Today we said goodbye to Lima and began the next phase of our journey. We were collected from our hotel by Rafaela who had picked us up a few days ago.
As planned, Rafela had us in the transport vehicle on the way to Lima Airport - our 4th visit in the last 10 days. It was a 40-50 minute drive through the northern suburbs out to the district of Callao. Boarding passes, bag tags, security, no customs (domestic flight) and we were through into the bustling domestic departure holding area with numerous food an retail outlets. Jacqui bought a little adaptor to transfer photos from our camera to One Drive and got to work while we waited for our plane.
Once again we were in Premium Economy - Row 2, extra legroom, empty seat between us, special service. Jacqui is in flight heaven (except for the bouncy 10 year old in the seat in front of her). The flight was delayed a little but we touched down at Puerto Maldonado about 12.15 having already seen the big wide river below.
Rainforest Expeditions picked up about 20 people from the plane and bused them to their headquarters 5 minutes away. People were separated with different guides depending on which of their three river lodges we were visiting. Our guide Esau (E-Sa-Ooo) took us through the drill. Here is a duffel bag each. Pack only what you need for the next 4 days. Leave the rest here. Fortunately we knew this was coming and packed accordingly last night. Before long we were back on the big bus with Esau, our driver and our 2 companions for the next few days - Emily and James, young (early 30s) couple from the UK. They are lovely people, we are getting along well.
30 minute drive to the river port and into our boats - long narrow shallow draft vessels with a large outboard motor at the back. We were given a lunch pack (Brazil nuts, plantain chips, banana, juice and a lovely vegetarian rice mix wrapped in palm leaves). The boat went slowly while we ate, as Esau told us about Kate Winslet's family visit to the lodge last week!
Now to the real stuff. We are IN THE AMAZON!! Boating down a wide brown river, flanked by dense jungle on every side. We are low to the water and feel part of the environment. Over here, let's stop and look, a yellow necked turtle being assaulted by a nasty gang of orange and white butterflies.
(Those photos are on the camera ... but I will transfer them over tomorrow.)
And up ahead, high in the tree, 12 red and green macaws, standing out with their spectacular plumage. Cameras, binoculars, and Esau has a high vision telescope with him. What a sight. Then one bird flies to another tree in a flash of crimson red. Then another. Then all of them, sitting in their monogamous couples. We sat, awestruck, for 20 minutes hoping they would transfer to the nearby clay lick for an iconic Amazon image.
Then 5 minutes downstream to the port (river steps) where we disembarked for the 5 minute walk to the lodge. By the time we had our welcome instructions, planned an afternoon activity and were allocated rooms we had only 30 minutes to go and unpack. The room is beautiful, open to nature with long nets around the bed. There is an individual fan above each bed. (YAY from Jacqui!!)
Our chosen afternoon walk was to the tower - a 43m high metal structure that takes you up above the canopy with 360 degree views of this tiny little part of the Amazon basin.
The 20 minute walk there on slightly muddy tracks (we were given gumboots to wear ... well except for Ian as he cannot put a gumboot on his fused ankle ... you need to bend your ankle to pull a boot on!) was again through jungle that has both low and high canopy, so quite dark with occasional light shafts streaming through. Bird song abounds, seed pods, piles of monkey poo, etc.
But the highlight came when we were 35m up the climb of the tower and discovered a family of red howler monkeys on a platform of the old tower, just 10m away. We goggled at them, they quickly ignored us and carried on sleeping, grooming and scratching. We eventually made it to the top of our tower, just in time for sunset. Magical!
Not so much joy in the swaying at the top of the tower (Jacqui headed down a little early). Nor in the return walk by torchlight, which sounds cool until Esau starts pausing every 2 minutes to show us a butterfly, another butterfly, a grasshopper, a thick column of fire ants, a spider, a bigger spider with furry legs, and finally the bird killer spider which is big and black and hairy and nesting right by the track. We were happy to reach camp, after a long but very special day.
After the walk we attended a 30 minute lecture on the Macaw Project being conducted here by the biologists ... they are endangered due to deforestation and the project is building nesting boxes for them.
We then headed to dinner... and for the first time in ages we both ate well. The food is buffet style ... so you pick what you want. It was all delicious.
Then ... back to the room, a shower, some blogging and then sleep in our little netted cocoon ready for our 5 am start tomorrow!
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