A most Amazon adventure

It's time to tell you more about our grand tour of South America. Perhaps one of the more exotic places we visited was the Amazon Basin. We flew into steamy Puerto Maldonado from Cusco on November 10 ready to enjoy three nights in the jungle.

The contrast between the Andes and the Amazon was obvious from the moment we touched down. Within minutes of walking off our plane, we had sweat pouring from every pore, a situation that never changed while we were in the Amazon. I’ve never felt so perpetually damp in my entire life.

The intense humidity manifested itself as soon as our aircraft door opened. Within minutes cool air from the cabin’s overhead vents began condensing into dramatic streams of misty air. It was an odd sensation walking down the aisle with a dry-ice-like vapour curtain guiding the way.

From Puerto Maldonado we caught a boat up the Rio Tambopata, traveling for almost two hours to reach our jungle lodge, Refugio Amazonas. The lodge is about 35 km from town as the crow flies, but thanks to the river’s switchback path we covered closer to 50 km. The photo that closes this post shows you want I mean.

The leisurely pace of our journey gave us plenty of time to watch the locals going about their daily lives. We saw women washing clothes, children swimming and village people gathering along the shore as the world passed by. Simple huts were everywhere, some thatched, some protected by corrugated iron.

There was an endless stream of regular traffic on the river. With few roads in the area, it acts as the region's main highway. Many of the boats we passed were traditional wooden dugout canoes - with one modern twist. They were always propelled by an outboard motor with the propeller attached to the end of a long manoeuvrable shaft. All were loaded with cargo, people, or both. 

Everything you can imagine is transported by canoe. We saw timber beams, sacks of food and entire families crammed into these skinny vessels that barely sat above the waterline. It’s hard to imagine a life lived without any form of land transport, using river boats open to the elements year round.

The lodge was far more luxurious than expected. It had 32 rooms, each simply, but comfortably, appointed despite the lodge's location. This is a real jungle, located within 200 private-owned hectares in the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve. The room image above was ripped from the lodge's website. Sadly the photos I took of our room ended up dark and blurry. 

As you can see we slept safely behind a curtain of mosquito netting that enclosed our bed in full. We’d slide between the sheets each night, checking carefully that we’d left no gap for anything to crawl inside the netting. During the day the housekeeping team would lift the netting and stow it on an overhead canopy. 

The threat of yellow fever and malaria is ever-present. One afternoon, much to our surprise, one of our guides matter-of-factly recounted his own experience with a debilitating bout of malaria a few years earlier (that's him in the image below).

Our room included a wall of unglazed windows that were permanently open to the neighbouring jungle. However, the complex itself was separated from the surrounding vegetation by a grassy buffer zone about two metres wide. From the comfort of a hammock, we soaked in the endless sounds of animals going about their daily lives. I never realised how noisy the jungle is. It's never silent. Crickets and cicadas chirp, monkeys screech and birds call out.

Incredibly, on our second day, while resting in our room, we watched an agouti wander out of the bush searching for dinner among the scattered leaf litter. The agouti is a short-tailed rodent, about the size of a large cat, but with a distinctive, flat snout.  We also saw an endless cavalcade of reptiles of all shapes and sizes foraging away.

On our first full day in the Amazon, we rose early and went fishing for Piranha in Lake Condenado, an oxbow lake that once part of the nearby river bed. The trek through the jungle was magic. As we walked our guide pointed out giant balsa trees, strangler vines and deadly plants. 

The lake itself was a murky body of water encircled completely by impenetrable, lush and verdant jungle. In the early morning light its surface was serenely calm and glassy. You’d never have guessed that schools of deadly Piranha were lurking below. I was secretly grateful that our pontoon boat had side rails keeping us safe from toppling in as we fished.

Sadly, us tourists never caught a thing. However, we could feel the fish nibbling and tearing at the bait. Eventually, our guide took pity on us. He dropped a line, wiggled it skilfully, and within minutes successfully hooked a Piranha for us to examine. Rows of razor sharp teeth were clearly visible. It's hard to believe such a tiny fish can be so deadly.

After lunch, we ventured out again to climb a 35-metre canopy tower. It provided a spectacular bird's eye view of the surrounding jungle and the river beyond. In every directions wilderness stretched out into the distance as far as the eye could see. It was a magic experience looking out over centuries-old Brazil Nut trees, Acacias, Ceibas, and Ironwoods soaring above the canopy. 

Earlier, our guide had revealed the tower was the only place in the jungle you could pick up a weak cell phone signal emanating from a base station in Puerto Maldonado, about 30km away. We took a phone along to test his claim. Sure enough, one solitary coverage bar appeared on screen. On a whim, we called Garry's mother and exchanged best wishes for his birthday the following day. 

The following morning (Garry's birthday) we rose at the crack of dawn to watch parrots and colourful macaws gather by the dozen at a local clay lick. This was an incredible sight that I’ll never forget. The black framed image below was taken through a set of binoculars our guide brought with him. As you can see we literally had a bird's eye view of these magnificent creatures from a sheltered hide nearby. 

When we first arrived, the muddy clay ridge was barren. Our guide urged us to be patient, and remain silent. For a while, we stood in his ramshackle log structure staring at nothing. However, our patience was eventually rewarded as the cautious birds, initially just one brave soul, slowly increased in number. We subsequently learned that the lick was once featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine. 

Later that evening our friendly lodge staff sang Happy Birthday to Garry, then presented him with a delicious cake they'd baked earlier in the day. This surprise treat was all the more impressive considering the camp only had power, provided by a generator, for a few hours a day.

Our final morning saw us rise at dawn to catch a river boat back into town and then on to the airport for flights to Lima. We'd done Peru! The trip was shaping up to truly be an experience of a lifetime. After five weeks on the road, Garry and I were still in good humour and enjoying each other's company. Next stop: Brazil.