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We caught a very early flight to Iquitos, the main city in the Amazon Basin and around half of Peru is in the Amazon Basin. When we arrived, our guide, Rudy, met us at the airport and we made our way to the harbour where we boarded the boat, with the rest of the staff. We were to be the only guests at the Lodge for our entire stay!!!!
The boat trip took about 4 hours along the Amazon River. We stopped at a small village along the way to 'stretch our legs'...but actually the boat broke down! Jacamar Lodge is based deep in the Amazon Rainforest, about 100 miles from the main city of Iquitos, on the bank of the Tahuayo River, a tributary of the Amazon. The lodge was great, completely isolated from everything, it was just us and the jungle! We arrived about lunch time so we relaxed a little before lunch and met the orphaned three-toed sloth who we named Slophia. She was abandoned by her mother and found by one of the lodge's staff, Julio, who is now looking after until she can be released back into the wild. We got to hold her, or more like she got to hold us, as she just clings on! She moved really slowly and looked like she had been to the pub for about 10 hours. Apparently this has something to do with the leaves she eats fermenting in her stomach, making her 'drunk', as her digestive system is so slow. Sloths only go to the toilet about once a week!
After a hearty lunch it was time to start exploring. Rudy and the tracker, Robin, took us into the jungle around the lodge to look for animals. We were wearing completely the wrong attire, as we soon discovered, when our walking shoes were doing nothing to protect us from the knee-high mud! And once the rain came too, we were completly soaked...but when you can not get any wetter you just get stuck in, so we were just jumping in puddles by the end! We managed to get aquainted with all of the Mosquitoes in the whole of South America; we think they were on a trip, maybe there was a mosquito wedding near by and we were the buffet! But we also saw a yellow-footed turtle that was about 13 years old. The rain finally got too much and we decided to head back to the lodge before dark. When we got back to the lodge we took a dug-out canoe to see some Pygmi Marmoset monkeys, just down stream from the lodge. They were so tiny, about the size of our hands with really cute faces, but unfortunately they were a little camera shy!
That night we had an early night and slept really well, despite the jungle noises! The lodge bedrooms do not have walls, as such, just canvas, so you can hear all the noises of the jungle, which was really nice to wake up to!
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