At the airport we get to eat the little pack breakfast given to us by the owner of the One hostel as we missed breakfast this morning, as we left so early, lovely, a lttile box of cerals, yogurt drink fruit juice real luxary stuff mmmmm.
We fly from Lima to Peruto Maldando, during the flight we get snacks a little cake, savoury biscuits and some chcolate. At Peruto Maldando we are picked up like a regular tourist, it feels great to be a regular tourist. We are meet by a guide and ferried off to the collection point. Where we meet our guide for the next 3 days Leny and also Dan and Jennie, from the USA, we then make up a little group of 5.
From the collection point we take a ´road´ into the jungle, it is an amazing journey, we get to see the jungle on either side with beautiful flowers and small patches of the local community, while bumping across this unmade road. We even have to get out at one point while the bus crosses a particulaly bad bridge. The bridges are just large blanks of wood the bus has to navigate across. We are also given some local snacks to eat, a little banana, banana chips, some nuts and fruit juice, more food mmmmm.
We then arrive at the local port which is basically some step down the step slope onto the mud river bank. However it does have a local shop which is a hut selling sweets, batteries etc.
The whole group about 30 of us, including our little group of 5 then take a large canoe to the lodge. Getting onto the canoe is a wobbly experience, but the porters take it in their stride, while carrying several packs and suitcases, such small men carring such amounts, respect to them.
The canoe ride is beautiful you get to see the amazon jungle while sailing through this very wide, very muddy river, something you watch on movies and documentaries, but never think in a million years you will experience it and here am I doing just that.
We see quite a few things on our way to the lodge while on our canoe journey including a caymen we get to sail right next too, several tortoises sitting on a branch. A particularly fanatstic sight was about 20 or so macaw at the clay lick, seeing so many such large, brightly coloured birds is an incredible sight.
We also get our luch given to us on the boat a pack of vegtable fried rice wrapped in banana skins, absolutely scrummy, loved it. All recycable as the babana skin we through in the river and the forks reused.
When we arrive at the dock, again a muddy bank, we have to climb loads of stairs to reach the top of the slope and then had a 20 minute walk through the jungle to reach our lodge, our first experiece of walking through the jungle.
When we get to our lodge we find out that it only has electric on for a couple of hours in the morning and evening and this is only in the reception and eating areas, at other times and places you have to use kerosene lamps and candles. Also there is no hot water and you must use only the biodegrable toiletries provided in the room.
Our rooms are incredible the back ´wall´ is basically missing, you have privacy because it backs straight onto the jungle. However you have less privacy as you can see through the wall from your room onto the corridor and vice versa. The bathroom has a little more privacy as you can´t see through the walls from the corridor, but of course there is only a curtain between it and the room and again the back wall is missing.
After dinner, we head straight out to the canopy tower which is 37.5 meter straight up via a wobbly scaffolding tower, not my idea of fun as I have a fear of heights. Thankfully I´m not the only one who has a fear of heights Dan does too, although he still wizzes up the tower straight to the top. I do manage to get to the level just below the top as I don´t fancy the little ladder to the last level. It is an amazing sight you can see the top of the trees for miles and a flock of green parakeets fly past and then land on a near by tree, you are at their level, really cool. On the walk back to the lodge our guide Leny tell us all about the flora and funa we see. We see leaf cutter ants and even different species of monkey, including the squirrel monkey, red howler monkey and the dusky titi monkies.
We then shettle into our rooms with no lighting other than candle light. We have eaten more today then we probably did for the last week, we definately aren't complaining, it makes such a change after Mexico.
While getting ready for bed I go to find my PJs and I manage to grap hold of something that feels a little odd. When I point my torch at it it is a HUGE bugs antennae I then scream and let go after accidentally tugging it, the poor bug must have one hell of a headache. I then have a shower and after getting out something lands on my shoulder, I scream and ask Colin to get it off, galent as always he says 'no chance I'm safe in here', as he is under the mosqito net that covers our bed. I don't even know what is on my back and knowing all the poisonous stuff I am thankful when it leeps off and I see that it is only the bug from earlier, getting its own back.
