I Survived!

This was my favorite trip so far mostly because of the animals I got to see but also because of the beauty and serenity of the rainforest. It was filled with early mornings, epic sights and mosquito bites!

Friday morning I woke up around 5:45 am with just enough time to get dressed and be ready for my taxi that Patricia called to have pick me up at 6:00 am. We rode the quick 5-10 minute drive to the airport with Miley Cyrus music on full blast which I was not happy about since I don’t even like her at normal volume in the middle of the day. I met up with Brendon and Chantal at the check in counter around a quarter after for our flight to Puerto Maldonaldo that would be leaving at 7:40 am.

I did not check a bag since I only brought a backpack with me for the weekend. They are a lot more relaxed on what you can take on your carry-on baggage EXCEPT they don’t allow aerosols which I forgot about and they had to confiscate my bug spray for clothing and my dry shampoo. I was not very happy about this because I thought I would need both for the weekend, but ended up getting by without just fine even though I want them back now. They allow you to take any other liquids in whatever quantity you want so I had no problem with my other belongings and I was even able to bring two water bottles through so I wouldn’t have to pay for overpriced ones in the airport.

Our flight was only an hour long over enormous snow capped mountains first and then as we got closer I could see all of the Amazon River and its tributaries surrounded by rainforest. Puerto Maldonaldo is in the Tambopata part of the Amazon on the south-east side of Peru. It is a four hour boat ride to Brazil down the Madre de Dios River.

When we arrived and walked off the plane there was an immediate rush of warm, humid, tropical air. All around were lush green plants and trees and palm trees were everywhere too. The airport was very tiny with only 2 terminals. We walked out front and were greeted by the staff of where we were staying with a sign reading “Eco Amazonia Lodge.” They directed us to our bus that would take us on a tour of the city before heading by boat to the lodge. The bus was windowless and looked for like a safari van with wooden bench seats and the whole sides open to look out at the scenery and feel the sun on our faces as we drove into the city.

Alongside us were motorcycles and 3 wheeled buggies like you would picture in India that our guide said are both their form of taxis. They use those because in the hot climate it is cooler to drive around in those and cheaper to not be wasting the money on AC in a regular car.

We went to their Plaza de Armas which had a tall blue and crème colored clock in the middle rather than a fountain like in the others I have seen. Our guide said that there were a lot of emigrants in Puerto Maldonaldo that come from Puno and Cusco to live but also that 5% of the population is Japanese which was surprising.

Next we went to their local market that had everything! Our guide said that most of the products are imported because of PM being such a small city. They get their fruits and vegetables from Puno, Cusco and Arequipa and their clothes from Brazil and Bolivia. Because of this, things there were more expensive to buy in the market. They do have some local products they sell of course like bananas, mangos, papaya, and other rainforest fruits. We went to their meat market area and they had full chickens hanging from their necks with their little feet dangling. It was quite disturbing. We walked outside to see baby chicks and ducks crammed in a small cage where people could pick out the one they want to take home to raise to be big and fat and then eat. That was also disturbing and sad to me because they were so cute and innocent. There were a lot of fish as well on the tables that were caught locally from the river like catfish and trout.

We had to be back to the bus at noon so we left the market to walk back and this random man told Chantal and I that we were more beautiful than flowers and started singing to us for the next 3 blocks. It was a little weird but I guess sweet in a way? He welcomed us to “his” city and went on his way without even asking for a tip for his amateurish song.

On the way to the bus we saw some other odd sights in the streets of Puerto Maldonaldo: a dog eating off a WHOLE cow skull, a boy pushing a cart of caged pigeons and selling their eggs and a little boy with no pants on walking down the street alone. It was definitely an experience in a new city!

We took the bus down to the river to take a boat to our lodge. On the way we saw shanty homes that reminded me a lot of places I’ve visited in Central America. We boarded a typical small river boat with the rest of our group for an hour and a half trip down the Madre de Dios to our lodge. In our group were two couples from England, two guys from Israel, two Asian ladies and a Spanish woman. We had to wear life jackets on the boat because they didn’t want us to fall in and get eaten by any piranhas.

The boat flew quickly down the river and left small fisherman boats in the dust. The river was very dirty and was a murky brown color. On either side of us the land was rainforest and since it is dry season the water was very low creating a shore with beaches of sand. Here and there we would see some random homes and again I would wonder how those people survived and how they must have to live off the land’s resources. At least there they had the option of fishing and numerous plants and animals at hand.

We arrived at the lodge around 2:30 and went straight to the dining area for lunch. For an appetizer we had fried yucca which was actually very good. Our meal came out in a huge banana leaf and inside was rice, chicken and other vegetables. I was very impressed with all the food the whole weekend and they had interesting juices as well.

