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Published: September 26th 2009
Buenos Nochas Blog Readers!
So this is our final blog of this incredible journey. We´ve found a really nice hostel in Lima (just down the road from the Stop and Drop Inn but a hundred times better!). We´ve just found out that the airport charges a 92 Soles tax on anybody going on international flights so to save us having to withdraw any money from an ATM (which costs about $5 a time) we´re saving our pennies big time! It should be possible to get through tomorrow on the money we have though!
We landed in Puerto Maldonado airport on Monday and picked up by the owners of the Anaconda Jungle Lodge - Donald and Waddi. The lodge was absolutely amazing. It was honestly paradise and we´re so jealous of the owners lives! They have about 8 lodges, a swimming pool, some amazing botanical gardens weaving in between the lodges which house so many animals. They have monkeys roaming around, lizards, dogs and huge bird spiders which come out at night! On the first night we sampled some of Waddi´s amazing Thai food (a nice change from the usual Peruvian food) and then we went out at night to go through the gardens to look for some of the creatures roaming! We found some amazing leaf cutter ants and Laura even caught a bird spider that was as big as your hand! As I´m scared of spiders this did no good for me and I thought they were horrific beyond words.
On Tuesday we went into Puerto Maldonado which is a small town at the intersection of two rivers. It´s quite nice, not much happening and they always have a siesta in the afternoon (we couldn´t understand why nowhere was open!). We also went to a snake farm near the lodge which housed turtles and some huge snakes - including some anacondas. We also saw a snake on the way there on the pathway which was cool.
On Wednesday we´d booked ourselves to go to Lake Sandoval. We were on a boat with a family of 6 Peruvians and a Spanish couple. We went down river for 45 minutes before entering the rainforest. We had a great trek through the forest seeing loads of wildlife and plants including the most butterflies you could imagine (hence the title of this blog - Mel, you literally would not be able to cope it!!). We then got a rowing boat around the lake which is enormous and surrounded by rainforest. It really was great and the weather was perfect. We had a nice lunch before going for a swim in the lake which was actually quite warm. We then got a boat back into the rainforest and it absolutely chucked it down. We´ve never seen rain like it - although you´d be gutted if you came to the rainforest and didn´t get to see a proper rainforest rain!
Only Laura and I came back because the others stayed at the lodge where we had lunch. During the trek back through the rainforest we heard some Macaws and went off the beaten track and found an opening where we saw about 5 or 6 of them in the wild. It was a rare and awesome sight. We got a boat trip back home before having some more Thai food back at the lodge and played with the monkeys. We even got to bring one of the monkeys back to the lodge with us and it slept with us for the night!
Yesterday the weather was terrible. We hadn´t planned anything and lazed around at the lodge. The lodge was so good that it was nice just chilling out, playing with the monkeys and swimming in the pool. The most playful monkey there, Pedra, came a slept out in our hammock last night. We got the plane back to Lima at midday and landed mid-afternoon. We´re sleeping in a dorm for the first time this holiday which is cool. Gutted that we´re coming home tomorrow but looking forward to showing everybody the pictures! Our flight is at 11pm tomorrow night and we land in Heathrow at about the same time on Sunday if we manage to catch our flight at New York (we only have a connection time of 1hr15mins!). Thanks for reading and send us your comments! I´ve replied to some of them at the bottom of this blog!
Love Tink and Laura xxxxxx
Mum - thanks for the messages. Long live the adventurous hair dressing salons!
Dom - why are you recording vocals if Jon´s vocal chords are shot?
Dave - we forgot to mention that our instructor when we went down the Death Road was exactly a mixture of you and James McAvoy.
Roxi - Coca tea is where they get the coca leaves (which they manipulate to make cocaine) and put boiling water into the cup with them. It´s good for the altitude because it numbs your senses but it tastes of grass.
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Tink's mum
non-member comment
Marked change of attitude to monkeys!
Glad to hear from you again! How come in India all you did with monkeys was to find sticks to fend them off, but in Peru they are sharing your hammock???