Peru is amazing. For such a small country, it has a vast amount of different geography. For example, I’m living in Cusco which is at 12,500 feet. They also have a huge coast to the Pacific Ocean, but what this blog is all about the Amazon rainforest located in Peru. Friday, Brittany and I flew out of Cusco to Puerto Maldonado. It’s one of the cities closest to the rainforest. It’s located in the region of Madre de Dios. The region has tons of rainforest that is protected by the government of Peru. The name of the region, Mother of God, says it all. It was unbelievable. When we first stepped off the plane, I thought I was back in Mississippi; we were hit with the heat and humidity of the jungle. It stays about 85 to 90 degrees with close to 80% humidity. The city of Puerto Maldonado wasn’t that special. One cool aspect was that no one drives cars. They all drive motorcycles and three wheelers, even the taxis! The only other interesting aspect of the town was that it was located on the Madre de Dios River which is a major tributary of the Amazon River. Our guide met us at the airport, we grabbed lunch, and then we headed for the river. We hopped on a ghetto boat, which would eventually break down on us about ten times, and we took an hour and half boat ride down the river.
If anyone remembers the book “Heart of Darkness” that is how I felt. We were headed further and further from civilization without any knowledge of what lay ahead. I started seeing houses of natives along the river. They were usually made with mud or stucco with straw roofs. It was wild; I’ve never felt more like a tourist. Out. Of. My. Element. We finally arrived to our lodge on the Tambopata River. It was nice, but it was far from extravagant. We only had the bare essentials. Basically, it had a few beds, mosquito nets, a toilet, and a table. The mosquito nets came in handy at night when cat sized mosquitoes came after me. The lodge was surrounded with papaya and banana trees, both of which we had every single meal. After arriving, we had about an hour to settle in and rest. After soaking in the atmosphere, we headed to Monkey Island across the river. I was seriously flashing back to King Kong when they arrived on the uncharted island. It looked exactly the same to me. I was half preparing myself to run from a thirty foot tall gorilla. Luckily, King Kong kept to himself and I didn’t see him. We did however see tons of monkeys on this island. We saw spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys and squirrel monkeys. This is the only spot in the jungle where monkeys are used to humans visiting. They let us feed the monkeys bananas and apples. It was pretty cool to see the monkeys just chillin in their natural habitat. It was also amazing because this was our first hike into the jungle. They plants are gigantic; I seriously didn’t know ferns could get so big. We returned right before dark and had some time to prepare for our next tour. We headed out again with our guide Jon at NIGHT! It is amazingly quiet there. It was a great experience; we were able to see a praying mantis and a couple different types of crickets and spiders. Also, we heard a massive tree fall somewhere in forest. I swear it took the tree 40 seconds to fall. I’m not gonna lie; I got pretty freaked out at first. During the first 20 seconds, it was so loud, I was pretty sure a T-Rex was headed my way and all I had was a stupid head lamp. Fortunately, it was only a tree. After about a 30 minute hike, we headed back to camp, ate dinner, and went to bed.
The next day, bright and early, we headed off to a deeper part of the rainforest. I feel like it takes a lot to impress me, but I was blown away by the plants in the jungle. We saw tons of huge trees, ferns, and flowers. Needing a mental picture? Just think Jurassic park. One tree allows ants to live inside its bark. The ants make tunnels inside the tree. Natives used to capture their enemies and tie them to these trees. Yeah, ants covering your body, talk about torture. My favorite tree had to be walking tree. It is able to move over 6 meters in its lifetime, it always moves toward more sunlight. My favorite flower was actually ugly, but it had the most amazing smell. It was possible to smell it from over 50 ft away. It needs to be made a perfume meow. We spent all Saturday on our jungle tour; a total of about 8 hours. We saw tons of birds and animals I had never seen before. We saw soldier ants, leaf cutter ants, termites, falcons, eagles, vultures, long nose bats, tarantulas, hoatzins, weaver birds, Capet herons, tiger herons, white herons, parakeets, green parrots, egrets, kingfishers, fly catchers, trogons, Jays, Otters, butterflies, and many more. During our hike, we walked about 5 km to Lake Sandoval which used to be a part of the Madre de Dios River. We went to a 50 ft tall over look of the lake and could see endangered otters playing in the lake. It was also an amazing view of the entire jungle. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera that day so check out Brittany’s photos for this day. After our all day hike we rested and had some dinner, but our day wasn’t over. We then headed out on the boat to look for Cayman; they’re very similar to crocodiles. That night we saw at least six Cayman and a very interesting animal called a capybara. It is supposedly one of the largest rodents in the world. It was like a super sized rat that could swim. It was easily four feet tall with all its feet on the ground. It was like Stuart Little all grown up. After an hour boat ride we headed back to camp and went to bed.
WAKE UP! I know this blog is long but don’t fall asleep on me yet. The next morning we woke up at 5:30 and headed out to Macaw Island. It was another cool jungle experience. The only time I’ve seen a macaw before this was locked up in pet store. However, I’m not sure it was worth the 5 am wake up call. We got some good pictures but they were still quite a long way off. Eventually, we returned for breakfast. After a big breakfast I fell asleep in the hammock for two hours. I wasn’t mad it. Probably gonna invest in hammock when I return. Jon woke me up at 10 and said it was time for zip lining. Zip lining was quite the adventure. Let me set the scene, this was the homemade version of a zip line. We climbed the stairs to the top of a 60 ft tall tree. The top platform had no railing or security harness and I wasn’t 100% sure that it could hold all three people. The danger definitely added to the excitement of zip lining through the Amazon. Brittany decided to go first on the zip line. We didn’t realize that we wouldn’t make it the other side. They expected us to pull ourselves the remaining 20 meters to the other platform. Not cool. Brittany was stuck in the middle of the zip line for at least 15 minutes. Finally, they got a rope and pulled her to the other platform. I felt like we were the guinea pigs, “cuy”, for this zip line. We also had no normal way down from the finish platform. So, we were expected to repel down the tree. All in a day’s work in the Amazon. After the zip line we finished our Amazonian experience by kayaking around Monkey Island in the Madre de Dios River. It took us about two hours to kayak and afterwards we were hot so we went for a SWIM in the river! Let’s not forget we were swimming with anacondas, 5 ft catfish, Cayman, piranhas, and electric eels. NBD. The next morning we headed back for civilization and gladly returned to the cooler Cusco climate.
Well I tried to keep this blog short but the Amazon has way too much to talk about. Peruvian fun fact number 4820: Freshly grown Amazon bananas are the best thing ever. Fun fact 4821: Guinea pig is called “Cuy” here in Peru. It is a typical Peruvian dish. Get this, it’s a delicacy. After much convincing, I’m trying it tomorrow night. Stay tuned for the exciting result.
Until next time,
Bryant
No comments:
Post a Comment