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Published: October 20th 2008
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So we decided to brave it. We are going to overcome our fears of spiders, snakes and other kind of creepy bugs and venture into the amazon basin in the hope of seeing some monkeys.
We decided a tour into the Manu national park was the best place for us to get into the jungle, and again our tour was a bright and early 4am start. The first day we travelled up to San Juan where our first eco-lodge was based. On the way we saw peru's famous national bird "the cock of the rock" - these are bright red bird, the males of which were out trying to attract a mate by singing loudly. Was pretty impressive stuff.
On walk back to the lodge were loads of butterflys and a few bugs. But where oh where are the elusive monkeys??
In the morning we were woken by our guide saying monkeys had been spotted close by, so we scrambled out of bed quickly at 6am and walked down, only to be met with dissapointment as the monkeys had all run away 😞 After breakfast we took a walk and then arrived at the Madre de Dios river
(which leads to the amazon) where we did a bit of white water rafting, the rapids were easy enough for us in our boat, but the other raft ended up stuck ontop of a rock and then without a guide in the boat they crashed against the side of the riverbank. All quite fun for us to watch!
After the excitement of rafting we took a long thin motorboat to our next lodge (as there were no roads there), called erika lodge. The motor boat got stuck on the rocks during the journey and all the boys in the boat had to get out and push it through th shallow water - lucky we were still all in our wet rafting clothes!
Erika lodge was a nice place to stay, we relaxed for a bit, played some backgammon when the guide gave us the good news that he had seen some monkeys nearby - we rushed over and finally saw some - 3 of them, i think a mum, dad and baby. Yay! Finally!!
After dinner and after dark we donned our head torches and wellies to head out for a night walk. This was pretty creepy
knowing there were bugs all around but they we couldnt see them all. Scary scary walk. We saw massive spiders, snakes, weird furry spiky caterpillars, fire ants, and all kinds of horrible things. At one point we had to cross a potentially caymen filled river on a slippery log in the dark - amazingly no one fell in, thank god it wasnt raining!
The next morning was another early start to see the parrot lick where loads of parrots go to eat clay off the cliff edge (apparently clay is good for their bellies). Well, this was supposed to be exciting stuff, we'd heard all about it, it wa touted by all the tour companies. Hmmmmm, well, we sat very sleepily on a bench waiting to see this amazing site and...... nothing. Couldnt see anything even with our binoculars. The guide had a telescope through which you could make out a few small green moving things. Apparently these are the parrots (but they could have been leaves from what we saw!) Anyway, we did see a big eagle so that was pretty good...
More adrenline stuff today after breakfast we did a canopy tour where we zipped from
one platform (40m to 25m high) to another above the canopy in the jungle. This was a lot of fun (see videos) and scared-of-heights-san had fun until the absailing down off the last platform to the ground which was pretty scary! All good and speedy fun though! (And we saw more monkeys on the way - yay!)
In the afternoon we took our motorboat across the river to see the wildlife. We hiked through the jungle and saw lots of birds including a very noisy woodpecker. We arrived at a laguna where we could get on raft (made of 4 logs tied together) and sneak around the lagoon looking for more wildlife. We saw loads more different birds, but then disaster struck - the skies opened up without warning and it was raining hard. And we were in the middle of the laguna with no shelter. We paddled to the nearest bit of land with any shelter and although already wet we decided to try and get out of the downpour. After about 10 mins we realised that there was no hope of the rain stopping so unless we wanted to be stuck out in the dark with no
torches we had to brave the "raft" again and also the trek back to the motorboat. Well after 20 minutes out in the rain with a hopeless poncho, there was no possible way we could have been any wetter. It was pouring out of our waterproof shoes but at least we made it back to Erika lodge to a well deserved drink!
Well, that night we fell into an exhausted sleep, but in the middle of the night we heard the most bloodcurdling scream of "NO! NOOO! NOOO! NO!" - from a grown man. I lay in terrified silence. Magnus was sure this was someone being dragged off to his death by a bunch of pumas. Teriified we waited for the screaming to cease and heard through the walls of our lodge the man saying he was ok and that it was just a bad dream. Phew - no deaths tonight then.
In the morning of our fourth day of the amazon adventure the first thing we heard was the not so obvious line of "Lady, you like to see monkey? Come with me." Not the kind of thing you hear every morning! After a plentiful breakfast we
set off downriver on the long journey back to Cusco. After arriving at the small port where our bus was waiting all the boys helpfully loaded up the bus in order to save precious minutes as we all needed to get back with no time to spare. We had a night bus booked to depart at 10pm and some of the others had early flights the next morning. Good to save every minute possible then.
After a few hours of driving and a spot of picnic lunch which was impossible to eat with a plastic fork we set back off on the journey. Soon we smelled a bit of a funny smell. It kind of reminded me of my hen party. Hmmm, what could it be? Ahhh, thats it, its the smell of a bus going up in smoke. Fumes pouring in the bus and passengers pouring out of it. What on earth were we going to do. Its a sunday (when nothing really works in south america). We are also in the Amazon basin with no town in walking distance. We also have a nightbus to make in a few hours, no transport, big bags and 17 people
with no way to get out of here. Hmmm, sub-optimal.
Well, we made the most of our time, got out some music on speakers, played lots of cards, ate cookies. The boys couldnt find any beers but eh, you can't have it all. After a few hours David, our guide, returned. The good news - we had a replacement bus. The bad news - it would only fit about 8 small people in it. Undeterred we loaded the tiny bus full of 21 people (17 travellers, 2 guides, 2 bus drivers). Who needs seats when you have the floor and other peoples laps. After this we then piled 17 large backpacks on the roof and kept fingers crossed it would move. And it did. Slowley. For ages to the next town. The only way to keep sane was to play the alpabet game where you name celebrities- one of the guys was hilarious coming up with classics such as "Gustl Berauer" - you know, the 1939 German ski jump champion. Obviously.
Well we arrived at the next town jokingly saying that the next bus would be even smaller - just for a challenge! Well, there was no bus.
A few of us went to grab some food where we were told "Oh this is where most of the tourists eat after their buses break down"! Well, we shouldn't have joked as the next bus was even smaller! We managed to grab a taxi for some people so there was just about enough space and the two of us were nailbiting as to whether we would make our nightbus at all.... After about a million roadblocks and police checks and the slowest van ever it soon became clear that nightbus was no more and after the 16 hour mammoth journey out of the jungle we were happy with a nice warm bed back in Cusco...
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