We started off by taking a flight from the high altitude city of Cuzco down to the Amazon basin where it was humid and warm. Actually, being at altitude wasn't so bad!
From there, the tour group jumped onto a motorised canoe boat and burned it up the muddy waters of the Amazon delta. Along the way we had some lunch and what better than a serving of rice and vegetables in a banana leaf!
As everything was pretty much disposable we threw off the remainder off the side of the boat. Probably for the piranhas to chew or something.
After a couple of hours burning it up the muddy river and tackling a heavy rainstorm along the way we finally arrived at our destination and hopped off the boat.
From there we walked through the jungle and came across our lodge. It even had a bar.
But the entire lodge didn't have any glass windows. None whatsoever. This was just an open plan lodge. And pretty though it was, we were in the jungle and so seeing a tropical creature of some sort was evidently likely.And so indeed as I walked quite at ease from my jungle lodge room along the raised platform towards the dining area something began slipping down my trousers. At first I thought it was my wallet, but then... this was the Amazon... I immediately froze in my tracks and nervously shined my torch down to discover a placid looking Amazonian frog staring at me sheepishly next to my shoe. Whoa boy.
Even our room with its lovely hammock faced the amphitheatre of the jungle like a giant speaker attached to our room. The monkey squeals weren't so bad, but the insects... well lets just say there is around 30 million. Chop down the Amazon I say.
Luckily there was a mozzie net and so I doubly made sure that this was securely fastened around the entire bed. I wasn’t scared at all. I was just taking precautions. I even checked for any miscellaneous creatures lurking in the bed just before tucking myself in for the night to the sound of the droning hum and energetic buzzing of the jungle, followed by a reassuring squealing crescendo. The following day in the safety of the daylight we did a bit of macaw and toucan spotting and sampled lots of different types of perfectly ripe fruit. This was washed down with some sugar cane and sugary it was! We also checked out termites. They tasted peppery.
After doing a spot of piranha fishing in the late afternoon, we had the option to check out some caimans (a small type of alligator) at night on the river. So we headed back through the jungle down to the boat armed with just our torches. I wasn't sure whether the spectacle was the caimans or all the creatures we saw along the way. Either way most of the creatures were clearly nocturnal!Visiting the Amazon is something that I have always wanted to do and it lived up to all my expectations. The creatures weren't all that bad!
It was certainly one of the highlights of the trip.
1 comment:
WOW - you did well to keep your nerve with the frog! Mx
Post a Comment