Day 1: Arrival
The rainforest was beautiful and definitely became one of our favorite trips. We arrived in Puerto Maldonado at 9:30AM and it was already 88ºF. From there we took a two hour long dug out canoe ride (motorized of course) up to our lodge. The river was big and wide and the water was very merky and muddy from all the sediment. The lodge was beautiful. All the rooves were thatched and everything was lit at night by candle or by lantern. There was no electricty for the most part. They heated the water with solar panels and turned on a generator to charge camera batteries and things for one hour in the afternoon. All the rooms were screened in really well to keep out bugs, but there were mosquito nets over our beds as well. When we got to the lodge on the first day it was soooo hot that we tried to sleep for the better part of the afternoon just because you couldn´t really do much of anything else. After a sweaty atempt at sleeping we grabbed a banana off the branch at the main lodge and relaxed around until dinner time. The staff and guides at the lodge played volleyball around 5, like they do everyday. After dinner, we changed back into our long pants and boots for a night walk through the forest. On the way back out of our lodge, right at the door was a huge, black taranchula. Dana snapped a picture while I made sure I was as far from it as possible while still being in arms reach of Dana. Our guide Daniel took us on a small trail next to the lodge for the night walk and showed us several plants and animals and lots of insects that are active during the night. I thought I had spiders all over my feet and was absolutely terrified for the first part of the walk, but calmed down after a little while because I was captivated by the intricateness of the forest. The guide turned off the flashlight for a couple of minutes to show us just how dark it gets in the forest at night. We literally could not see in front of our face.
Day 2: Hiking
On day two we woke up early and had breakfast before taking a canoe ride upstream to our hiking point. After breakfast we got to see a troup of howler monkeys right near by the lodge. Today was incredible. The hike through the virgin rainforest is just like you´d expect it to be. The forest itself is beautiful, dense and green and underneath your feet is a soft layer of dead, fallen leaves. The sound of the jungle surrounds you when you walk through. The hum of insects is a constant drone while the birds squawked and chirped overhead. Occasionally, you could hear a howler monkey in the distance. If you looked down, there were always a line of ants going somewhere, carrying something. Most of the trees have really sprawled out roots that fan at the bottom of the trunk. Actually, most of the trunks didn´t even begin until they were way over our head. There is one kind of tree that grows down from the tops of other trees, eventually encapsulating them. The tree inside dies many years later leaving a hollow middle. Here is a picture of Dana and I and our guide inside one of these massive trees.
Our guide pointed out so many plants to us along the way. He lived with a tribe and studied with a Shaman and this is why he knew so much about the different kinds of plants. There was one tree he showed us that if you were bitten by a snake, you could mash the potato that was underneath it, put the mush in your snake bite and not die. This tree in paticular saved his uncle´s life when he was bitten by one of the deadliest snakes in this part of the forest. He was 10 days way from a hospital and should have died whithin a 5 hours of being bit, but he lives today because of this plant. Another tree is used as an extreme laxative, that if you drink its milk it will get rid of any parasites you may have contracted in you stomach or intestines. There was leaf from another plant that we rolled between our fingers and it died our fingers a pretty purple red color. He said tribes people used this die for fabrics as well as blush, lipstick, and war paint.
On a short canoe ride to see the huge tree above, we fed pirahnas in the lake. No fingers were lost, only crackers. We returned back to the lodge, ate lunch, then did an afternoon excursion to a nearby farm. Here we saw how the people of the jungle make a living by farming. This man in paticular, had banana trees, pepper plants, yuca plants (yuca is a really tasty potato-like root that we´ve eaten several times now), avacado, papaya, and pigs. Before dinner, at night fall, we went out on the boat with the other groups to look for caiman. We actually saw several, at least 4 or 5 if not 6.
Day 3: Long hike in the Rain
It rained all morning long but that didn´t stop us. We went downstream with our guide to a 6 mile long trail. It was about 3 and a half miles to the large lake that we paddled on. The hike was just as beautiful as the day before, just very wet and very muddy. Its dangerous to walk through the forest when the wind blows really hard, or when it rains a lot because branches fall...big branches! One fell pretty close to us and made a really loud noise. It scared us to death. When we reached the lake, we paddled out and got absolutely soaked. We were really trying hard to see an anaconda. We even went into the reeds where they live and waited but didn´t see anything. Then! on the other side of the trees we saw....a palmconda! (as Dana calls it) It was huge, its belly was as big as the circumfrence of your arms together. Ok, so really it was a sort of palm tree floating up and down on the water, but it looked like an anaconda and after a 2 hour hike and an hour of being drenched on the lake, we´d take what we could get. We had lunch at the lake and took a short nap under a thatched roof platform and then headed back. (It stopped raining on the way back of course.) The afternoons at the lodge are for relaxing and volleyball which we enjoyed watching this last day We also got to talk to and practice our spanish with the staff and other guides.
Day 4: Leaving the Jungle
I´m proud to say we left the jungle in one piece. We had such a good time. Our guide was excellent, the food and fresh fruit was always good, and the wildlife and plant life was fantastic. Oh, and yes we did listen to Guns N Roses ¨Welcome to the Jungle¨whilst there. We also sang all the other jungle songs we could remember -- ¨The Lion King- In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight¨, ¨George of the Jungle¨ and ¨Jungle Love.¨
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