Peru Day 4

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21st September

We had another early morning, with the wake up call coming at 5am, with breakfast at 5.30 and meeting for the canopy walk at 6am.

Our Guide Karina led us onto the boat to tak us the short trip downstream to the canopy walkway. The walkway was built 3 years ago by American engineers from local wood from the Iron tree, because of its strength.

We walked to the education centre, which is currently being developed into a shop and technology area for visitors to research the jungle flora and fauna. From here we walked to Tower A and climbed to a height of 32metres. The towers are joined by a series of six bridges, giving us the opportunity to view the jungle at canopy level. We were able to take our time up on the viewing posts and saw some small toucans, white throated crows, a number of species of flycatcher, vultures circling on warm air thermals. squirrel tailed cookoos, and finally a woodpecker, which we could hear a long time before we could see it.

The bridges are more than 15m each in length, and reminded us of something from Indiana Jones. It was strictly one person at a time crossing the bridges, as they wobbled quite a bit.

We went along the platforms and bridges for around 2 hours before reaching Tower B and getting a final opportunity to see the canopy level beofre making it back to the boar. We got back at 9am, giving us chance to rest before lunch. The birds outside did however have other ideas, and unfortunatley there is no volume control.

After luch we met at 2.30pm for the excursion on to Lake Sandoval. Once again we started by boat, going upstream for about 30 minutes. The boat pilot needed to be quite skillful with the water level being so low, as the river was full of fallen trees and logs presenting a hazard to our boat.

When we disembarked, we then had a 3km trail to take us to the lake. Along the way was saw a small lizard, tapir footprints and a number of small birds.

We then got into a small canoe and Karina paddled the boat backwards down a small stream to the lake. Initially it was quite windy on the lake, and we thought we werent going to get very far, let alone turn the canoe round. With the help of Joseph, one of the other guests, whose canoeing skills really werent upto much, we proceeded to follow the lake edge.

We managed to spot quite a few birds including a cormorant, two sorts of heron, a bird with huge feet - name unknown, and a stinky bird - it has a gland which excretes a foul smell meaning it has no predators.

The highlight had to be the family of eight gaint river otters which we could see fishing. We couldn't get too close as they are protected, but were able to see them and hear them calling to one another. We watched them for about 20 minutes, and then headed back down the narrow stream back to the path.

We then started on the 3km trail back to the boat. With 1km still to go, it was almost totally dark, but we were able to see lots of fireflys, a couple of frogs, and a troop of nocternal monkeys crossing the trail jumping from tree to tree.

When we got back to the boat, we were all shattered, and whilst we still had dinner to come, bed was looking a more favourable option!

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