big tree
Andy was our inspiration
On the boat, we fed piranhas bread and crackers. Again, very much like Martin Nature Park.
On the medicine walk - straight up gangsta.
Silhouettes
“Currently, I’m writing by candlelight, there are bugs crawling on my notebook, and I’m covered in sweat. I never thought I’d be here and I’m actually kind of proud of myself.”
Another early morning. Now that makes three sunrises. What is it with this place? Normally, I wouldn’t mind because you think it would be cooler in the early morning – wrong. It is ridiculously hot 24/7. Imagine sweating constantly – literally every single minute – whether trekking through the jungle (obvs), riding on the boat, eating, talking, sitting, laying in bed, sleeping. There is a constant layer of sweat present at all times. All of my clothes are damp, even the ones I haven’t worn yet, because it’s so humid.
But enough complaining (I think that might be the primary purpose of this blogito – whining). We walked to the clay lick (clay lick, not salt lick) that birds frequent because they are not discriminatory in their eating habits (just like me), and so they eat poisonous things too and the clay neutralizes the poison, or coats their stomach, or maybe they just like the taste – I have no idea.
We saw lots of parrot and some macaws. The hardest thing about being in the jungle is being quiet so you don’t scare the animals. It reminds me of when Ford would take me fishing and I was so bored because him and Clint wouldn’t let me talk. The guides give us a lot of, “cállate” and even some “shut ups.” We tried to explain to Oscar, our guide, about all of the great bird watching in Oklahoma. Hello? Can you say scissor-tailed flycatcher? He wasn’t impressed. I also explained to Oscar that he really needs to watch LOST. He seemed interested. It’s hard to tell though. Any joke I make to the guides is met with a blank stare. I then follow with “chiste!” Still nothing. I’ll have to work on my Spanglish comedy.
Hanay = professional bird watcher and wildlife enthusiast
Kristina is eyeing an abeja that was a little too close for comfort
After lunch we played Peru vs. USA volleyball. I say we, but I prefer to watch other people embarrass themselves rather than participate myself.
Andy = MVP
In the afternoon we went to a mammal clay lick. The only animal was saw was the bat inhabiting the structure we were sitting in. Kristina and I played tic tac toe and Pictionary with the guides using sticks to draw in the dirt.
Tuesday night was easily the most exciting/terrifying night in the jungle. As I was finishing my shower by candlelight, I spotted something on the wall. At first I thought it was a leaf. And then I saw it was in the shape of a frog and it looked like a decoration or something. I thought, “hmm… funny I don’t remember that being there before.” AND THEN IT MOVED. Oh, I uttered some serious profanity, which is great because we don’t have ceilings or complete walls for that matter, so everyone heard me. Revae came to my rescue, but instead of rescuing me, she just took pictures. Not helpful. She said I should put it outside or just leave it be. I said, “hell no.” This is beyond my capabilities and I am getting reinforcements. So I went to the main building and asked Oscar and Ruly, our guides, for their help. They found my sense of urgency very comical. Oscar picked him (maybe her?) up and let him go outside. Outside is now a relative term because we basically live outside. Ryan was like, “I’m curious to see your reaction if you encountered something actually dangerous, like a tarantula or anaconda.” He doesn’t know me at all. I said, “It would be exactly the same. Scream and run like hell. You can’t go wrong.”
That night I had one more thing to add to my nightly routine: frog check. Uggh. My roommates, Courtney and Ashley, wanted to stay up later than I did, but I was too scared to go to bed alone, especially after the frog incident. Kathryn, like a great friend, kept me company for a few minutes until I was able to get in bed.
I woke an hour or so later to Courtney’s, “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” She was in the bathroom and A FROG HAD JUMPED ON HER LEG! And I thought I had it bad before. I have never seen anyone scramble into bed so fast. It was like an Olympic dive under the mosquito net into her bed. Oh, Curney – what a character.
My morning started early. Unfortunately, I woke up to the sounds of Ashley vomming. I was really disoriented when I woke up, and in my attempt to come to her rescue, I got extremely tangled in my mosquito net. This was about 4:30 am, and you might think, oh that sucks, woken up in the middle of the night. Not so, 4:30 was actually supposed to be our wake up call because we were going bird watching at 5:00. Fantastic. Luckily, that night was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in Peru. Now I don’t consider myself high maintenance (ha), but I have been plagued with subpar pillows my entire time in Peru – in Lima it was too small, like it was basically just the pillowcase and in Ollantaytambo and Cusco, it was entirely too big. But in the Amazon, it was just right (Goldilocks style).
I have now seen two sunrises in Peru, and in my opinion, that is two too many. We walked to this really high tower (30 meters maybe – who knows. They always explained things in meters and I have no idea what that means). We saw macaws, toucans, and parrots. It was really cool! My pictures aren’t that great because of lack of creeper zoom and those suckers are mobile so it’s hard to get pictures of them, but check it out…
That tower looked pretty ominous.
Follow your nose!
The observation deck was a little crowded.
We came back to the lodge for breakfast and then went to go look at Brazilian nut trees and have their extraction process explained to us. I really really enjoy walking through the jungle, primarily because I pretend I’m on LOST. I make loads of LOST references, but only about two people here watch the show, so my jokes are lost (hehe) on most everyone. For example, this huge branch fell from the canopy and crashed down to the ground making tons of noise – what do I say? RUN! SMOKE MONSTER! … crickets.
