Amazon Adventure

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So as you can tell we are back safe and sound from our expedition into the jungle and I have to say it was the experience of a lifetime. I have never been on such a good trip. Unfortunately it has been marred by the fact that while I was getting off the boat when we got back someone stole my camara so I have no pictures.

The group included Stav (Israeli), Paul, Emma, Will, Laura and I (all English) with our guides Kid and Giro. Some other guys joined us later on but I think they were just friends of our guides who fancied a
fishing trip and a bit of a jaunt.

Our trip started with a long ferry ride (30 hours) to a village where we stayed the night. The beginning of the boat ride was eventful with Emma´s bag being stolen. Thankfully the locals knew the thief from previous experience and our guides had been watching him so as he jumped off the boat and onto the one next to us, they followed (I´ve never seen people move that quickly!). Needless to say they got the bag back and a few of the locals beat the thief up and threw him (literally) off the boat. The
boats were the ferries that Bruce Perry took for part of his trip so we slung up our hammocks with the locals and enjoyed the view.

The trip was long but lovely. It was great just to watch the Amazon go by, see the little communities on the bank with their huts and watch them fishing from their canoes. We also saw pink and gray dolphins and a few monkeys from the boat.

We arrived at a village called Flor de Punga late the following evening so stayed there. We were all shattered so went straight to bed after a shower. Laura went for her shower but called me to her room just as I was going for mine as she had the biggest spider in her room. We were debating whether
or not to try and tackle it ourselves (we didn´t want to look like complete wimps but it looked angry), leave it (it was in her room thankfully not mine!) or call Kid and ask him to remove it. Thankfully I went running to Kid, who along with about 5 other guys from the village went running into Lauras room (at this point she was still in her towel). His reaction to the spider was...´´hmm... that one is very deadly...SPLAT...but now it is dead! Ha ha ha ha. If you see anymore spiders you have to call me.´´ At which point he left Laura to go to sleep (or not!). Thankfully there were no spiders in my room (I did a very thorough check!) so I slept a little.

On our third day we went upstream another 4 hours to a lake which is where we were going to set up camp. On the way Giro spotted a Sloth in the trees so we all got out of the boat and Kid climbed up the tree to get it so we could see it at close quarters. It was really sleeply and not frightened so we could all hold it and have our pictures taken with it (we are such tourists). Then we put it on the tree and watched it climb sloooowly back up. This was a fantastic start to the trip. Along the way to the lake we
also saw monkeys (bush tail and another kind) along with a huge number of different and colourful birds. When we arrived and had set up camp and eaten it was time to go Caiman hunting. We go in the boat and
went further around the lake to all of the reeds. At one point as we were paddling along in the pitch black, I wondered how smart it was to be ambushing a caiman but it seems that it is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Eventually Kid caught a young white caiman (female) about 1.5 ft long which we all held and looked at. Once we had released that we went and found a black caiman. This one was larger, about 2.5ft long, and much stronger but we were able to hold that one as well (I pinned it to a bench rather than held it as it was too strong and heavy to hold without the risk of it escaping) which was brilliant (would be more
brilliant if I had the pictures!).

2 of the guys on the trip with us had been out on another canoe while we are looking for Caiman and they had caught a bigger one and brought it back with them. It was a 5 ft long, black caiman. Unfortunately they had speared it to catch it so it had to be killed. It felt horrible knowing it was going to be killed as it felt unnecessary but at the same time we realised that this was part of their culture and a way of making money for them as they would sell the meat to the villagers on our return. It also felt less horrible the next morning when we had caiman ceviche for breakfast which was really tasty. They had also shot a couple of cormorants earlier in the day and strung them up so that they could sell them on.

That night we went to bed in our hammocks and mosquito nets and were woken in the middle of the night by torrential rain. Remembering that I had left my bag in a tree and that it was not covered I had to go and get it. This was fine but my hammock had been strung really high so I couldn´t reach the floor and my wellies were just out of reach so I had to put one foot in the mud to get to them. Once I had them on I squelched over to the other side of the camp only to discover that the caiman was not where it had been when we went to bed. Perfect, I was tramping through the jungle in the middle of the night in the pouring rain with a caiman on the loose. Thankfully I quickly found my bag and got back to the hammock before the caiman found me.

The next day we went piranah fishing and caught loads. Its really easy as they were so aggressive and just went for the bait and held on for grim death so we easily caught about 20. This meant a tasty dinner of piranah that day! After the piranah fishing we went to a different part of the lake and went for a swim which was lovely after the heat, humidity and mosquitos we had been enduring.

Later that day we packed up pur camp and headed back towards Flor de Pungo. We stopped on the way to go for a jungle walk and Kid told us all about the differnt jungle remedies etc that they use. He grew up
on a tribal village a couple of hours downstream from Iquitos so knew all the tricks. We also saw a giant tortoise which Kid was going to take and sell, but when he lead the others away, Laura hid it further in the jungle so he wouldn´t find it on the way back. Later we were glad we did as it was only worth about 30 soles which is about 6GBP. Less than its life is worth I think! The mosquitos were horrendous so an hour later we were all glad to return to the boat.

That evening we spent on the canoe travellong back to the village, at one point we went past a school of jumping fish which was hilarious as about 15 of them jumped into the boat and landed on us. One hit Emma in the face as it jumped in. Laura spent the rest of the trip with fish slime on her trousers, although by this time we were all so dirty that you couldn´t really tell.

Once we were back at the village we went for a couple of drinks with the locals who had joined our trip, as they were leaving us at that point. The ferry that we were meant to be getting had already passed through so after one to many drinks and stumbling home we were woken by Giro at about 4am to be told another ferry had arrived and we had to get on it. So we quickly got dressed and stumbled to the boat. Thankfully one of the men put my hammock up for me so that I could just fall in it and go back to sleep. We then spent the next 30 hours travelling back to Iquitos.

So, that was our adventure and we both loved it. Neither of us were ready to come back and could have done with another few days in the jungle but we had to come back as we have a flight back to Lima
tomorrow. We have promised ourselves that we will go back soon though, even if its just for a couple of weeks holiday. A couple of people on the trip moaned that it was not what they had expected and that we didnt do enough jungle walks but Laura and I agreed that what we did was better. We saw so much and lived as the locals live, whether or not we agreed with what they did, it really was an experience not to be missed. The other tours were all jungle lodges so no camping so we were glad that we chose the one we did. Also our guides were so good and we got on so well with them, it really made the trip.

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Comments

[JJ_L]

Hi Kirstine
Hi K, the blog is great, you have had a really good experience and all in the footsteps of Bruce Perry. Shame about the camera but you still have the memories and no body can take those away from you. I hope the Inca Trail was as good. Love you loads and we can't wait to see you in Oct. Dad