The one fact in life I can now depend on is that the Amazon Jungle will defeat you. You will not win. You will not conquer. You may survive but not for long. I always wondered what life would have been like if I had not been born into my life. What would it have been like to be born in Switzerland or Australia? It never occurred to me that one of those options could have been the Amazon Jungle. The tribes that live in the jungle and thrive must be an amazing people. At our lodge, we met the caretaker’s four-year-old daughter and she did not even sweat! Our clothes were wet from the time we disembarked from the plane until we landed back in Colombia! We are glad to have experienced the Amazon but I am calling it lucky that we survived and I won’t tempt fate again.
We flew from Cusco into Puerto Maldanado, Peru. Puerto Maldanado reminded us of the small island towns we have encountered over the past few years. Their main income was tourism and they were all very happy to introduce us to their culture. We hopped into a long boat and scooted down the Madre de Dios river to our lodge. The lodge sat back in the jungle and was reminiscent of summer camp. We had our own cabin that was sparsely furnished with two single beds, mosquito netting and one small side table. Luckily, we had our own bathroom with an actual flushing toilet so that saved the day. As soon as we put our suitcases into our cabin, we were given lunch at the mess hall and then loaded back into the boat for our “afternoon adventure”. A few miles downriver, we hiked into the jungle and were introduced immediately to a tarantula. The tarantulas hide in a small hole in the ground and to coerce them to peek out, the guide teased him with a small branch. The tarantula behaved much like a kitten with a string and he peeked out, trying to grab the stick with his front legs. He was large, cute and fuzzy and by far the least threatening part of the day. Soon, we reached a huge tree with steep steps climbing to the top. As we scaled the steps, the bridge came into sight. The tour companies had built the suspension bridge by attaching fishing line to an arrow and then attaching a rope to the fishing line and shooting the arrow up into the tree. They then used the rope to haul the suspension cables up the tree and across the gorge. Yep, it looked about as sturdy as that description sounds. The guide then told us that “only 4 people can be on the bridge at the same time” and he would wave us to start as he crossed. As we watched people slowly take their turns walking across the bridge over the jungle canopy, the guide suddenly stopped in the middle of the bridge and waved those on the bridge over to him. He had spotted a rare eagle and he was so excited. However, he kept waving for everyone to come to him to see the bird. “What happened to only 4 people on the bridge rule?” I asked. No way were Bill and I venturing out there until some of the people had moved on to the other side. It was finally my turn and I stepped onto the wobbly bridge, reaching for the suspension wires to balance my crossing. I am sure there were some cool things to see in the canopy but not plunging to my death had taken precedence. When I reached the guide to see the eagle, he pointed to my camera, “Do you want to take a picture?” Was he kidding? Taking a picture would have involved letting go of the wires! I shook my head and crept as quickly as possible to the other tree. I noticed Bill did not start across the bridge until I had made it to the other side which indicated to me that he thought he was about the plunge the bridge into the depths of the jungle a hundred feet below. As he made it to the other side, he said, “I was trying to hold on but all the ants on the wire were crawling on me!” What ants?! I was so scared I did not even see the ants (and you all know how much I am terrified of ants). Unfortunately, we now had another suspension bridge we had to cross to get to the stairs. Of course, now I knew about the ants. They were everywhere. I did my best to avoid them but it was either hold onto the wire or fall to my death so I took on the ants and probably set a speed record to the other side. As we made our way down the stairs, I did not hear one person in the group say they enjoyed the bridge activity. I am just glad it was the first adventure so we were fresh and able to survive. We arrived back at camp around 6pm and our guide announced we would leave in a few minutes for the “night adventure”. Oh jolly. Luckily, the night adventure involved sitting in the boat and searching for caimans and capybara. We located one caiman and an entire family of capybara swimming and eating on the shoreline. Much better than the earlier adventure! While walking back to the lodge, the guide got very excited when he spotted a deer and an opossum. Bill and I laughed heartily and told him the USA was inundated with deer and the opossum often lived in our trashcans. The guide was very surprised by this information and Bill promised to send him some pictures from the States. Upon returning to the lodge, we hurried back to our cabin to take advantage of the electricity which was only on between 5:30pm and 9:30pm. As we entered the cabin, we were greeted by half a dozen dead or dying roaches which ranged in size from an inch to 1950s sci-fi sized bugs. Luckily, the lodge workers cleaned up most of the dead creatures while we were at dinner but we did have one large fellow belly up in the shower. Our shower had a glorious showerhead but evidently it had not worked in awhile. We had one stream of water about the size of a drinking fountain stream and the water was freezing. Given the water temperature, the dead roach and the live roach on the shower faucet knob, it was one of the quickest showers I had ever taken. Bill jumped in after me as we raced against the electricity deadline because neither of us wanted to be walking around barefooted when the lights went out. I set up my bed like a small cocoon with my mosquito netting that Bill called my jelly fish. I felt invincible as long as I was in my cocoon. Unfortunately, there were no tables to set our bags on so every morning I would grab my clothes out of the suitcase, shake them vigorously and pray that no bugs jumped out to surprise me. The cabins reportedly had more furniture prior to the Covid lockdowns but “termites ate everything” during the closure. We were awoken at dawn by a bird that sounded like a water droplet. I thought it was a frog but it was a type of