Amazon adventures

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After travelling through central america Jo was quite sure she had had enough of rain forests and the associated creepy crawlies but I could not go through south america without visiting the Amazon basin, eventually Jo had agreed to come when another solution presented its self, we had met up with our friends Helen and Michael in Cusco and had some time to spare......

I jumped on a plane and flew off in to Puerto Maldonado deep in the Jungle on my own.

Once there I tried to get the boatmen down at the docks to take me into the jungle but they were all employed by various jungle lodges so I had to give in and go to a tour operator, I´m glad I did as they sorted me out a great deal and I was soon deep in the forest.

My time was mainly spent touring through the trees, either on foot or by boat, and spotting animals. We saw monkeys and lizards, snakes and insects, Parrots and crocodiles, everything you would expect from the Amazon.

We also took trips to see how local farms worked (I didnt pay much attention as they had a cute little Tamarin monkey as a pet) and at night went insect spotting.

I have acheived a life long aim of Pirranah fishing, I took my own rod and reel and was confident that my advanced western technology would allow me to smash fishing records previously set by the local stick and string efforts, I was sadly mistaken, on my first cast a pirranah bit my hook straight off (this was when the guides let me in on the secret of having a paperclip attached to protect the line) and after this I managed only one (and if I´m being honest, fairly small) Pirranah.

Pirranahs were not the only animals to be feared, the guides challenged the visitors to a game of football on a sand bank in the river and this quickly desended in to water polo due to the heat, however before we could enter the water we had to through in rocks to scare away the stingrays, snakes, electric eels and caimen.

At night I slept in a wooden room with the outside wall missing so that, from my bed, I could gaze out across the moonlit jungle, this also meant that all the animals and insects had access to my room.

When I returned I described all of the above to Jo and she was very glad not to have come with me however I had the time of my life.

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