Welcome to the Jungle-Part 1

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Day 59

3rd November – Tampobata reserve

So much for a lay in (I am rather keen on getting out of bed in my own sweet time) the woman at the reception desk in our hotel gave us the wrong pick up time so while I was still in the shower the phone rang in the room, Liz answered it and freaked as we hadn’t even started packing and the chap was waiting downstairs at reception to take us to the airport 45 minutes earlier than we expected, it wasn’t even 09:00 and I hadn’t had a coffee or even a coca tea and instead had to pack all my stuff in record time... however I think I remained pretty calm about it as it wasn’t our mistake so I said to Liz “it is what it is, let’s just do what we can and hope we make our flight” the guy waiting at reception was very nice and we explained why we were so long, he got us to the airport in time and before we knew it we had checked our bags in, when we got to the security check my deodorant was confiscated, not because it smelled bad but they were worried about the pressurised can in the pressurised cabin which made sense, Liz however was stopped by the x-ray machine because when we packed in such a hurry she picked up my handy little pocket flick-knife and put it in her carry-on luggage, obviously they were not about to let her on a plane whilst brandishing such a thing so confiscated that too. This admittedly did give me the hump somewhat as “it had come in handy a number of times on the Inca trail and would undoubtedly be pretty handy in the bloody JUNGLE!” I calmly said to my dear sweet wife... ehem. Anyway I kept to my mantra “it is what it is” nothing could be done so; on we flew to Puerto Maldonado.
The flight was not very long only a couple of hours direct from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado but boy what a difference! We stepped off the flying tin can into what felt like an oven, I was over the moon with this it was exactly what I expected and was after, the sweltering heat of the tropical climate was giving me shivers of excitement, I hadn’t even seen a tree yet let alone any jungle but already felt like the bush-man, we were picked up by an orange bus full of noisy middle aged French couples and taken into the town where the company’s main office was, they then divided the passengers into English and French speaking groups, there were about six of us speaking English and twenty odd French tourists. The guide took us around the market to collect any last minute supplies, he looked at me funny when I told him I was keen to replace my recently lost pocket knife and said that maybe I could get a poncho instead, I was in two minds about the guide although knowledgeable himself on the area and the wildlife he was not one you could ask about things or let alone you dare suggest you know what one of these animals are and add a little to his commentary. He explained to us that the town is funded mainly by gold-mining and secondly by eco-tourism, a stark contrast I thought seeing as gold-mining is contributing to the destruction of the Amazon river and surrounding forests so alarmingly and eco-tourism being mostly westerners like us wanting to see the beautiful jungles and wildlife of the river and surrounding forest... and both kept the town afloat like ying and yang, I can’t help but feel it won’t be long before the two industries clash and one has to give, I certainly hope the gold-mining is the one to go.
We got back on our bus after purchasing a couple of light plastic ponchos, a torch to replace one we lost on the Camino de Inca para machu picchu, some biscuits, some water and no replacement knife.

They took us to a small port where we boarded a long-boat with an engine, chugged our way along the Madre De Dios river for around an hour and a half in the blazing sunshine watching the jungle become dense almost immediately, seeing the odd boatman fishing or logging and spotting the occasional bird or butterfly. On the boat the French tourists were becoming louder and louder, although polite to the point of offering Liz and I crisps and snacks they were also making lewd jokes and a great deal of noise, I must admit to getting rather humpy with them as I certainly did not want to go nature spotting with a group of people more interested in each other and how funny or fit they were than the amazing animals around us, needless to say we did not spot any Caimans on the way although I was fully aware that the Madre De Dios is teaming with them, any Caiman within a mile would have obviously heard the racket coming from our boat and simply plopped its head underwater until the awful din had long passed.

We finally arrived at the lodge and after a short introduction and some food were shown to our room which was I must admit rather swish! The sounds of the birds were incredible so varied and strange were some of the calls I was however rather unimpressed at the fact they had a couple of Macaws with their wings clipped on site, We had an hour or so to kill before our first excursion to Monkey Island so Liz got in the pool and I went for a wander to see what I could see, and boy was I in for a surprise, at first I heard a bit of rustling in the leaves and got some snaps of a couple of lizards, all pretty normal... next thing I know something that looked like a giant rat came snuffling past! this thing was literally six foot long or more from nose to tip, it was blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other so was a little comedic in its way of bumping into things on its hunt for food, looking at my field guide I was able to ascertain that it is a kind of Opossum.

We got back on the boat “luckily just the English speakers” and headed over to the monkey island, I was rather disturbed by the amount of mosquitoes as the air was thick with them and undoubtedly they were chomping away on me like I was a tasty vanilla skinned ice cream on the way across the island we saw a titti monkey sat on a bridge who came over for some tasty banana.

We got into the middle of the island and saw my favourite French people grrrr, but there were plenty of brown and white capuchin monkeys around, coming down out of the trees to get the bananas that the guides were giving out, I was trying my very best to get pictures but it was dusky now and the light was dim, I had brought my tripod with me but stupidly didn’t have the attachment for the camera so it was useless and the only sharp pictures I got were with the flash on, luckily the capuchins were used to camera flash and weren’t startled. When a monkey stole some bananas from the bag that was left unattended the guide who was with the French tourists chased it, the monkey went up a tree and climbed right to the top and the guide shook the tree as hard as he could. The monkey was freaking out and had to hold on as tight as it could, I was disgusted by all three guides laughing their heads off and thought it was a dreadful way to treat the animals.

As we left that area we came across a mother and young spider monkey that popped down to snatch a banana from our guide and headed off back to the boat.

That night we had another excursion, Caiman spotting!

We didn’t admittedly see many over the hour or so we were out and I had expected to see a sea of gleaming eyes staring back at the torch but no, we saw three or four Caiman one was quite large, perhaps two meters but the others were no more than a couple of feet long.

We went back and had some food then on to bed, we set up our mozzy net and settled in to bed.

Ellz xx

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Comments

[Chris and Nikki]

So you should be, it's fantastic. We've read a few of your Peru blogs and they are great. We're hoping to go to Peru in October next year and found your blogs really helpful.

[Liz and Ellory]

Thank you very much! Glad you found the Peru blogs useful, we loved it there (illness aside!) and hope you will too :)