On our first morning we get up very early for a 4.30am breakfast and head out back to the dock for another canoe ride up stream and then a walk to the lake. The lake is an incredible sight in the early hours of the morning in the half light and mist, so beautiful.
We sail around the lake seeing all the different birds, nothing like we have at home even the ducks and pigeons look beautiful. The lake is so serene and quiet it is lovely. The guides are fab pointng out different birds and letting us use there powerful telescope to get closeup looks of the birds.
We even pull up along side these huge birds called stinky birds, they are called this as like cows they have several stomachs and due to this an obvious effect.
While pulled up next to the bank, we get to piranha fish, we put a tiny piece of meat on the end of a stick with string and a hook and dangle it in the water. Soon I have a nibble and another nibble and then another nibble, but no proper bits. Although soon enough one of the men in the group gets one, it is amazing to see out of the water and the guide shows us the amazing teeth they have a litle set of razor sharp teeth. The guide even puts a leaf in its mouth to show us how it bits straight through this with ease.
Then Jennie gets one, again we get to see it out of the water, I even get to hold it and it is very strong wiggling in my hands, I even get to put it back in the lake. I never thought I would ever hold a wild piranha, I was the only one in the group who wanted too, I wonder why?
Soon I give up my rod and give others a go, when they are all bored I have another go as I love watching the piranha slowly nibble the bait away. Eventually I get a proper bite and I have the caught largest, a large piranaha that I caught, how incredible.
We sail back to the dock, unfortunately we didn´t get to see any large otters that live in the lake, but I had a fab time anyway and I am sad to leave the lake even though it is incredibly hot and sunny with no cover on the boats by mid day.
While at the lake we see:
Sungrib ducks, Touchans, Vlture, Ringed Kingfisher, Wattled jacana, Pale Vented pigeon, Blue and yellow macaw, Long nosed bats, Ruddy pigeaons, Stinky brids (Hoatzin) and Yellow belled piranha.
Again on our way back to the lodge Leny points out all the flora and fauna, not once not knowing the answer to anything we asked.
After lunch the five of us get to walk into the jungle this time an obviously less used path then the other we have taken to see the ´mother of the jungle tree´. It is the largest tree I have ever seen with a huge base even taller than Dan who must be 6foot.
After dinner at 8pm we go for our night walk just the five of us go for a wander in the jungle, although we do not stray too far from the lodge, however we still see lots of amazing things. Almost as soon as we start the tour Leny spots a large brown spider and explains that it is very poisonous, 7 times more poisonous that the coral snake, even so Leny is up close pointing bits of it out too us. Major respect to the girl. We see so many animals, different types of spider one orange, the next brown and green, we see loads of jumping spider, large back spiders that jump, although these ones are quite skiny in comparision to the others we have seen. Leny then finds a tarantuals hole and sticks a stick down it and wiggles it until the tarantula comes out, this is a chicken taurantula, named because it eats birds, and is apparently not fully grown, but is still the biggest spider I have ever seen. One thay way back we see a sleeping bird, the weirdest thing I have ever seen, we are up close to it talking etc and it doesn´t wake just sitting on a branch alseep. We again see ducky titti monkies and howler monkies.
Unfortuantely at the end of our tour back at the lodge I manage to stand on an ants nest and of course they then shot up my leg and start biting. These ants are much, much bigger than the ones at home at least half an inch long and rather painful. I say a hurried good night to Jennie, Dan and Leny and run toward my room, take off may trousers only to find a couple on my leg and one on my tummy I manage to brush off all but one. When I try and brush off the last one it's head is attached to my leg, but uunfortunately its body had becone unattached from it's head. So I therefore have to pull the head off my leg rather painfully. NOT NICE !!!!
