Coffee is just so so here, so this adds to Julie's challenge of getting going in the morning. There is no electricity in the cabins so we are living by daylight and candles. It is dawn at 6 and dusk at 6 (no daylight savings time here).
We board the boat at 6:30 am to take us to our hiking area. We will be doing a 5 km hike with most of the hike taking place in the Tambopata reserve. The Peruvian government developed the reserve in the 90's. We are at the end of the rainy season here in the Amazon Basin and the river has risen over night with many logs and other debris floating by the lodge. Everyone had their life jackets on cause if we tipped we would be dragged down in seconds with our rubber boots on.
Our whole hike was in rain with very heavy down pours on occasions. You can see by the pictures how wet the hike was with the path being totally flooded in a number of areas. With the water over the top of the boots. There was a good side to the rain because there was no mosquitoes which was nice. During the trek we saw 2 absolutely huge trees. The highlight of the hike was during a short boat trip on an oxbow lake where we saw a giant river otter which is a protected animal. The giant otter can grow up to 2 meters long. A major part of the hike was the guides explaining the different plants and trees and giving some insight to how the people use the various plants. One shrub produces leaves that when crush yield a red dye that our guide used to face paint us and deemed us the Guinea Pig Tribe.
After the hike we returned to the lodge for lunch, with all the rain we had a slim chance of anything drying. After lunch we played a game of Jenga in the Jungle. At 3:00 pm we chose to go on a tour of a local farm or chill. Dawson headed off for a farm tour. Julie had a nap. After all Julie is the oldest on the trip of 11 tourists! The farm tour again was wet but very good. Dawson had a monkey on his back, and learned of many fruits and vegetables locally grown.
Late in the afternoon we were all given the opportunity to go for a swim, but this was after Edson, one of the local guides, told us about a vampire fish that could swim up your urethra so none of us were interested in going for a swim.
The evenings activity of cayman viewing was cancelled due to the height of the river. Bummer! Cayman are members of the crocodilian family native to the Amazon basin and are similar to alligators. Instead we had a slide show presentation of the local flora and fauna which was good too.
A neat thing was sitting on the verandah we heard a tree fall in the forest. It must have been huge as the sound lasted about 10 seconds, was loud, and broke lots of branches as it was falling. The trees within the Amazon rainforest have very shallow root systems so it is common for trees to fall. Edson said the tree was far away but it sounded quite close. We checked for large trees beside our bungalow before turning in for the night.
We tried drying our clothes by candlelight. That did not work very well.
Cheers Julie and Dawson
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