Animal spotting and mozzie dodging in the Amazon

We´ve just had a really enjoable few days in the jungle, or selva, as its locally known. The place we stayed, Muyuna Lodge, is 140km, or 3hours downstream of Iquitos. We chose to get as far away from civilisation as our budget and tolerance would allow and this was it.

Before we´d arrived at the Lodge just being on the Amazon itself is a real "oh my god I am here" experience. One for the factfans, the river is one of the longest in the world at 3272miles from its source high in the Andes to its 300km wide estuary into the Atlantic. The part we were on seemed mighty enough. It was about 3km wide in parts.

Jungle Boogie!

Having arrived at the lodge, located in a tributary of the Amazon, we went out on a number of wildlife spotting tours. We walked through the jungle, but mostly were shown around by 12ft boat or dugout canoe as May is the end of wet season where much of the jungle in the part we were staying in partially submerged. Our first impression was that it was a place we would hate to be stranded in. Everything is dangerous. Frogs are toxic. Ants bite. Trees are spiky, spiney and as poisonous as the things that live on them.

Each day consisted of a tour before brekkie, one before lunch, one in the afternoon and a tour in the evening. We saw, Amazon Grey Dolphins, Pink Dolphins (ugly buggers!), Sloths (like something off star wars), tree frogs, caimen, turtles, about 40 different types of jungle bird (including Toucan), snakes and so on.

The highlight was probably fishing for piranha, we caught one each! The night time tours were particularly interesting as the torch held by the guide at the front of the boat was probably the strongest unnatural light for about 100miles. Seeing the milky way and a full constellation stretched out above the river was unforgetable. The noise of the jungle at night was deafening. Another memorable moment was when our boat pulled up to a dead tree about 2 hours after dark to see a palm sized tarantula! Once we had taken our photos the boat captain made a jerky manoevre from the trunk and it felt like the tarantula was going to be bumped into the boat! I made a note to self to dive into the river if the spider ended up in the boat, then remembered about the piranha´s and caimen. Like I said, not a place to get stranded!

It was a really interesting place to visit to see how local people live, how they fish in the river and how basic their houses and lives are compared to ours.

Apart from dealing with various insect bites (which we hope dont require a trip to the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool) we are both well and looking forward to 10 days of Samba and sunbathing in Rio!

Its a remarkable place.