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Published: August 6th 2006
Dug out canoe
Heather was so exicted to see the boat...Greetings again blog readers. We´ve been pretty busy and are trying to update you on our adventures...
The day after finishing the inca trail - complete with some clean clothes, we headed off to the jungle. We flew from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado in the amazon rainforest. As we landed here the air stewardess anounced that the temperature in the airport was 35 degrees C!
Heather promptly removed three of her layers...
We had a 45 minute bus ride to the river on a bus circa 1970 with no suspension. The roads were so dusty that I became a red head for the afternoon. I swear that the distance was about 5km but we had to divert around fallen trees and pot holes. To give you an idea of the roads our flight took 30 minutes and to drive would take you 30 hours. Enroute we saw a bunch of gold mines - small operations where they filter the river sediment looking for gold.
We reached the river and got into the motorized dug out canoe. Pretty cool. We had our packed lunch in the boat in our environmentaly friendly bannana leaf plate. After finishing the chinese rice lunch
Banana leaf lunch
We liked the plate... we disposed of our plates (leafs) over the side of the boat. After about 1.5 hours on the boat we reached our jungle lodge. It was fun! I think I was really expecting a hostel in the jungle, but this was a building with no sides, curtain doors and no electricity. We had kerosene lamps in the hallways, candles in the bedroom and the ever important bug nets. The rodents liked the lodge as well. Especially the possums and bamboo rats that liked to visit every evening. The lodge had a pet howler monkey who was pretty cute and liked to be stroked and stratched. I thought he was great until he 1. howled and 2. tried to bite my arm when I pushed him away from my cup of coffee...thankfully he missed or disliked the bug spray I was coated in. I had never thought about where pineapples grow...but they grow on bushes...and we had our own baby pineapples growing next to the lodge.
A quick tangent here, but toilets are a bit of an isssue throughout S. America (so much so that Heather is planning to sit on every toilet seat in her house for an extended
Gold mining
Along the river were small gold mining operations...looks very inefficient. period of time when she goes home)...and ironically the jungle lodge with no electricity had the nicest toilets so far. No smell at all despite 35 degrees.
Our first jungle adventure was a night walk with flash lights. So maybe I was a tiny bit scared, but I even saved Heather from a large bug that might have killed her... ok so maybe it was 1cm accross but it had big fangs! We were clearly in the jungle with huge trees surrounding us. THe crickets were almost deafening. There was a ginormous caterpiller with spikes all over it...he looked like he could bite. The spiders webs were huge and with flashlights you could see the spiders glissening. THis was one of the many species of spider in which the female kills the male after they mate.
As we trod carefully (some of us did some dancing to avoid imaginary insects) through the jungle we found a couple of huge taranchulas in their holes by the edge of the trail. Heather went out a second time and saw monkeys in the trees. She also had the remnants of her Inca trail tummy bug and her stomach made such a noise
Pepe the Howler monkey
Spot the lazy monkey... that Marcos the tour guide thought that there was a jaguar nearby... She still was ill the next day but managed to keep going despite south american bugs...
We slept ok in our very open plan lodge before awaking at 5am to go birdwatching. Yes that´s right Johnson family, Heather got up before dawn to stand in a hide and watch parrots. We were at a place called clay lick where the parrots circle around until they feel safe and land on the clay and eat the minerals. We saw Mealy parrots, yellow crowned parrots, and blue headed parrots. We even saw the larger Macau´s. There was a lots of them. However it is fair to say that neither of us is keen on predawn visits to bird hides...En route to the hide we saw a family of Capybara´s - these are giant guinea pigs who inhabit the jungle. We have yet to see any wild guinea pigs (normal size)...but they must exist. I´m still planning to have a my guinea pig and chips experience...complete with head and claws. Hopefully it wont be a relative of cuddles and Gertie (those who wish a complete coutts guinea pig clan tree
Living area with hamocks...
A beautiful environment spoiled a little by the europeans (continental europe) smoking... email me directly). We spotted a group of vultures sitting on the river bank...ugly looking birds.
After breakfast we went on a criuse in the catarmaran (2 dugout canoes joined together) to the local oxbow lake. It was so hot with no shade. There were butterflies everywhere and they seemed to like us. They were huge and landed randomly on top of us. We then saw a bunch of birds including a kingfisher before we started the main activity of the day. Piranah fishing with fresh meat. I didn´t manage to catch any fish, but others did. They have pretty sharp teeth. AFter our fishing experience we were all pretty warm so jumped into the cool water...I was definately a little scared of the piranahs. I had sympathy for the girl in our group with her period who refused to jump in. But we did it, we sawm with the piranahs mum! Back at the lodge we decided to brave the showers. Without electricity there are no hot showers...and we were surprised at how much we enjoyed the shower...but after 35C plus and no shade cool water is pretty nice.
In the afternoon - which felt like
The lodge bedrooms
Open windows...no doors, no individual ceiling... evening since we got up so early we went for another jungle hike. Still I had some issues with the flying bugs...and kept jumping randomly. We did see a snake on the trail. A common mussurana who had obviously just eaten lunch and had a large bulge in his tummy. Our guide tried to catch him for us, but he was too slippery. We didn´t see too many snakes since it was the dry season and the snakes are all hiding out from the dry sun. We also saw a tayra which is a member of the cat family...he didn´t really want anything to do with us.
Our trail ended through some farmed land which looked the same as the jungle to us but it had fruit trees. Bananas, star fruits, cacao (which looked much like a giant slug, but tasted great). Heather drank bamboo water and it taked like drinking a plant surprisingly enough. We then attacked a yuka plant (mum you´ll have to protect your pot plant from me) since a root vegetable grows from it. The vegetable is a Manioc which tastes great fried (like most things on this trip). We then ended up at a
Baby pineapples
Just growing in the lodge garden... locals house and a little chick adopted me...didn´t want to leave me...it was really cute apart from when it tried to peck food from my hand. There was a tree with an odd looking fruit on it very high...we were wanting to try it...and our machismo guide threw off his shoes and scaled the trunk akin to how one would climb a palm tree. We were scared...but I think he´s done it before!
Before dinner was spent looking for Caiman´s in the dark river. These are in the aligator family and at night if you shine a giant torch their eyes light up red. We found a few and during the craziest of minutes Marcos jumped off the boat trying to catch a little one. He missed and I´m not sure that I really wanted to share the boat with the animal.
After dinner the lodge was very sweet. It was one of the english girls birthdays and they baked a cake for her. It was a nice end to an exhausting day.
Breakfast this morning had more than the expected eggs...A 2 m long Boa constrictor decided to visit a local farmer and our machismo guides
Heather the birdwatcher
SHe did say never again...that was just after she said "I love birds"...maybe a hint of sarcasm there. went to bring it to us....We got to touch it and eventually hold it around our necks. In Heathers case she let the snake touch her neck for 2 seconds before hyperventilating in the corner. Lets just say her fear of snakes may almost be more than my dislike of bugs...
Today we made our way back on the boat, bus and then plane back to Cuso where the temperature is a pleasant 18 degrees C or so. Much more suitable temperature for a Scot and a Canadian. Tomorrow we drive to Lake Titicaca...more adventures to follow!
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Kelly
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Wow!
These pictures are amazing and beautiful. Hope you had a great time, I would have!