On the 3rd day after breakfast the five of us head out the clay lick which we sailed past yesterday to hopefully see some Macaws. We walk staight from the lodge to the hide about a 30 mins walk. Unfortunately we do not see any Macaws land at the lick we see many fly over head and land on near by branches, but none on the clay lick. They are still amazing to see as they a huge and very bright blue and red in colour. We do however see Capybara tracks which shows that small mamals have been here lately.
We then go back to the lodge and meet up with the larger group and go to botenical gardens again a boat ride, but this time a very short walk once we reach the next dock. We are met by a shamen who then shows us around his garden and desribes the plants and their effects with the guides translating for us. We get to try a bit of twig that we are told to chew, almost instantly it make my tongue goes numb, amazing that a plant can have such a powerful effect. We learn about all sorts off plants and their effects, there is even one that has shall we say has a positive effect on the male, I asked if I could buy it in bulk :O)
At the end of the tour we get to try two types of medicine one tastes lie sherry the other brandy, not like medicine at all, but we where told that some of the medicine are mixed with alcohol.
Back to the lodge and we get a few hours to rest, however while the others are asleep I decide to take the path to the hide by myself. Off I wander and go down the path, it is wonderful to be completely by yourself in the middle of the jungle, it is so quiet and yet so noisey. You get to hear so much more when it is only you and the jungle. I take my time wandering there and I see a tarantula out of its hole just sitting there, although it soon goes when I go to have a closer look. I only falter once one my way there as there are lots of path at one intersection and I wasn't sure which one to take, but I am pleasently amazed when I reach the hide without once getting lost.
I spend an hour or so at the hide and see some Macaw flying past, but unfortunately in the distance are some birds of prey and so the Macaws aren't going to land with them around. Due to this I give up and walk back to the lodge again not hurrying and enjoying the walk, where I see the smallest frog I have ever see it is about the size of my finger now and bown in colour, amazing that I saw it.
I got back to the lodge just in time with 2 minutes to spare which is cool as I don't have a watch. The five of us then walk to the overlook to see the sun setting. We walk through little used paths and go deeper into the jungle again Leny points out any interesting flura and forna we pass. We then go into a different sort of jungle called bambo jungle, Leny says that some call the pure jungle, it is certainly much harder to walk though as we now have to bend and climb to get through the paths. We get to the look out which is a small bench at the top of a high ledge looking out over the river. It is beautiful, but climbing around is a 24 hour ant, a huge ant and called 24 hours as its bite causes agony for 24 hours. Nice!
Leny tell us how she got to be a guide and tells us an amazing story about how there wasn't a secondary school in her village as she is a local and her village is near the dock. Leny says that as she and her sister wanted to attend seocndary school and so she and her sister had to leave their jungle home and live in a house their parents brought and attend school in Peruto Maldeno the local large town. So as a 7 year old in the care of her 9 year old sister, they where completly alone in a big town attending a school up the road from their home. They where only able to go home at weekends and had to ednure a 6 hour trip up the river after achool on a Friday night to get home and see their parents. Leny said that this was the only way her and her sister could further their education and this was important to them both. Absolute and total respect to them both.
We then walk back along an easier path as it is now getting dark we get to see loads of glow in the dark bugs, we have never seen them before and they are beautiful. Although both Jennie and Dan have seen them before as you get them in North America. There are both orange and green bugs reaslly beautiful floating around both Leny and I catch some to take a close look.
Our time in the jungle is now over and we are getting an early flight out, I am really sad as I love it here and think that it is an amazing place, definately my favourite part of the holiday so far.
We are up early and get a cannoe for the last time back to the dock and then back along the dodgy road in the mini bus to the meeting place. Where we get anther mini bus to the airport where we say goodbye to Leny an amazing young women.
We then have a long wait until our plane goes to Cusco and so Colin, Jennie, Dan and I kill time drinking warm fizzy drinks in an amazing small airport.
