Nauta Town and Giant water lillies

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Woke up several times through the night. At one stage I was sure I felt something bounce on me and thought we left our door open and had a monkey in the room. Obviously we didn't but I swear at the time I was pretty certain we had a little monkey in our room. Jungle fever I guess.



Woke up about 6:40 am and went up to the main deck where a few people were. Had some coffee and then headed to breakfast. Our little click generally sits at the same spot every night so the older groups keep threatening to steal our seats and shake things up a bit for us. We all seem to have a built in food radar however and know as soon as we are allowed in the dining room and get there first every time. We have had a few races down the flights of stairs with those a little older then us. Their idea not ours.



We had an hour spare after breakfast before we went into Nauta town to explore. We took the Skiffs over and we had a quick walk through the markets with Juan Carlos. Lots of food stalls and other random knick knacks. There was two sweet little girls at the indoor food markets that allowed us to take a picture. After a quick walk through with Juan Carlos we were set free to explore on our own for 45 minutes and given direction to the square where we were to meet Juan Carlos. I didn't want to go through alone and neither did any of us really. A few needed an ATM or money exchange so they stuck together and I stuck with Emily Christie and Kristan. We wandered through the markets again in about 10 minutes. None of us saw anything we felt we needed to buy. We set off towards the square with a goal to find some chocolate for Christie on the way. The search for a chocolate bar was unsuccessful but we found some chocolate waffers so that had to do. When we turned to leave the store we noticed Christie had left her camera and selfie stick on a table so we had a laugh about that. We found the square easily and had a seat while we waited for everyone else to arrive. Lots of locals were staring over at us but it felt safe and no one was harassing us. Despite being a big town in the Amazon I still don think its a place you would refer to as touristy so we caught some attention.



We found out the other boat ran into a man who let them hold his baby pet sloth for a small fee. We were pretty jealous but we think patting our wild sloth still trumps that. That's what we are telling ourselves anyway. They have been pretty lucky – a toucan, an anaconda and now sloth cuddles but still our boats awesome and I wouldn't change our crew for anything.



We paired off (myself with Emily) and then picked a driver and went into rickshaws/tuk tuks or as they are called here moto taxi. Our driver asked if I was ok on motor bikes and if I wanted to drive. He kept saying hey Australia want to drive. You can drive its fine. Um no thanks. We were taken to a big pond which had turtles and huge monk fish. The guides supplied us with bread to feed the fish. We had to throw in front of their mouth and then they would jump up and make a massive gulp over the bread. One nearly took a turtle with it. The lake was located near a school so all the kids were waving and posing for photos. So far the people here have been really friendly and I've felt safe the entire time. I just wish I could speak some Spanish so I could converse with them.



Further proof they are pretty honest people. Christie went shopping at the markets at the monk fish turtle place. A few minutes latter a kid comes up and taps her and then hands back her wallet. She left it at their stall so he followed her to return it. I told her to give him something as a reward so she gave him 2 soles. Cute little guy.



We got back on the motor taxi and were taken for a ride around the town both on road and some off road tracks. It was so much fun. Really gorgeous little town. Our motor taxi kept making really loud banging noises so Emily and I thought our jungle karma for laughing at Christie sinking was potentially coming back to bite us. We were just waiting for a break fail or our carriage to come unattached. Two of the girls ended up with child stowaways on the back of their motor taxi. They jumped on the back for a loop around their street. We were hoping the sloth man would still be around when we got back so we could meet the sloth but he was gone.



Back on deck lunch was a chicken dish, a pork dish and a beans dish with the normal breads salads etc. The bread on this boat is so good. We all rave about it.



At lunch time Juan Carlos laid a surprise on us. Two more people would be joining us for the remainder of the tour arriving after lunch time. They were not booked on g adventures. They had booked directly with the boat. We assumed they would be an older or newly wed couple with a bit of cash as the boat we are on was selling for a much higher price then the g adventures boat we were supposed to be on.



We had an hour free time before our next activity. We pushed the love seats together and hung out on the upper deck. We saw the boys go off to get the new guests so Emily and I happened to be leaning over the top deck at the side when the skiff pulled up. Funny how that happens. Obviously we were caught out. I couldn't make out if they were old or young. Emily said mother and son but I pulled out cougar woman young man couple. When we were introduced he introduced Randy as his mother so that's a win for Emily, however I am not convinced.



One of the first things the newbie said to us is 'I don't know why I came on this – I hate nature'. That is not the best way to introduce your self to people when we are in middle of the Amazon. At 300 pm there was a talk in the lounge from Daniel. Basically we reviewed the map supplied a few days earlier of the rivers and on the back wrote down what we did and saw. Then on the map we wrote numbers which referred to the notes of what we did and saw and where those thinks we're located in the scheme of things.



We didn't want the newbies to screw up our Anaconda boat so we got downstairs really early for our afternoon excursion. Initially mum was leaning towards the other boat as she didn't want to be in the fun action boat and she thought she would join the other skiff and put her son in with us but then in the end they both jumped in with us. We were not impressed now with 13 in our skiff and 3 crew when the other one had 8 guests and 2 crew.



This afternoons excursion took us at to the giant water lily pads and to trees where we could spot some of the worlds smallest monkeys. Considering I can barley spot or take photos of regular sized monkeys I wasn't expecting to capture much. The water lilies were Christies 'anaconda' as in the thing she wanted to see most. They were pretty impressive. Very photographic and they don't move so we managed to photograph them ok.



Our little click is now known as the single 7 and everyone's saying how lucky we are to all be single (and majority of us solo travelling) females all of the same age. The whole dynamics of the boat is overall pretty good and everyone of all age groups get along well and are fun. The group older than us are also all around that same ages. The oldest two are still marginally older then the rest. I feel bad for them. They were expecting similar ages to themselves and I was too. When I came I thought it would be me with a bunch of 60/70 year olds so we are incredibly lucky.



We rode the skiffs out to where all the rivers meet and the Amazon officially starts. Out there we stopped for a bit a Juan Carlos had a talk about the ecosystem.



We headed to a little island and watched thousands of birds flying in for the night. Lots of the yellow Oreo birds and some green parrots too. It was hard to tell what birds where what but able to zoom in after to see the photos could see that there were several species.



We had 1 1/2 hours until dinner when we got back so did the usual shower, pisco sour and hang out in the lounge area.



Dinner was rice, monk fish, chicken, sweet potatoes and cinnamon and asparagus soup. The newbies got their own food – not buffet with us.



Tonight we were due to do a night activity but as we had to be up 530 am tomorrow they decided to move it to tomorrow night. We wanted to go down early to see what happens with the boats and the staff knew we not overly happy with so many in our boat and were going to try move things around a touch.



Today another highlight - we made it an entire day without any rain not even any sprinkling.

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