The lodge was extremely nice! Everything was on stilts to avoid rodents like the huge, yellow Bamboo rat from getting into anything. There was a game room with a bar and lounge area and outside right up above the shore was a row of about 10 covered hammocks that you could relax in and watch the river from. In the reception area they had a sign of some of the animals that live in the area you could possibly see on your hikes. They included sloths, capybaras, armadillos, porcupines, jaguars, about a dozen different monkeys, plenty of birds and snakes and spiders galore. These were only things you COULD see however because our guide told us that the rainforest is of course very unpredictable and you never know going in what you are going to see that day. They had a pool in a mosquito netted room although it was freezing! We went in it anyway after our long hikes to cool off but one jump in and you had to get out because of how frigid the water was. At the lodge they had some birds that would come right up to your bungalow steps like Macaws that reminded me of my sister Allison and the bird she used to have named Zazu and two other pretty black ones. I also saw squirrels in the trees and there were beautiful flowers all over. We were surrounded by the forest and its trees so we felt totally immersed in the environment.

We were taken to our bungalow named Fraile which is some sort of monkey. All of the bungalows were named after an animal in the rainforest. It had a little foyer/seating area with two hammocks and then inside were our 3 beds and a bathroom. The whole bungalow was mosquito netted instead of windowed so we were in a sense still outdoors and could hear all the sounds of the jungle all day. We only got electricity from 5:30 pm to 10 pm and the shower was freezing cold just like the pool.

After lunch our guide took us to Monkey Island. It is an island, 1 km by 2 km, that the lodge owns right across the river where they put monkeys they have rescued from the black market being sold as pets. These monkeys can’t go back into the wild because they will be easily targeted by others or not know how to survive since many were taken as babies out of the forest so the lodge places them in the sanctuary where they can be protected and looked after yet still live in a wild environment. The new babies born on the island however are taken away at around 1 ½ or 2 years and put to live in the real forest in order to maintain a healthy population on the island and give the babies a chance to live normal lives with other packs of their own wild species. Our guide said that only around 40 monkeys live on the island. They take tourists here because they monkeys are used to humans and enjoy the interaction they get when we bring them bananas and water.

We arrived around 4 pm and the first monkey we saw was the smallest of the island. He was sitting on a branch and unlike wild monkeys when he heard that we were coming he waited for us rather than scurried. He was mostly black with some brown on his face and a white line with black spots down his back. I was the first to get to feed him a banana and he grabbed it quickly from me with his little hands and munched on it as we all snapped pictures of his adorable face.

Our guide whistled and called out “mono, mono, mono” (meaning monkey in Spanish) to get their attention and let them know he was bringing food as we walked deeper in. We got to a spot where a large wooden table was set up and all the monkeys suddenly appeared in the trees above. They started making their way down as our guide opened up his bag to bring out the bananas for us to feed them. They were all coming right up to us and some even jumping on people’s shoulders and backs to get the tasty treat in our hands. Some were White Capuchins and others Squirrel Monkeys. Our guide pointed out the boss of the pack and said to make sure not to taunt him at all and simply hand over our bananas if he comes for them because he could get feisty. We saw babies all the way to larger adults. One got his banana fix and went for a rest on the branch of a tree. He laid down and dangled all four limbs down on either side and they just hung loosely. It was such a funny site but our guide said that that is how some of them sleep.

We started heading back when we were greeted by my favorite monkey, a female spider monkey who was all black. She had the longest arms, legs and tail I had ever seen on a monkey and only four long fingers that when I held her hand felt like leather. She came down because she spotted our water bottles and was thirsty. Our guide said that since it was dry season they didn’t have much water and were afraid to go out to the river because many times caimans (an animal like a crocodile but lives in fresh water and is much smaller) would be waiting to pounce and eat them. She climbed down and jumped on one of the English girl’s heads and reached over for my water bottle. She was able to unscrew it on her own and started chugging all my water! She stole it and went up in the tree to finish it and then dropped it back down to the ground. She decided to come back down for some bananas and attention and sat on my friend Brendon’s shoulders for quite some time while people snapped photos.

We got back to lodge around 5:30 and went for a quick swim before dinner at 7. After dinner we went for a night boat ride to look for the white caiman that lives in the main river with a spot light. There are three types of caiman: white, black and dwarf. The white are used to the sound of motors and are usually found in the Amazon River. The black and dwarf however prefer secluded lakes and lagoons in the forest that don’t have people or boats to disturb them. We saw their eyes glow red in the dark along the shore and near floating logs. They are not very big and look more like large lizards to me, but it was cool to see a species that is unique to the Amazon in its natural habitat.

I enjoyed the boat ride part of it more and feeling the warm air for once in the past month! There were bats flying around us and I just relaxed and listened to the sounds of the jungle. I cannot even describe the beauty I saw when I looked up at the sky out there. All you see is a sky completely filled with stars with no clouds and no interruptions of buildings or lights from the city. I had never seen such a clear night sky where I could point out every constellation.

