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The next part of my adventure was a trip to the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest. To get there I had a 50 minute flight from Cuzco to the town of Puerto Maldonado and during the flight I had my first glimpse of the orangey waters of the Amazon river as it winds it's way through the jungle. Stepping off the plane I was hit by the humidity but it was quite a welcome change after the dryness of the air that I'd been experiencing at altitude for the last couple of weeks.
I was met at the airport by Jorge, my guide for the next 4 days, and we headed to the Rainforest Expeditions HQ to meet the rest of the group and repack, taking only what we needed into the jungle. After a refreshing fruit juice and some locally produced snacks (banana chips, brazil nuts and a ladies finger banana) I boarded the bus to the river port with the rest of my group.....Joan & Ken from NZ, Wayne & Deedee also from NZ and Brian & Guillaume from Portland, USA (although as the name suggests Guillaume was French but has lived in the US for the last 7 years).
After a short 45 minute drive down dirt tracks we reached the Tambopata River Port (Tambopata and Madre de Dios, the other local river, are both tributaries that feed the Amazon) and boarded a longboat down the river to Refugio Amazonas. Jorge explained it would be a 2.5hr journey and we'd have to stop halfway to sign into the national park.
The boat ride was a great first taste of the Amazon and we saw a number of birds as we wound our way down the river....red & blue macaws, parakeets and green parrots. We were also given lunch on the boat, parcels of cheese & mushroom rice wrapped up in a banana leaf, delicious!
The highlight of the journey came as we got close to our destination....by this point it was dark and our guides were surveying the river banks with torches looking for wildlife. They signalled for the boat to pull over to the left and we could see the glint of eyes reflecting in the torchlight.... as we got closer we realised it was a White Caiman (the South American name for an alligator). It was only young and was splashing about trying to get onto the riverbank but kept slipping back in much to our amusement. We saw another young one slightly further down the bank but the real treat came only a couple of minutes from our lodge when we saw a large White Caiman relaxing at the side of the river, they're generally between 2-4m in length and this one was around 3m long....we watched it for a while before it slipped back into the river and swam away.
We were soon at our destination and after a 5 minute walk from the river up a jungle path we saw glimpses of light through the trees and walked around the corner to find the Refugio Amazonas lodge, our base for the next 3 nights. We were greeted by staff with fresh juices and cold towels and were told that dinner was ready so dropped our bags and headed to the dining room. All of the meals were buffet style and groups sat at a table with their guide discussing the days adventures and planning the next activities...my tummy was still a little sensitive but the chicken and pesto pasta went down very well. After dinner Jorge explained to us how the lodge works and the plan for the next day, an early start with a 5.30am breakfast as we had a morning trek planned.
We were then shown to our rooms. Off of the central building where we ate meals (which also housed a chill out area with hammocks, lecture theatre and bar area) there were 4 single story wings branching off the main lodge. These wings housed the 32 rooms, arranged in a straight line with only bamboo cane separating rooms and curtains for doors. Every room had it's own private bathroom with shower, sink and toilet and the bedroom itself was only 3 walls with one side open to the jungle. Beds have mosquito nets to protect you from insects while you sleep and rooms have kerosene lamps and candles for light after dark - there was no electricity and only cold water in the rooms. It was really nicely done and a good mix of comfort yet still feeling like you were in the middle of the jungle and close to the animals and insects. After a close encounter with a rather large beetle I tucked myself into bed and drifted off to sleep to the sounds of the jungle at night.
There was no need for an alarm clock as I was woken when the sun came up and felt refreshed and awake despite it only being 5am. After a hearty breakfast (fresh fruit, pancakes, rolls and ham) we set off on our first trek. Our first stop was the canopy tower which is 30m high and gives a great view over the tree tops, a great way to see the birds more easily. We saw moe macaws, parrots and heard a toucan but sadly couldn't see it as it was hiding behind a tree. We were also shown a brazil nut tree and were shown the pods that hold the brazil nuts. The trees grow to over 50m high and in the nut harvesting season you have to wear hard hats on treks as if one of the pods was to fall from that height and hit you it would cause some serious damage!
From here we continued walking towards Sachavacayoc Oxbow Lake, stopping off on the way to admire some tree cutter ants as they made their way along their self made path to their nest. We also saw fire ants and a bullet ant (the largest ant in the world). When we reached the lake we jumped on board a canoe and paddled around for the next hour looking for wildlife on the edges of the lake. Unfortunately there weren't any otters around but we did see some bats, fed some piranhas and we stopped off on the far side of the lake to look at two of the other largest trees in the forest....a strangler fig and a kopak tree. We then jumped back on the canoe back to other side of the lake and trekked back to the lodge, stopping off when Jorge spotted the most poisonous spider in the world, the wandering spider...apparently if it bites you the venom would kill within 1.5 hours!
