Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
20th December
Amazon time!! We left our hostel for a few days to venture into the
Peruvian Amazon basin. I'd been amazed by the Amazon since being 5 or
6 years old & seeing David Attenbourgh explore it. The idea of the
jungle is just captivating to me. Miles and miles of tropical trees
and plants surrounded by the greatest variety of nature found anywhere
on this planet! Seems strange to me that anyone wouldn't want to see
all of this. We'd wanted to spend longer here and do some volunteering
but the cost of volunteering is far too expensive for our budget.
We set off from the hostel around 7:30am heading to Cusco airport.
Easily one of the smallest I've ever seen, it only has 4 gates & up
until 20 minutes before our flight we were the only people at the
gate. The plane we boarded was just making a pit stop on it's way from
Lima and half of its passengers were staying on. We only had a 35
minute flight and the moment we got through the doors that lovely
burst of hot air greeted us like it does in any hot environment. Cusco
had been a pleasant 20c but Puerto Maldonado was a positively class
34c! As the plane had come into land you could see the big brown
murkieness of the Amazon snaking along through miles of greenery.
We'd paid no deposit and hadn't heard much from the lodge we were
staying with so I was a bit worried about getting stuck high & dry at
the airport. Thankfully we were met by a woman from the lodge and
shortly after we were on our way to the lodge.
Puerto Maldonado is another city built to survive on tourism. Its
scooter population is higher than any I've ever seen. Coupled with the
scenery it makes me feel like Vietnamme will be very similar. We
arrive at the office to find it locked and unstaffed. The woman who
was supposed to meet us there appeared and seeing as she didn't have
any keys we handed over a couple of hundred dollars and our passport
details in the back of the minibus, hmmm. From there we moved down to
the dock where as you'd expect our boat wasn't waiting for us. Amongst
all the disorganization it was easy to forget you were standing on the
banks of the biggest river in the world, and that when your motorized
canoe did turn up you would be journeying into the biggest ecosystem
on Earth. Once we were eventually on board I felt an amazing sense of
happieness, purely due to the fact of where we were.
The lodge was beautiful and having a lush swimming pool didn't harm it
either. Our tour was going to consist of just the two of us and a
Indian couple based in London. The quiet season was definitely in
force here and there was only one other group of four staying at the
lodge as well. after lunch we left for a walk to be shown different
kinds of unusal plants and flowers. The rainforest started to live up
to its name & really started to heave it down. Even torrential rain
wasn't gonna bother me, I was in the Amazon, booya!! Our guide who's
name i never caught, showed us some amazing stuff including the aptly
named "iron tree" that he hit with his machete & promptly made a noise
more familiar to tools in a blacksmiths than a rainforest.
After dinner we headed out on a boat to find Caiman, small crocodiles,
and using massive floodlights found several before they scooted away.
Again I felt that awesome feeling of happieness.
21st December
The Amazon is anything but quiet at night & I loved falling asleep to
the sound of hundreds of different insects and frogs. That chorus
continued right through to shortly before 5am when our alarm added to
the sounds chiming out.
We headed out to meet our guide and group and spent the next 30
minutes hiking through the jungle to a clay lick. Parrots flock to
these areas early in the morning to lick the nutrients out of the soil
that neutralize the heavy intake of acids they undertake from eating
so much citrus fruit. The birds won't come down if they sense
predators or if it's raining. 30 minutes of sitting quietly in a hide
listening to them circle and the clouds felt overweighed & promptly
dumped their load on us as the parrots hauled ass out of there. The
idea was just to try again tomorrow.
After a couple of naps innterupted by breakfast we headed down river
on the canoe. The level had risen visibly overnight by at least a
metre. After we had been carried downstream along with the remmnants
of trees we arrived at a small animal hospital, travellers with far
more money than me pay up to $1000 a month to 'volunteer' here. We
walked deep into the forest from here, walking 40 minutes through the
vast trees and plants to a canopy walk. It was anything but
professional or reassuring and as we inched up step by step I couldn't
help but imagine the steel cables snapping and us all falling to the
treetops way below and then breaking every bone in our bodies before
hitting the muddy floor. It took about 15 minutes to get to the top as
everyone took their time inching forwards. The views at the top were
mesmerizing and the pictures do it no justice. After we'd slowly made
our way back down, stepping over the holes in the process we returned
to the hospital.
Here we lunched on a fine feast of egg, rice and chicken wrapped in a
banana leaf. After lunch, as the rain continued to soak everything
including Jen's camera, we took a walk around the animal hospital.
There vast varieties of birds and monkies, a black spider monkey
decided I'd got to close and took a swipe at my camera and nearly took
my head off. They also had a otter and a large female Jaguar that
played hide and seek with our guide. The workers fed the jaguar live
chickens to keep some of its instincts in tact but we weren't lucky
enough to see this. Probably a good thing as there were two veggies in
the group.
Our last stop was a farm 30 minutes walk away where a farmer was
trying to grow all the fruits of South America in one place. We tried
so many weird fruits, some good, some not. We saw amazing plants and
pineapple bushes which I'd never seen before.
The lodge was back up river so it took twice as long to get back but
we saw capuchin monkies along the way.
22nd December
We had decided to try the claylick again this morning but when we
awoke at 4:45am to torrential rain hammering out hut we knew the plan
would be abandoned, so carried on sleeping till breakfast at 8. By
this point the rain had stopped and it looked like being a lovely hot
sticky and humid day in the Amazon. We set off downstream heading for
Sandoval wildlife reserve, which has been a national park for over 70
years. In the middle of the park sits a enormous lake and after a 3km
walk that would be our activity for the day. The track had been badly
abused by the heavy downpours and the water levels had risen by up to
2m in places. We had been supposed to visit Monkey Island later that
day but the weather had finally given us some bad luck after such a
good run. It was a bit sad but I wasn't going to dwell on it. Besides,
coming here has given us both a greater appetite and I don't know
whether it'll be here , Bolivia or Brazil but I'll be back in the
Amazon one day.
Our trek along the "path" was really hard but incredibly rewarding. We
saw 100s of butterflies and even better than them we saw a wild Sloth,
which was really cool as they're not that common. When we arrived at
the canoe (non-motorized this time), it had taken on a fair amount of
water from the rain. Me, Amir and the guide all spent some time scooping
the water out with old ice cream buckets and other priminite tools.
We spent about 4 hours on the lake paddling around slowly so as not
to disturb the animals before we could see them. We saw more crazy birds
with amazing colours than I could even remember, many monkies including
black spider monkies, black and brown capuchins and red howlers monkies
who you could hear from anywhere on the lake. On the edges of fallen trees
were tortoises waiting for butterflies to eat parasites off them. It was truly
tranquil. I tried to take award winning photos but a rocking boat and a lense not
quite long enough made it really hard. The heat didn't help either.
The return journey from the lake was even harder and the mosquitos were closing
in. As soon as I got back to the lodge we shared a big cold beer and read for
a while, because after dinner it would be time to pack again :(
23rd December
We left Corto Maltes fairly early and ended up at the airport with hours to kill.
Not good. This airport lacked all functions you would need for a long stay. Namely
a bar and wifi. It only had 3 fans for the whole airport and the temperature was
creaping up to 34c. On the plane me and Jen were sat a few rowes apart and my
seat buddy was a fat woman with a newborn baby. The woman overspilled onto my
seat and if it had been any longer than 35 minutes in the air I would have killed her!
We spent most of the day back in Cusco sorting out washing and organzing plans
for after christmas day. Also sleeeeeep
- comments