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Published: January 27th 2015
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We managed to see the pink dolphins! In the morning during our stay in villa Bella, we went on a boat ride on the river at the Amazon Basin and saw many, although not being as sociable as the normal kind of dolphin, getting glimpse of them,and having enough time to photo them. Even more exciting, we saw the giant river otters! Our guide mentioned to us that they can apparently grow up to 2meters in height! Other animals we saw included more howler monkeys, a marmoset and Macaws. For lunch, we went further downstream, to visit an indigenous family, and there we had lunch. I have found the Brazilian people to be especially friendly and made an effort to communicate with us, despite the language gap which we failed to fill after jumping from Spanish to portugese.That afternoon, we went to the most amazing waterfall on the trip,which involved crossing the river several times on foot. Unfortunately for me, one of my haviannas decided it was time to be liberated, and quite early on in the walk,so I had to brave the insects of the forest and do the trip half barefoot. This was nothing compared to what was coming
up later in the trip, so it was actually good conditioning for me.That evening, we had the most amazing barbeque of beef and pork, and had our first taste of barbequed cheese. I think this will be a love that will last a lifetime.
The next few days, consisted of long drives, and bush camps. Fortunately for us, we managed to land in good spots, and toilets were available, unlike the first few bush camps. We were even more so lucky, to make such good time, we managed to get two days ahead of schedule.This meant we could stay two days in Rio Brancho, as area not commonly gone to by tourists. The capital of the state, is was more of a town than a city, and we had a chance to delight in the food,beverage and sweets (crepes and icecream) that were here on offer. However, as we had arrived early, one night was due to be my cookgroups day to cook. As there are only two cook groups, we actually cooked fairly often,but on this occasion I played head chef and we made chicken curry and dhal curry for 12 people in an outdoor setting
(and in the pouring rain). As I was unable to find ingredients which I know my mum uses, I had to make do with alternates, but surprisingly it went down quite well. (Quite proud of this, as you can see!) The next day, we headed to our planned stop, xapuri. A normally quiet town, just shy of the peruvian-brazil border. We happened to arrive on the day of a religous festival,so the town was very much alive, with market stalls set up in the main square.
The following day, we were supposed to cross the border. The only issue, was that due to problems in the documentation system in Peru, whilst we all cleared customs,the truck was not recognized and therefore not allowed through. This resulted in us too being stuck in no-mans land for 28 he's, before it was realized that the truck was not getting through anytime soon, and with a booking at an Amazonian lodge the next day, we left the truck and driver behind, and took a minivan to Puerto Maldonado, the gate way to the Amazon.We stayed at an amazing lodge here, which were wooden bungalows surrounded by trees inhabited
with monkeys. Pretty awesome.Unfortunately an insect had got into our room, and was rustling a plastic bag, and fearful it was a tarantula or snake (the lodge was called anaconda lodge), I kept both myself and Ross up during the night,by relaying to him my fears but not letting him investigate to absolve them.
Next, was our four day stay in the amazon lodge. To get there, we took a minibus out of the city, then a boat 45 minutes downstream. The lodge itself was beautiful; it had an open plan throughout the building, with the rooms and bathrooms opening out to the jungle. If you were OK with giant bugs flitting through your room (trust me, you do get a bit desensitized to it), you would love it.Even better, if you lay in your hammock by the window, you could sometimes see the monkeys playing outside. The lodge prides itself on its ecotourism ethos, so in addition to providing us with products which don't harm the environment,they gave us lectures to educate us also. It was very impressive. Our days there consisted of early starts (5am) to go in search of various animals, boat
trips, visits to a medicinal garden and night walks. My favorite,by far, was an optional excurison when we went on a rainforest expedition, off the trails to see some humongous trees. The walk consisted of wading through ankle deep mud (its currently wet season) and thigh-high, anaconda infested(i'd like to think) waters.I felt truly hardcore. During our time there, although we weren't able to see anything considered big (pumas, anacondas etc), we did see more macaws, a harpys eagle, various types of monkeys including Capuchin, spider,moustache and more howlers, several birds( I can't remember their names so I bought a poster with pictures of them on),Caipabera, wild boars and several species of frog (including a poison dart frog). I was very sad to leave.Luckily,the day before we left, the truck was finally from the border, and we were able to rejoin her to complete our journey
The last two days consisted of driving to Cusco (where this tour ends), spending the night in Quince Mil, a town 300km away. Arriving at Cusco ends our overlanding experience, and we look towards seeing machu Picchu together and arriving at Quito before our Galapagos adventure.
Until next time!xxx
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