Amazon Jungle Adventure

Wednesday, September 28 - 29
Most of the group are up to see us off on the next leg of our journey. Hugs all 'round. They were great travel companions; different ages and backgrounds, but we enjoyed good conversation and found plenty to laugh about together. Only six of us, Lauren, Duncan, Alice, Cindy, Peter and I continue on to the Amazon with our trusty guide, Manuel. At the airport it is the usual chaos of the internal flights terminal. We have great faith in Manuel's ability to get us places on time, so we follow him patiently through the crowds. Cindy's pack is at bursting point and she is still in recovery mode from her accident the day before, so Peter and Duncan help her lug it around. Its a quick flight to Puerto Moldinado, where we are met, by our jungle guide, Emerson with a bus to take us into town where we do another resorting and repacking of clothes into duffel bags. The town has a certain wild west charm, with motorbikes instead of horses. Its not long before we are back on the bus headed to our boat ride upriver.

We are served a picnic lunch in little baskets as the long narrow motor boat powers us up the Tambopata River. The river is wide, flat and mud brown in colour. It looks sluggish, but I think the current is quite strong. Emerson is eagle-eyed and spots maccaws, comical looking hoatzin birds and other wildlife that are barely visible to me even with binoculors. You have to work pretty hard to spot wildlife in this jungle, not like Costa Rica's cloud forest or the game parks in Africa. But it is made very special by our outstanding guide. Born in the jungle, Emerson knows the creatures and the terrain intimately. His English, which he claims to have learned from tourists, is perfect and he has a wonderful sense of humour. We are all charmed by him. He is as handsome as he is clever - he calls himself George of the Jungle, but we think he looks like Tom Cruise. So, Cruise of the Jungle??

The Tambopata Ecolodge is simple but efficient and prettily laid out with rooms in semi-detached cabins.

There is solar heated hot water for the showers and a generator from 6pm to 10pm at night. This gives us light in the dining room and bar. There is a powerbar where we can charge cameras and other appliances. We are all provided with rechargable flashlights for jungle hikes and negotiating the route to our cabins. The rest of the light in the well appointed rooms, is from candles. It is hot and humid during the day and night - a complete contrast to the chilly temperatures we have had over the past couple of weeks. For the next couple of days we relax, go on jungle walks, night excursions on the river, take photos and drink beer. We also respect siesta time and eat very well. Some of the highlights are, feeding piranas (with crackers, not our fingers,) teasing a tarantula out of its hole, a glimpse of night monkeys, being introduced to the large rodent-like creatures, capybaras and rescuing Alice from a tiny blanket snake. The night-time river ride was pretty special, particularly when the motor was turned off so we could mediate quietly while drifting downstream.We also became a pretty efficient team for taking night photos. Peter, Lauren and Alice got some amazing shots.

The best part of the jungle experience is being woken by the dawn chorus. First their is a troop of howler monkeys sounding like the roar of an engine needing a tune up. Their rumbling call fades as every creature that chirps, tweets, peeps, or squeaks adds their voice to the morning serenade. I particular likely the weaver bird that I can watch out of our bedroom window. At night another group of critters flitter and creep around. Before going to bed, Peter and I do a room inspection for Alice checking in all the obvious places for creepy crawlies, but clearly not well enough. As Alice tells it in an email home "Having learnt my lesson from the night before I enlisted some help with the routine bug spotting. The Canadians came armed with head torches and flashlights...fantastic...all was declared clear and I was starting to feel a little calmer. Just needed to wash the face, brush the teeth, apply the deet and jump under the mosquito net...perfect. Alas no such luck, a small tail belonging to a rather large snake was waiting for me in the overflow of the sink...(which we forgot to check). Oh shit....but was this a whistle emergency??? A short but very brisk walk to the Canadians lodge to enlist their help who returned bearing head torches, flashlights and a pair of tweezers.. Plan A to pull said snake out of the overflow and into a bag to dispose of some where outside, but the snake had better ideas, refused to be pulled out and decided he would be better off disappearing down the pipe. Several pieces of toilet paper later and the overflow was properly blocked. Some uneasy sleeping again but it was quite beautiful to be woken by the sound of the jungle."