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Just three days after our return from the Inca trail we were on the road again, this time for a five day/ four night trip into the Amazon jungle in the area of Manu, Peru.
Having befriended fellow travellers; Will and Archanna from the UK and Leigh and Katherine from Oz on the Inca trail, the six of us teamed up once more for our Amazon adventure and were joined by another girl from Austria called Lydia.
As is the norm for most trips in SA (unfortunately for us) the pick-up time on the first morning of Friday, October 14th was 5am.
From Cusco we travelled on a very bumpy, narrow road through the Andean mountains- again along a cliff's edge- in order to get to the jungle.
Some of the bends on the road were actually so steep and dangerous that we had to get out and walk while the driver manoeuvred the bus around the corners.
Our guide, William, later informed us that the reason for this was because a truck had fallen off the edge just a few weeks earlier.
Luckily he waited until after we had driven through a couple of waterfalls and debris caused by a couple of small landslides to tell us about that.
After a cold chicken lunch eaten at the side of the road (it was actually pretty tasty) we had our first experience of the Amazonian cloud forest, where we saw everything from Tiger Heron's to monkeys to Peru's national bird, the c*** of the Rock.
Our accommodation that night was at the Rainforest lodge, where we slept in semi open log cabins to the background of what sounded like hundreds of croaking frogs, crickets and other unknown creatures.
Rather disconcerting was the fact that a gigantic baboon rat was spotted right before we went to bed.
Thankfully we managed to avoid it, as well as the vast quantities of mosquitoes and God knows what other creepy crawlies by sleeping inside our mosquito nets.
We were up again bright and early the next morning at 6am and took a bus to a local farm after breakfast.
Here we came face to face with a wild hog, some parrots and a very cheeky little raccoon that ran right up my leg.
Afterwards we took a boat from town along the Madre de Dias river, on the Amazon, stopping along the way at a natural hot spring. Here, those of us unwilling to brave the insect infested, cold showers that morning we were able to wash our hair and the likes.
Unfortunately I missed the part where William warned us not to wear any jewellery into the water as it discolours thanks to the minerals! My one and only silver ring stayed a lovely shade of mustard for a few days afterwards.
Lunch that day was on the boat and we also got to make brief use of the hammocks at our lodge, the Bonanza (turns out it was owned by Will's family) that afternoon before heading off on our first night trek.
Our first stop along the way was William's self made observation tower, about 60 feet high and not in the least bit sturdy looking. He reassured us by telling us that it has a life span of at least 30 years, although he had never tested it with as much weight as ours combined!
We also found ourselves walking through the Amazon river on a number of occasions in order to get to our destination.
Will again added to the excitement by informing us as we were halfway through that: "you need to walk fast because the river is full of electric eels, pyrannas and stingrays."
In typical Will fashion he then proceeded to tell us that just a few weeks earlier he had almost lost an Italian tourist after he was hit in the chest by a stingray and went into shock. It's no wonder they insist on taking your travel insurance details before you set off!
It was quite the experience walking through the rainforest as it grew darker and darker, with only our cheap headlamps to guide the way.
Again Will kept us on our toes by warning us off falling ants, fire ants and other dangerous obstacles in our path.
Unfortunately we didn't manage to see any crocodiles (Carmen) up close but we did see their eyes glowing red from a distance in the marshy water.
We also came face to face with some enormous tarantulas (Yuck), saw a great owl, a Carmen patoo (which is a camouflaged bird, which blends in with a tree), a baby bamboo rat, a green tree frog, a mature toad and a giant turtle, which Will insisted we pick up.
The following morning it was up bright and early again, we're talking yet another 6am start, and went out trekking after brekkie.
Unfortunately the rain forest truly lived up to its name and rained almost incessantly that morning so we didn't manage to see too many unusual creatures.
Will did get to try a new experiment however when he decided to divide us up into pairs and sent us off into the jungle alone for an hour in search of animals.
His parting advice was, "if you see a jaguar don't run away and don't touch any snakes." Reassuring!
We needn't have worried though as there was nothing around but a couple of monkeys and frogs around.
Afterwards some brave members of the group went searching for anacondas and boa constrictors in the long grasses of the marsh, needless to say I wasn't among them!
They had no joy in the end, I'm still not sure if this was a good or a bad thing.
The rest of the day was spent having lunch, showering and relaxing before taking off for our night in the Treehouse.
And by Treehouse, I literally mean a wooden platform with a roof and a few poles on each side for walls.
We all put up mossie nets but unfortunately they didn't do their job too well. Alan got his legs eaten alive, while they went for my back. I'm still not sure if they were mossie bits or potentially bedbugs from the mattresses we slept on. Either way horrific!
We did another walk about that night and Will showed us a giant tarantula, whose home was just yards from our accommodation.
We also all took shifts to look out for 'Tappears,' known to us as anteaters that night but unfortunately had no joy thanks to the heavy rain.
The next day the same brave people who went hunting for anacondas went hunting for the local delicacy, grubs, which they ate...alive! Again needless to say it wasn't for me.
They looked equally unappealing later that night when they fried them up and offered them to us for dessert.
Will also gave us a demo of the local custom of rolling a grasshopper in a cigarette and smoking it. Bizarre!
Before returning to civilisation the next day we did some more hunting for big snakes but only managed to find one little one.
Alan was however completely mesmerised by the trail of leafcutter ants we spotted, who were busy working in succession to move leaves from point A to B.
After a long bus journey back across the narrow cliff roads we arrived in Cusco, where pre-shower I was horrified to find a live tick in my back, chomping away and generally having a great time. On the bright side at least he was alone and wasn't a tarantula!
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