We got back to the lodge and had a couple of hours to relax before lunch. I ended up having a snooze in one of the hammocks, making up for lost sleep on the Inca trek! After lunch we were headed over to the other side of the river to visit a local farm belonging to Don Manuel. We saw coconuts, mangos, papaya, oranges, lemons, avocados and many other commonly know fruits growing in his fields as well as lesser known fruits such as copasu (makes great ice cream apparently), sugar cane and other exotic fruits that I can't remember the name of! We then had the chance to have a swim in the amazon, the clay mud felt really nice under foot and the water was really refreshing....I tried not to think about the fact we'd seen Caiman only 150m up the river the night before (they sleep during the day apparently).
After our swim we headed back to shower and have dinner. We had the chance to do a night walk but decided to save it for the following day so had a drink at the bar then an early night instead. I awoke at 4am to the sound of torrential rain, thunder and lightening and it was still going at 6am when I woke again. This put an end to our plans for another long morning trek (we planned to walk to the parakeet clay lick)...instead we had a lazy start and a relaxing morning, reading, snoozing, and watching a fascinating (if slightly depressing) documentary called Amazon Gold, all about the gold mining industry in Peru that's causing deforestation and destruction of the rainforest.
By lunchtime the rain had pretty much stopped so after we'd eaten we headed out to the mammal clay lick, a 45 minute walk from the lodge. The path there was very wet and it was incredible to see how much rain had fallen...we were almost up to our knees in water at some points. We reached the lick and sat in the hide for an hour but unfortunately all of the mammals were clearly still hiding from the rain so we headed back to the lodge. After dinner we decided to do the night walk given we'd not seen a huge amount that day and waded around in a swamp finding of different varieties of frogs and a few spiders, including the Golden Orb spider whose web is incredibly strong. We were looking for turtles when a couple of the guys got bitten by fire ants, who'd crawled down the back of their tops and into their hair. I found their scratching and trying to get the ants out of their tops very amusing until I suddenly felt one bite my neck too...it felt like someone was burning my neck with a match, hence the name fire ants I guess! We decided to call it a day at that point and headed back to the lodge for a night-cap.
The next morning was our last at Refugio Amazonas and we had an early breakfast before boarding the boat back to Puerto Maldonado. The journey took half the time on the way back which was fortunate as it was drizzling with rain again (fortunately not torrential rain like the previous day) and was pretty cold. We had to go to the next river port along as the bus was unable to get to the port we'd been dropped off on our way into the jungle, the rain the previous day had made the roads too bad. It wasn't long before we were back at the airport though and I was headed back to Cuzco.
I spent the afternoon back in Cuzco visiting the Mercado Central, the locals market which was fascinating, and doing some shopping (including purchasing a new duffel bag so that I could get my purchases home). That evening my Dragoman overland group were also in Cuzco, having finished the Inca trek that day, so once I was repacked I met them for dinner at a very cool restaurant called the Fallen Angel...the food was nouveau Peruvian cuisine and the interior was pretty spectacular, the tables were bath tubs filled with fish with a glass table top. After dinner we had a drink in Paddy's, an Irish bar in the town centre before heading back to my hotel.
I had another early start this morning for a my journey to Puno. By 7.30am I was on the bus and headed out of Cuzco. It was a 10 hour journey here but was a tourist bus so had stops in the village of Andahuayllilas (to see a Jesuit chapel), at the Inca ruins of Raqchi (a village that acted as a distribution centre moving food between the towns and villages of highlands and the lowlands), at La Raya (the highest point on the journey) and Pukara (a pre-Inca settlement). We also stopped for a buffet lunch in the town of Sicuani and had entertainment from a local Peruvian band playing panpipes.
I arrived in Puno to a cold and drizzly afternoon. After a minor blip (the hotel I was supposed to be staying in was closed for refurbishment but we discovered I was booked into another one after speaking to the travel company) I was checked in and spent the evening catching up some admin for the rest of my trip, went out for a quick dinner in a local restaurant and got my bags ready to head out onto Lake Titicaca tomorrow morning.
I'll be spending the next 2 days exploring some of the islands, including the floating reeds island of Uros, Isle of Taquille and will be staying overnight on Amantani Island tomorrow with a local family...apparently they put on a bit of a party for us and get us to dress up in their local clothing so it should be an interesting couple of days!
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