Amazon

The hotel in Lima:

On the 21st we flew from Lima through Cuzco to a small town called Puerto Maldonado. It is a very poor/run-down town, but we had a look through the local market and I bought a cool blue Peru t-shirt like my Chile one (see below). Im making a collection.

We dropped our main luggage at the tour´s HQ for safe keeping and just took a day pack with a few changes of clothes. From there we took a bus to the local river port and boarded a boat (a long canoe with a motor on the back). Then we drove down the Amazon river for about an hour and a half.


Then we came to the EcoAmazonia lodge.


On arrival we were greeted with a really nice alcoholic fruit cocktail and shown to our bungalows. There are about 60 in total, each has its own bathroom. The lodge also has a bar, serving lots of cocktails, a really nice restaurant and a swimming pool. All meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided. It´s really relaxing at the lodge. Only bad thing is the cold showers, but its not too cold. No internet or phones at the lodge, just you and nature. The plumbing system in South America cant handle toilet paper, so you have to put it in the waste bin beside it. A bit feral, but whatever. I usually forget, oops...




After that we had dinner which was rice, chicken and vegetables cooked in banana leaf, really delicious. One of the many awesome meals at the lodge.


After dinner we took a boat over to a small island to see all the monkeys (about 8 different species in a small area). The guide feed them bananas and they would come quite close to the group. Some of them were quite friendly and liked to jump onto you. I wasnt too keen on getting bitten by rabies infected monkeys, so I stayed away unlike the other clowns on the tour. Once the guide threw bananas into the eating area, there were monkeys everywhere and it was crazy. They were flying past us at all speeds and fighting for the bananas.



Might upload a video later, the filesize is a bit big at the moment and I have no processing programs. After that we walked back to the boat and watched the sun set over the jungle.



Later on that evening at about 10pm when it was dark, we took the boat out again and went looking for Caiman. They are in the same family as crocodiles & alligators. We spotted a few, they were pretty hard to spot in the dark except for their eyes which glow red in the spotlight.


The next day we went for a 5 hour walk through the jungle to spot more animals and have a look at the flora and fauna. Came across a few more monkeys and other insects etc. The jaguars and poisonous snakes eluded us unfortunately. There are these brown snakes which are really fast and like to chase after humans and bite them lots of times. One bite is fatal and they dont have any antidote in Peru. You have to run really fast then take your shirt off and throw it on the ground, then the snake will bite that, because they dont have good eyesight (or they are retarded). But unfortunately no adrenaline action on that front.




This next pic is the Justice Tree. The old jungle folk used to tie prisoners to the tree for torture and punishment. When you touch it, all the red fire ants come out and all hell breaks loose. The guide said I should tie my girlfriend (if I had one) to the tree... charming fellow.


Here are the rest of my tour group. Tenille an Aussie, Christeen and Liesel who are both from South-Africa.


Then we reached the high-hut in the jungle and climbed up there for a really nice view.


After that we got on a small boat down below and paddled round the marshes looking for the anacondas. Unfortunately the damn snakes were hiding again.

In the afternoon we went back to the lodge and took another boat down the main river and down a smaller river. There we went fishing for a bit. The guide hooked a small catfish. The technique was to wait till the fish bites twice, then quickly flick it up, and out of the water to catch it. I managed to hook a piranha and must´ve flicked it up too hard because it went flying up about 3 metres into the air then came off the hook. Ah well.

After that we went for a swim in the same water hole. Yep, with the piranhas. They had a cool rope swing so we went on that a few times. Stuff like this decides the astronauts from the astronomers.

Then it was back to the lodge for the last night.


In the morning we went back to Puerto Maldonado and flew into Cuzco. Cuzco is a really nice little town and is the central tourist hub of Peru. From here you can go to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu etc which we will do in the next few days. We have met up with our main guide and some other tour members who didnt go to the Amazon (yep, astronomers).

Thats enough for today... stupid keyboards over here have all weird symbols and dont have apostrophes. Hopefully theres no grammar nazis reading this.