and they’d met Hannah (from Worcester) on the Inca Trail…another good group! Our guide was Sonia, a 23 year old training to be ... read more

Hey everyone, we hope you´re all well and enjoying our regular updates. Here´s the latest from Peru....... Day 50 of 180 and we arrived in Puerto Maldonaldo, the gateway to the Amazon Rainforest!!! Arriving at our lodgings we were pleasantly surprised - porchside hammocks, warm showers and mosquitos nets protecting us from the ever increasing termite nest and solitary cockraoch..... Anyway, to the jungle itself. There were many fascinating walks and long-boat rides throughout the 3 days that took us to within touching distance of birds (particularly parrots), butterflies, caymans, piranhas and lizards, but the highlight was watching hundreds of monkeys swinging from tree to tree a la Tarzan!! A real ´getting back to nature´experience with more David Attenborough moments.... After arriving back in Cusco we headed onto Arequipa, the stop-off town for the Colca canyon ... read more