Amazon Trek Day 1
21 January 2014
As soon as I knew I was going to Peru, I had two things on my list. The Inca Trail and the Amazon. I was so excited about this trip, even though I had heard crazy stories about the size of the mosquitos and the number of bites people got while travelling there. I had Bushman’s Plus at the ready (really good mosquito repellant) and a plethora of long sleeve shirts and pants to protect me. So off I went.
Planes, trains and automobiles… sort of…
It took a bit of work to get here, but this was the itinerary to get from Cusco to the Amazon:
- Fly from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado
- Bus to Tambopata river (50 mins)
- Boat to Posada Amazonas (45 mins). A very yummy lunch of fried rice wrapped in banana leaf was provided as we motored up the river.
- 10 min walk uphill from the riverbank to the lodge
Accommodation
Posada Amazonas Lodge is the only accommodation for this tour. There are no resorts with interconnecting pools here. This is an eco-tourism lodge that forms part of a community project in which all profits from the lodge go back into the ‘tribe’ of people who live in the immediate community, to help build schools and develop education. Only local people work in the lodge as it gives employment and income to them and it’s very environmentally minded.
Again, no loo paper down the toilet.
There are 30 rooms in the lodge, all of which are open to the jungle. Yes folks, you read that correctly. Rooms only have 3 walls and there are no doors. There is a curtain at the entrance of your room and one more at the entrance to the bathroom. And each room is not individually created with it’s own roof. It’s like a big long shed, under which, are sectioned off rooms and private bathrooms. You can hear your neighbours and they can hear you. And we can ALL hear all the noises of the creatures outside, who can see and hear every single one us in our rooms. A tad un-nerving.
Hot water runs at specific times of the day only, so you have to time your showers well!
Lighting in the rooms
In the rooms you have to use torches (hand held or head lamps) as there is no electricity in the rooms, and you are only provided with 3 x kerosene lamps for light which the staff turn off at night, and light again for you first thing in the morning. We do not touch the lamps….. no sir-ee.
What? Wifi in the jungle?
Believe it or not they have internet in the jungle – and this is 2014! (Aussie politicians could learn something from the Sth Americans, there is Wifi EVERYWHERE here, even in the jungle).
For 4 hours a day, generally in the late afternoon/early evening, you can recharge your devices and get onto wifi. There is no electricity or wifi at other time of the day. For the most part you are out and about, and don’t need it. But it is great to stay connected to people and charge your camera for the adventure that awaits the following day.
Although if it’s raining and there is no wifi, then there were plenty of other activities to do.
The area around our Lodge
This is a very very poor area that relies mostly on Agriculture. Papaya, corn, rice and bananas are the main crops in this region. Driving past the houses in Puerto Maldonado, they are like shanty towns. It’s very dusty despite being the rainy season and it looks like some houses don’t even have cement or brick walls, they have hessian wrapped around the frames with no floors.
The Lodge is located on the Tambopata river, which feeds into the Madre de Dios river, both contributing to the almighty Amazon river through South America.
My Group
I had an interesting mix of people in my group – each adding their own contribution to my incredible experience. Our group went on tours together, although at the accommodation there were a number of other people, who had arrived on different days and were up to their own part of their particular itineraries.
Everyone met up at breakfast and dinner in the dining hall. Always such a great place to chat and hear everyone else’s stories of what they did, saw or how many bites they had. It was a badge of honour of you came away with no bites at all.
Linda and Brian are from Washington USA. Linda is a biologist in her 40’s and Brian is a defense department engineer also in his 40’s. They are avid birdwatchers with some pretty fierce camera equipment to boot. They are very much here to see the wildlife and are being escorted by a special guide who has put together a list of all the wildlife they could expect to see during their time in Peru. Apparently there are over 1800 species of birds alone in Peru. Who knew?
Trisha and Sheena are long time friends from Townsville! Trish works at the university there and Sheena is retired. Sheena is Scottish but has been in Australia for nearly 40 years and still sounds Scottish. They are on a 6 week tour of Sth America and have been to Antarctica, BA, Rio an were now in Peru.
Also part of our group were a billion mosquitos.
…… I *%#*&@ HATE mozzies!