weaver bird. In my cocoon, I was safe and enjoyed the sounds of morning even if it was an early wake up call. The macaws joined in every morning at 5:30am and they were not as pleasant as the waterdrop bird. Our first visit of the day was to a native tribes’ home. Bill, of course, heard “naked tribe” instead of “native tribe” so he was all in for the event. When we arrived, the guide went in search of the family but they were nowhere to be found. The guide said they must have gone into the jungle to hunt and gather. We waited for a bit and then headed back to the lodge. Bill and I decided we would have a swim in the lodge’s pool. We went swimming with lots of dead bugs and horseflies that dove about our heads constantly buzzing loudly. After a few minutes, we tired of battling the flies and headed back to change for our afternoon hike. The afternoon hike was through the jungle on a long boardwalk to Lake Sandavol. The hike was about 1.5 miles one way so we were glad it was an easy walk. Along the way we spotted monkeys jumping in the trees. Once we reached the lake, we climbed into a long canoe and our poor guide paddled all ten of us through a canal out to the lake. On the lake, we saw many species of birds and our guide managed to locate the large river otters. While we could not get close to the otters, we could watch them catch fish. When the otters bit into the fish, we could hear the fish bones crack and it was so loud it sounded like gun shots over the water. By the time we returned to the boardwalk, it was 7pm and darkness had settled. Using our cell phone flashlights, we made our way down the boardwalk with Bill and I bringing up the rear. At several points, the group (which consisted of all 20 and 30 year olds) had rounded the corner and left us on our own. I have never prayed so hard for a cell phone battery to last because if our light had gone out, we would have been stuck in total darkness. On the walk back to the boat, we saw a tree boa that was about 7 feet long and bats that easily had a 12 inch wingspan. Even the moths were the size of my outspread hand. After a quick dinner and another blazing cold shower, we huddled into our cocoons until our wakeup call at 4am. Seriously? I was barely hanging on mentally at this time and now we were up and in the boat at 4am. We headed to the clay licks where all the birds in the region gathered each morning at dawn to eat the minerals from the mud on a cliff. We watched as hundreds of birds flew in and landed in the trees on the cliff. At first, the birds would not come out of the tree because there was a hawk sitting in a nearby tree. I think the birds felt my despair with the thought that we had arisen at 4am for nothing because they kindly got over their fear of death and proceeded to flit down to settle on the cliff. Parrots and macaws were everywhere and it was a really cool sight to see. After breakfast, it was time for fishing. Bill caught a fish that was about the size of a sardine but it jumped off his hook before I could get a picture. The coolest part of fishing was the caiman that sat just off the side of the boat watching us fish. Needless to say, most fish are smart enough not to come around a caiman so our fishing day was not successful but it was a peaceful float down the river. The afternoon involved another jungle hike to study the plants in the jungle. Many plants were used for medicinal purposes so it was interesting to learn. At one point, the guide picked up a pod, used his machete to open the pod and pulled out small weevils. He said they were delicious and tasted like butter. One young man tried one but he swallowed it whole so the guide said that was cheating. He then asked Bill if he wanted to try a weevil and Bill responded, “No, because I don’t have to. Same reason I don’t eat squirrel.” A brave German girl took one of the weavils and popped it in her mouth and ate it. She said, “After the initial pop, it wasn’t bad.” Ugh! I do not want my food to pop. Once we made it out of the jungle, I was ready for dinner and a shower but alas……”Once you rest for a few minutes, join me at 6:30 for the night jungle walk and then dinner at 7:30”. Sigh. Quick shower, douse in bug repellent, put on wet long pants and long sleeves and trudge back into the jungle…in the dark. This choice seemed about as wise as the suspension bridge folly. Our first encounter was a huge wolf spider followed by more ants than you could count. Then, we came across bullet ants which are so named because their bite feels like you have been shot with a bullet and the pain continues for the next 12 hours. Following the bullet ants were hundreds of caterpillars climbing up a tree in a massive group that swirled about in a psychedelic, swerving pattern. Basically, the night walk taught us that anything small and colorful will kill you and the other bugs will just make you writhe in pain. Our final dinner at the lodge consisted once again of a protein and a bowl full of rice and potatoes. By this time, I had forbidden Bill to make rice or potatoes for the first ten days we returned to the boat. Our final morning involved a trip to monkey island and a final hike in search of the monkeys. After an hour of hiking, no monkeys. As we made our way back to the boat, three monkeys were on the path and willingly came close to take the bananas that were offered. Only 15 monkeys remain on monkey island so our guide said he was going to eventually need to come up with a different activity for the tourists. We headed back to camp to pack our bags and I had to shoo one intrepid spider out of my luggage. As we walked into the gate at the airport, a cool blast of air conditioned air greeted us as did a bar with ice cold beers. Civilization once again! When we landed in Lima for our last night on our Peruvian adventure, we walked through the airport to our hotel….or at least what we thought was our hotel. We had mixed up our reservation online and accidently booked the Wyndham downtown Lima instead of the Wyndham airport so we climbed into a taxi, drove 30 more minutes and collapsed into a steaming hot shower and air conditioned room. As I stated before, we are glad we did the Amazon Jungle, proud of ourselves for mostly keeping up with the 20 and 30 somethings and getting out without any deadly bites. The Amazon is not a trip we would repeat but it did not defeat us….this time. **More pics on Pictures tab
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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