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Global Adventure '06
Hola,
budding armchair adventurers and fellow travellers, how goes the world with you.
Well I'm afriad this is gonna be a long one, as the actress said to the bishop, so get yourself a cup of tea (eg. puro, manzanilla, coca) and make yourselves comfortable. It is with great sadness that I have to announce my return to the UK, oh my gawd!!!. No he's coming back, quick lock up your valuables! Yep I'm coming back, hopefully not for too long. See how I feel when I get to the UK on the 2nd August, yep just over a week, I know how excited you all are.
It would be a very good chance to catch up with a whole lot of you who have followed my travels around the world. It really is quite small, in that you keep bumping into the same people, but not so small when I think about all the places that I still have left to visit. So that I'm very much looking forward to.
But let me tell you a little story, a tale of derring do, and adventure. A tale of moutain peaks, verdant jungle, rushing rivers, and more wildlife than you can shake a stick at. The boat ride to the lodge was the first challenge 100km up the Las piedras a tributary river of the Madre de Dios, which in turn is a tributary of the Amazon, so it was to be 14 days in the Amazon Basin. 2 days it took to reach camp and it was almost all over 10 mins in as we got up in the heads of the 2 rivers and the boat almost capsized, as it turned side on into the full flow as we hit a sandbank. Heart was pumping a bit at that moment. But Garza our pilot, cook and one of our guides for the 2 weeks steerd us out of trouble and we realised that it wasn't going to be plain sailing, several times we had to get out and push the boat literally off the sandbank, but it all added to the spirit of the trip. As it got dark for the first night we pulled onto a beach on the side of the river and set up camp for the night, and soon a roaring fire was keeping away most of the insects. The sounds of the jungle all around us and the beautiful starscape of the milky way above us, it was a most unreal experience. It was also on this first night that a comment about the safety aspect of the fire earned me the title of Safety Pete. Had a kinda superhero type ring to it so it stuck for a while.
Okay you get the general idea, but in 2 weeks I've had good views of families of spider monkeys, red howler monkeys, brown capuchin, squirrel monkeys, saddleback tamarins, south american Coati (bit like a red racoon), cabybarras, and a 3 toed sloths. I've seen a rice rat, anaconda, scorpion, wolf spiders, tarantulas, swamp snake, catfish, caymen black and white variety, bats, wild pigs called pecaries, huge ants, brown agoutis South American grey and red suirrels, poison dart frog, tree frog. There's more birds I've seen several varieties Macaws, Parrots, Tanager birds, horned screamers, ornate hawk eagles, night jars, great black hawks, roadside hawks, yellow headed vultures, king vultures, egrets, great and snowy, spix guans, humming birds, kingfisher, Pale wing trumpeters, tree creeper, toucans speckled chachalakas, woodpeckers. Plus countless types of butterflies Blue Morpho (biggest), Owl, swallowtails, and thousands of mosquitoes sand flies, wasps and other bitey insects.
Needless to say I wasn't bored and the times that we weren't counting macaws and parrots at the clay lick and looking for mammals on the 9km transect walks, we were fishing in the river for catfish, swimming with the caymen, anaconda, piranha and the other nasty fish that swims up your pee. OOOHHHH!!! Don't whatever you do pee in the river. Night walks, and searching in the dark for caymen and capybarra with a small canoe and a very big torch, swinging in the many hammocks provided singing songs with an accoustic guitar, and showering with wolf spiders (brings a whole new meaning to there's a spider in the bathtub), walking through the jungle, being suspended above the jungle 27m up on a thin rope and harness in order to reach the platform with it's great views over the canopy. It was reminiscent of those trust building exercises when you have to rely on the others not to drop you mid ascent or descent.
When we were not in the jungle the adventure was puerto Maldonado with it's only taxis being motorbikes, cool another mode of transport, what a great way to travel, the wind and dust in your hair, and it's many parades and demonstrations, one for every day I was there and the slighty spooky wooden structure that acted as my hotel for the 3 nights I was in town.
Okay I reckon interest is probably waning now. I've probably forgotten loads as always but hey, so I'll finish up by saying that it was yet another outstanding experience that I've notched up on this trip one I will never forget, and I'm so chuffed I did it just to see the monkeys in the wild and watch them watching me and throwing things at me. Such a tremendous feeling of happiness. Our closest relatives up there in the trees.
Take care everybody, don't have nightmares,
This is Nick Ross for Crime....
Sorry got carried away,
lots of love
Safety Pete, Pedro, Pistol, Pete,
whatever you want to call me
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