To the Amazon

     Right when we arrived in Puerto Maldonado, sometime I think around 7 AM we got a tuk-tuk to the main square, saw a tour office called Tambopata which connected to the hostel by the same name and I’d read about it in my Lonely Planet so we stopped in and ended up joining a tour set to leave in an hour or two. We dropped our bags and rearranged at their hostel, we were given rain boots to bring and down to the boat dock we went.

 The boat ride took about 45 minutes on the Rio Madre De Dios. After that, wellies on, we walked a little over 3km and I am so glad they gave us those boots. We were walking through mud and water and lots of it. The small journey took much longer than expected because of all the zig-zagging we were doing. Not to mention it was pouring down rain. But we enjoyed the walk all the same, we were in the Amazon! I was singing the Bear Necessities from the Jungle Book because that’s what it reminded me of :)

Yep, just like this.

Once we reached the next boat dock, well there was about 7-10 boats, all half sunk from the relentless rain. Our guide scooped and scooped as the rain kept falling. 

When it seemed sufficient we got in and went through the little marsh area to the Lago Sandoval. I can’t even tell you how much it was raining, we were laughing because it was so much! We all took turns paddling till we made it to the homestay. 

 An hour later we were given lunch; rice and chicken (cheese for me) wrapped in a leaf similar to banana. They then told us we had to wait till 4pm to do anything again so Tyler and I played Uno with the two other people staying with us; they were a German mother and daughter pair about 45 and 11. 

4pm finally came around just as the rain had mostly petered out. We got back in the boat and slowly paddled along the edge of the jungle to look for wildlife. We saw lots of birds, mostly funny orange and brown ones with a Mohawk. We saw a line of bats sleeping perfectly on a tree.

Sleepy bats

Then came the monkeys. Tons of them; mostly squirrel monkeys, a few capuchins. We watched them play around in the branches and look for food. They have a joyous time and I found myself envious of their ease when swinging from tree to tree. Then we heard a loud noise like a crash, and another one and our guide said “Brown capuchin. Brown capuchin fall down.” And I realized it just isn’t possible to be graceful all the time ;) 

As the sun was setting and throwing beautiful purples and reds across the sky, we paddled towards it, went through an opening in the brush and then it was dark. We used our headlamps and flashlights to search for crocodile’s glowing eyes. We saw many. Tyler was the best spotter and he had a blast doing it! Once we were stopped in a brushy area and everyone was looking in the distance and I decided to look right next to us and sure enough, there was a croc only a foot or two from the boat. I was a little freaked but it was really cool too! 

Can you spot the crocodile?

Dinner came when we were all crocodiled-out. It was very kind of them to make veg food for me, they made something with tofu and rice but it was so salty and really hard to eat. Shortly after dinner we went to bed and I woke up sometime in the middle of the night feeling awful- to spare you all the details I missed the 5am boat ride and hike to look for parrots and the hike at 11am because I was busy being sick. I started to feel better around lunchtime and Tyler took me on a little version of the hike and tried to explain everything to me. It was very sweet. 

Today was hot and not rainy, around 1:30 we went back on the boat and back across the muck with a different group. On the walk back we saw tons more playful monkeys and we heard an awful screeching noise that wouldn’t stop and we found the sound to be coming from two parrots! Bright colored and incredibly annoying up in a tree! The mother and daughter hadn’t seen any parrots that morning and I was grateful I hadn’t missed out on anything and got to see them later!

Hard to see parrots

The boat ride took us back and I saw another perched parrot in a tree. Near the end of the ride it started pouring again and at an angle so even with a cover on the boat we all got wet.  We hurried to get our stuff collected and tuk tuk to the station fast because it was after 5pm and we heard the busses to Puno left at 6 or 6:30. We made it but I’d started to feel awful again. As soon as the bus left, I threw up. I knew it was going to be a long ride.. But I made it, all sick and stomach crampy, and when I woke up in the morning, I felt much better. It was nice to have that over and all I wanted to do was eat! 

Painful moments can be so hard and it’s so difficult not to lose faith but rough times always come to an end :)

A little heads up if you do go to Puerto Maldonado and look for a tour company, I'm not sure that we'd recommend Tambopata Tours. We were told our guide would speak English and he had a very difficult time doing so. When told about the tour it included more hikes and a wider variety of activities which the guide did not do. We had so much down time, seemingly nap time for our guide and we were not very pleased. They were accommodating for vegetarians and we did see a lot of wildlife but there were also many things we were told that didn't actually come to pass. A bummer, but it happens. We enjoyed our time in the rainforest very much but I'd do a little more perusing my options if I did it again!