We got back and decided to lie in the hammocks until the electricity would be turned off and take in the sights and sounds of the Amazonian night. Around 9:45 we headed for our bungalow to get to bed early for the following day full of excursions through the forest. I fell asleep to the sounds of birds singing, howler monkeys howling and insects chirping which was even better than falling asleep to the sound of the ocean on other vacations.

Due to my ongoing cough that is still persisted I was awaken in the middle of the night and in order to not wake up Brendon and Chantal too, I grabbed my water bottle and went out of the room until I was through coughing. It happened to be raining so I watched the tropical storm in awe until I was able to return to bed.

Saturday morning we got a knock on our door at 6:00 am for our wakeup call. We had breakfast at 6:30 and then at 7 headed out by boat to where we would begin our hike. We had to wear long pants and I wore a hat too so I knew nothing would be jumping down from a tree and into my hair. And my hat was camouflage so I was ready to blend in and see all the animals I could! I sprayed my entire body down with deet spray and SPF 45 sun lotion. As we walked out to our boat you couldn’t see anything because of the fog. We were dropped off about 10 minutes down the river and started into the forest for our 5 hour trek. Our guide carried a machete to clear any vines or plants in the way of the trail, but our lodge along with 24 others in the area own that area of land and have carved out a distinct route through the forest with signs and a path. The government allows them to use it for tourism as long as they maintain it well by not cutting anything down, not hunting any animals and not littering. I had to learn the metric system very fast over the weekend because everything our guide told us was in km, meters and Celsius.

Our guide explained various trees throughout our walk. Most of the large trees we saw were 200 + years old and we even saw one that was over 400 years old and was starting to decompose and had holes in it The first he pointed out, considered the Father of the Forest, was called Chihuahuaco. This is the tree that is responsible for getting people lost in the Amazon even if they have a compass because it has magnetic components in it that throw the direction in the compass off. Because of its magnetic components it can, and is frequently, struck by lightning in storms but is not affected. It is called the Father of the Forest then because it protects all the other trees and plants by taking the brunt of the storm on itself. At the bottom it has areas that make enclosures that hunters and Amazon people would use for shelter at night and our guide said there have been reports of this tree creating erotic dreams. There was another tree beside it that I forget the name of but it is hollow in the middle so if you are ever lost in the Amazon you can hit the tree with a stick and it can sound 3-4 km to alert someone of where you are. He demonstrated with his machete and even that made a loud sound that echoed through the forest.

The Mother of the Forest is the Elephant tree: named this because its bark resembles that of elephant skin. They have these in other forests in Central America and Asia as well. It was even larger than the Chihuahuaco and I looked like an ant in a picture with it.

There was a unique tree called the Garlic Tree that when he took a piece of the bark off for us to smell it smelled of course like pure garlic. This tree is not used for the kitchen however and it is the only tree that the termites won’t eat because they hate the taste of the bark.

We saw an infectious vine called the Fichus that was eating a whole tree and taking over the outside to form a new one. It was really interesting and a crazy site to see.

Next we saw a tree called the Justice tree that was the home of hundreds of fire ants. Our guide said that in the olden days when someone in a village did something bad they would tie him or her naked to the tree as punishment, thus creating the name of the Justice Tree. He said 50 fire ants could kill a small child so imagine being tied to a whole tree?! I am sure the people didn’t always survive the ordeal.

We saw a bunch of different palm trees including one that had horns at the top and another called the “Walking Palm” because it can move up to 3 M in its lifetime because its roots resemble legs and will adjust to a growing environment to make room for itself.

Our guide said that biologists only know 1% of the medicinal uses of all the plants and trees in the rainforest so far because there are just so many different types. The rainforest holds the most diverse groups of everything on the planet and is filled with things that still have yet to be discovered and could cure some of the world’s worst diseases.

Above our heads along the walk we ran into a pack of about 30 squirrel monkeys. They were jumping from tree to tree and we all just stood there and watched for about 20 minutes until their main predator, the Hawk, cried out and they all scurried away to hide below the canopy where he could not catch them.

We continued on and our guide pointed out an adult tarantula with poisonous orange tipped legs nested in a large palm leaf. There was another hole in the ground nearby that he stuck a stick into the get another to come out. A baby tarantula crawled out to have a look and he explained that this type’s mother will kill her mate after she is through with him and feed him to the babies. Pretty sick huh?! There were huge Warrior ants along the trail as well that were about 5 times the size of any ant I had ever seen.

We saw a green tree frog and two tiny little brown frogs that our guide picked up so we could get a closer view. I saw a sign at this point that we were in Jaguar zone, however we never saw any probably because we were not in silence on our walk and any noise would have spooked them away.