Bird Watching Tower
After settling in and unpacking my much smaller than normal luggage (which included ONLY my day pack, as we were told we can only have the bare minimum luggage due to the boat ride. Our suitcases were left in a ‘safely locked-up’ room in Peurto Mandalo, although some people insisted in bringing their whole suitcase – probably for good reason), we were off to the Viewing Tower.
Boots first
But first we had to go get our boots. The Wellington Boot is a MUST HAVE here in the jungle. It protects your legs from goodness knows what is along the tracks you walk, and you wade through some pretty high waters as you get in and out of the boats along the river.
The lodge has a boot shed, with racks of all sized boots. You just have to find a pair that fit, and they are yours for the week. All stinky, all grubby, all disgusting boots that hundreds of people have worn before you. But they are your and you had to leave them outside your room each night to air.
I can tell you that I shook those things pretty darn hard each morning to dislodge any critter that wanted to make it his home for the night.
You were told to bring old thick socks with you that you would basically chuck out at the end of the trip, and for good reason. My old white sox were a mix of brown and red at the end of the trip.
Back to them birds
So, back to the Canopy Tower. A 37m high tower that gives great views of the area, as it is above the Amazon tree canopy level.
Here we saw some amazing birdlife, the start of a lovely few days of spotting.
Being the blonde that I am, I didn’t pack binoculars, even though it tells you on the ‘what to bring list’ that you should. In any case, our guide Louis lent me his most of the time so I was able to see an incredible amount of wildlife up close. His binoculars are so powerful that they flatten the depth of field, so all the trees actually look flat, like a theatre set. Nearly blew my eyes off when I looked through them.
More birds
We saw a number of birds, quite a list actually, but what I liked the most was:
- The King Vulture – from afar, not up close, but man they glide like nothing else
- Macaw’s – these are gorgeous birds that fly in pairs. We saw red and green as well as blue headed ones. Apparently they are quite rare
- My favourite was a small bird with a really big name. It is called a Bat Falcon but it is tiny! Someone was smoking something the day they found this species.
It was a sunny day so we were very fortunate to see quite a distance and identify many species. It was pretty hot walking through the jungle floor though. then standing in the heat up the top didn’t help, but the view was spectacular.
I have never been bird watching in my life but I have a new found respect for the patience and reward this gives.
These ants are cool
The other amazing thing I learned today and saw for the first time was the army of Leaf Cutter ants…. or the ANT HIGHWAY as we called it.
How amazing is this: Leaf Cutter ants cut leaves from plants and trees and grow fungus on these cut fragments of leaf. They practice fungiculture and have been doing so for about 50 million years.
They are one of the most sophisticated animals in the world. This is because they are the only animal besides humans that grow their own food from living matter. Their colony size can number up to 8 million. They all work to find the leaves and transport them back to the nest, creating clearly visible trails of green along the jungle bed.
They also have the warrior ants, who do not transfer leaves but go up and down the lines checking all is ok and protecting the other ants from danger! How cool is that? It was fascinating just watching them for a while. The line of ants carrying leaves went on for hundreds of metres!!!
We were all VERY careful where we put our feet whenever we saw a trail of green.
Things that move in the night
Back to the lodge. 3 course dinner, then back to our rooms to sleep after a long day.
It was dark in the rooms, so I had to use my head torch.
Given where we were, I have never checked a toilet so much before sitting down to do my business. Even with the head torch on, any time I went to the loo, I had to check that nothing was hiding in the bowl, just waiting to strike!
Like when I had a shower before bed, I didn’t check the shower before getting in. My head torch was on the other side of the bathroom on the shelf giving some light. I had my Havianas on to protect my feet, and I just got in the shower. But then I noticed a long skinny ‘something’ on the floor of the shower. Oh God, what is THAT? I stepped back and aimed the shower head at it and it slid toward the drain and started to go down. THANK GOD. But it then seems to get stuck 1/2 way down. Bloody hell what is this thing….. Shite. I quickly finished my shower and got out. Without looking.
Turns out it was just a long skinny leaf that had lost its way! Bastard.
The sound of the jungle
Bed at about 8.45pm. It’s dark and the bed is covered with a pretty thick mozzie net thankfully. It was strangely calming to go to sleep with the plethora of sounds from the jungle just outside my room …(the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon and the stars…) well as much sleep as you can get with strange noises waking you every now and then.
This location is not in the thick of the jungle but is a taster I would think of what it could be like. And this is absolutely fine with me.
And so I shall say… Welcome to the Jungle.
