Blue People and Burning Skin Part 2 - Belated Jungle Entry

Just before the storm
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Lights go out t 9:30 in the jungle, so we went to bed exhausted and early on our first night. The morning wake up call was scheduled for 4:00am, but...it rained most of the night so we were able to to sleep in until 6:45. We were supposed to see the sun rise from the canopy tower but the rain prevented it.

At breakfast we saw a blue lady. We were not sure what this was about, but began seeing more and more people with blue patches on their arms, necks and faces. This was a dark navy blue too, very blotchy all over. Apparently this is a jungle practical joke. There is a type of native fruit that their tour guide said was a natural insect repellant. He had them rub the juices and pulp all over their skin. What he didn't tell them was that in 24 hours their skin would be stained blue for about 2 weeks.  :) we thought it was funny because this was the group that woke us up in the middle of the night with their drunken jungle calls - Oh yea the lodge did have a bar, no electricity but a bar.

in the middle of a lake, in the Amazon, in a big ass jungle rain storm

Later that day we went on a jungle walk to a bird clay lick. On the way we saw monkeys, parrots, giant jungle ants as big as a quarter--a bite from one of these will give you a high fever, a bite from 20 will put you in a coma. As you can tell, we were not bitten because we worship at the alter of Deet.  Unfortunately we didn't see any birds up close at the clay lick because of the previous nights rain; they do not like wet clay.

After lunch, our next excursion was to an oxbow lake that houses a family of 6 giant river otters. We took a 30 min boat ride up the river and then hiked for another 40 min. Again sweating our butts off, and soaked and sticky from the sunblock/Deet/sweat/dirt potion. We arrived at a catamaran and set off onto the lake.  After about 10 min, we noticed the skies getting very dark and off in the distance we saw something strange on the lake. It was RAIN, lots of hard rain coming our way fast. We quickly and clumsily set to putting on our ponchos while we watched the rain coming towards us on the lake. With seconds to spare, our ponchos were on and we waited for the downpour. It hit hard and it was so cool to be in the middle of a lake, in the Amazon, in a big ass jungle rain storm. We attempted to wait it out because these storms sometimes pass quickly. It was after the lightning, and the loudest thunder we have ever heard, that our guide suggested we go back.Remember, we hiked in 40 min to this lake. It was quite a different experience on the way back; good thing we had our knee high rubber boots on--in the rain, the trails are much to muddy for regular hiking boots. In the few minutes of this rain storm, the once dry trail was completely covered in 2-4" of mud and water in most places and up to 8" in others. We had a blast for the fist 20 min of stomping through the mud, in the pouring rain, finally cooling off after 2 days of heat. The last 20 minutes sucked, because hiking in the long, plastic, ponchos made us hotter than we had been before the rain.

Although we enjoyed them most of the the time, these jungle hikes were no picnic. They go up and down hills, through big spider webs, under and over fallen trees, around and through thick mud puddles, all the while in 90 degree weather, with very high humidity.

We had a mellow last night as we prepared for our early morning trip to Cusco. It was finally a clear night and we were treated to a spectacular view of the solar system. Something so beautiful it is difficult to describe. We have never seen so many stars in our life.

Although there were plenty of mosquitos, we only received 1 bite each (getting our money's worth of the $300 malaria pills). The mosquitos would follow us and hover around, but they would never land. Thank you magic, burning, Deet juice. We were never bothered by the biting flies, wasps, or Human Bot flies.