"The Amazon Experience!!!!"

Motorized canoe to the eco-lodge
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Finally the bit that Marissa had been most looking forward to and Nick the least - 2 days in the Amazon Jungle! The excitement has been building since 1988 when at primary school we performed the Amazon Jungle musical at school I was a Jaguar and had to sing solo (Marissa clearly as Nick can`t sing)!!

We arrived in Puerto Maldonado to be greeted by our eco guides and whisked off to the eco-lodge on the Tambopato river. Straight away the guide set expectations and told us not to expect to bump into Jaguars and Monkeys on the way to the lodge but still we were eager eyed as we travelled along the river. The scenery was stunning and the noises around us everything like you would imagine - frogs, monkeys, birds etc. We couldn`t see any of them bu we could certainly hear them!

The excitement has been building since 1988 when at primary school we performed the Amazon Jungle musical at school...

View of the Amazon canopy from a viewing platform 37m up
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The Posada Amazonas lodge - seee here http://www.perunature.com/pages/index.htm# was about 2 hours up river by motorised canoe and we ate a lunch of vegetable fried rice from out of banana leaves. This time of year it is the rainy season but fortunately the weather was looking good - very hot and humid. When we got to the lodge we were surprised to see how gorgeous it was - all made of wood in keeping with the surroundings and to our shock the rooms were open. I mean literally open onto the forest as you will see from the photos, which was rather worrying at first but it actually made for the best nights sleep in the whole of our time in South America. There is something very therapeutic about going to sleep in the pitch black (no electricity in the lodge) with cicadas, frogs, monkeys etc as your lullaby! The mosquito net surrounding the bed did its job to protect us from mosquitos, snakes, spiders, cock roaches etc but it took some getting used to for Nick! we took a walk before dinner and climbed the viewing tower to catch an "above" canopy view of the forest and river - absolutely amazing as you`ll see from the photos.

Nick`s ecstatic to be at the top!
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Our second day was supposed to be a 4am start to go and see the Caymans and Macaws at a nearby lake but unfortunately the weather wasn`t so good - rain!.. so we had a lazy morning and got out in the afternoon. We saw lots of birds at the lake and also a black Cayman in the grasses. We did a spot of fishing and Nick beat our fellow American guests hands down by catching a couple of fish -one of which was a piranha with very sharp teeth! No jaguars still, although the guide told us of a story when one had been swimming across the lake and had jumped on the boat so actually be were quite happy not to see any jaguars that day!

Creepy crawlies...
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On our last day we tried to go and view the Macaws and Parrots at their bird watching spot as apparently they take clay from the "clay lick" walls along the bank of the river to neutralise the acids in their tummies from eating impurities in all of the seeds and nuts. However as the sky was still a little overcast then they weren`t interested and Nick was nearly falling asleep! We did spot some Titi monkeys up in the trees though on our way back to the lodge.

We definitely will go back to do the Amazon again as it was quite out of this world and if only the weather had been less rainy then we could have seen loads more!