We made it to Apu Victor, which is the lost lagoon in the middle of our trail. The lodge had a watch tower built and a boat there so we could go out in the lagoon after. We climbed up the tall watch tower where we could see all of the lagoon and its surrounding trees that were filled with different birds. The guide let me use his binoculars to get a look into the trees. One of the birds made a sound like a blow horn and is actually called the Horn Bird. We saw a caiman poking his eyes out of the water and some turtles that came up to have a look as well.

We headed down to take the little kayak out into the lagoon. There were tall weeds in the middle where hundreds of colorful dragonflies were buzzing around. The sun was really intense on the lagoon where there were no trees to shade us and I could feel my skin tanning: FINALLY: YAY! We took a circle around the lagoon and I enjoyed listening to the birds sing although the bugs distracted me by buzzing in my ears.

We tied the kayak back up to the shore and started on our way back to the lodge for lunch which was only about a half hour away. I was glad because it was almost noon and I was starting to get hot, itchy, tired and hungry. We made it back and he congratulated us for surviving our first hike in the jungle!

We went right to our bungalow and threw on our suits so we could go right to the pool. It was refreshing to jump in the freezing water after walking from 7 am- noon through the humid rainforest. We had some time before lunch at 1:30 so we decided to take advantage of the hot Amazonian sun and we found a nice grassy area where we laid out for a couple hours.

After lunch we went for another short hike to a small lake where the black caimans live. Our guide brought some fish to feed them so they would come out of the water and we could get a better look for the first time. We sat in silence not to scare them off on some benches above the lake. A big mama caiman was the first to exit the water and try out the fish. Some of her babies followed and for once we got the see the animals out of the water and view their true size. It was cool to watch them eat the fish our guide put out for them and in time, more and more started to come to where we were to get a piece of their own. At one point there were about 7 caiman in one corner of the small lake.

We headed back and after a long day I was exhausted! I planned on only taking a nap until dinner but ending up sleeping right through it. My cough was still bothering me and I felt slightly dehydrated from sweating so much earlier in the day. Brendon and Chantal came back to the room later and we all turned in early since the next day we had to be up at 4:30 am.

Sunday morning we got our knock on the door at what felt like the middle of the night still. We stayed in bed a little longer and then packed up and headed to breakfast in the dark. Our boat back to Puerto Maldonaldo left at 5:30 in order to get to the airport in time for our 9 am flight. I slept on the boat ride back and sleepily walked the thin plank across the river to the shore back in PM. We got on our bus and had to go pick up our boarding passes at the office and then headed to the airport. My cough at this point was out of control and it was making me vomit from coughing so hard and gagging.

The flight back was short luckily and I took a taxi back home where I arrived around 11 am. I walked into my room and was scared to death by cookie because he never goes in my room who was sitting next to my closet. He started his usual whining and I pushed him out so I could get into bed and struggle to sleep through my cough. After a few hours of no luck I finally gave in and asked Patty to call the doctor for me. He came to the house and right into my room to do my exam at about 2:30 pm. He listened to my lungs and said that they sounded awful and I was wheezing when I breathed and coughed. He prescribed me an antibiotic, a cough suppressant steroid and some cough syrup with codeine so I can actually try to get some sleep and said to keep up with my inhalers. The doctor visit was $20 and my medicine was $40 so now I have less money to do the things here that I wanted to do because of my stupid sickness that won’t go away!

I survived the jungle with only about 10 mosquito bites I think I counted. Brendon and Chantal didn’t get any! I think it is a proven fact that mosquitoes just like me or I have tasty blood to them or something because whenever I go somewhere I always end up with way more bites than everyone else. They said there hasn’t been a case of malaria in the part of the jungle I went to for over 40 years, but since I was bit several times despite wearing repellant 24/7, I decided to still take my pills just to be safe.

There were 3 new people when I got back from the jungle, 2 of which were sick as well so the doctor ended up coming out to our house on 3 visits yesterday. There is a married couple from Chicago who are 28 and a lady from New Zealand who is 39. They are here through another program, nothing having to do with Maximo Nivel, and they will be working on a llama farm for 2 weeks. I was a little disappointed that the new people we got were so much older than me because I miss having friends around here to hang out with, but they all seem really nice and maybe after they leave I will get some younger folks for my last 2 weeks.

I will take my medicine this week and hope and pray to get rid of this awful cough. Some of the volunteers including Brendon and Chantal and I are going to plan a trip for rafting later in the week and I need to figure out which trip I will do this weekend and if Pisco will be possible with Laura.

Today I return to work to see my kiddies which I am so excited for! I missed them over the weekend. Adios for now amigos. Hasta luego.

P.S. I can’t believe the wedding is in only 6 weeks!

-Hillary-