Hanay, complete with helmet, is super excited for our Brazilian nut adventure.
That afternoon, we went to a fruit farm across the river (or across the street as Caroline says). It was quite the experience – I liken it to Willy Wonka. We saw, smelt, felt, and tasted (the snozberries taste like snozberries!) everything in that place. We saw both familiar and unfamiliar plants. We used one of the plant as face paint. That was pretty entertaining. Then the owner of the farm talked to us, which I thought was really funny because we were all sitting being serious with ridiculous face paint on.
LOST beach
Oh yeah and this bad boy definitely haunted my dreams. We're sitting in class, and this little fellow climbed up Faith's chair. Everyone wanted a chance to hold it, but he had the last laugh when he ended up on Chinh's face.
And finally an ode to Kathryn....
Nothing but net.
Where do I begin?
First of all, I was way excited that they played “Gags” on the LAN Peru flight. We always flew LAN we went to Piura, and without fail, they play this show, which is a mix between Candid Camera and Punk’d, except it’s Canadian, which it makes it even more incredible. So funny. The Peruvians looooove it, as do I. Our last LAN flight was from Lima to Cusco, and I was too sick to notice Gags, so this was a pleasant surprise.
When we stepped off the plane, my exact thoughts were, ‘This is going to be hell.’ The heat was overwhelming, and it wasn’t just the heat, but the humidity. We were waiting for our bags and I was basically hating my life. I didn’t voice my discontent, but everyone still noticed. About six people asked me that day if I was OK, if I was upset, etc. It must have been written on my face. We met our guides and we rode a bus to the their office in Puerto Maldonado where we left most of our luggage. We then took the bus to the Tambopata River where our boat was waiting for us. A three-hour boat ride ensued. They gave us lunch, which was rice with mushrooms and egg wrapped in a leaf. I was comforted at this point because they had already given us a snack on the bus, and anyone who feeds us twice within two hours is OK in my book.
Mmmm... leaf lunch.
Courtney, Kim, and Chinh taking in all of the surrounding nature and wildlife.
Rollin, rollin on the river
Pretending to like the jungle
At first, I considered the jungle like Martin Nature Park on steroids. I mean it’s pretty similar at first: muddy river, turtles, bugs, uncomfortably hot, but my opinion soon changed.
We saw so much wildlife just on the boat ride to Refugio Amazonas. We saw a turtles, a caiman, birds, monkeys, and capybaras (largest rodent in the world – what a claim to fame). Kathryn insisted on putting her hand outside of the boat so the water would splash it. I got mad at her in typical mom fashion (if I don’t take care of her, who will?) and she claimed the sprinklets of water were microscopic. To which I replied, “How big do you think parasites are? Microscopic.” She stopped soon after.
We had to stop at a checkpoint on the river and we got our passport stamped for entering a protected area. The stamp is really cool with a huge jaguar on it. Kathryn insisted I ask the man what kind of animal it is, I was embarrassed, but she persisted, so I went for it. He responded “jaguar” but he said in such a fantastic accent with so much gusto, that it was hilarious. For the rest of the trip the whole group pronounced jaguar in Spanish – “haaaguarrrr.”
Once the boat stopped, we had about a fifteen-minute walk through the rainforest to the lodge. This was our first time really trekking through the jungle. If it wasn’t Martin Nature Park on steroids, then what was it? And that’s when it hit me, I was in my very own episode of LOST. And this is the moment where I started to enjoy myself. Sure, my skin doesn’t glisten quite as beautifully as Kate’s, and there is definitely no Jack Shepherd to be found, but a girl can dream.
LOST, however, does not mention the copious amounts of bugs in the jungle. Surprisingly, I didn’t see one mosquito during my time in the jungle, but there were insects everywhere. I would hear constant buzzing in my ears. I’ve discovered that ignorance is bliss when it comes to bugs. After dinner, we headed back to the river to go looking for caimans. This is when I saw the biggest spider of my life – even on TV. It was easily bigger than my hand. Jane told me not to look. I wish I hadn’t, but I couldn’t resist. I’ve never seen anything like it.
We saw maybe four or five baby caimans, but I was really concerned that the big mama was going to come out and attack us. No one else seemed that worried. I’m very much on edge here, but it seems like everyone else underestimates the threats of the jungle.
That night we tried our shower for the first time. Very difficult considering there’s no electricity. So when the sun goes down, so do we. I showered by candlelight. Que romantica. You would think a cold shower would be welcome when it is so hot (and I mean soooo hot – even at night), but not really. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a cold shower. I then started what would be my nightly routine: brush teeth, take out contacts, spray myself with bug spray, spray my bed with bug spray, bug check on my mosquito net, blow out candle, sleep. You might think, that’s a lot of bug spray, well you would be right. I’m convinced that if malaria doesn’t kill me, deet will.
My living situation.
Just kidding - it's more like this. Three walls, one side open to the outside. We rocked paper scissored to see who would have the bed closest to the outside - guess who lost.
The lodge - or as I like to call it, Ewok Village
