Amazon Expedition

Dia 21 to 23

We know it has been a LONG time since you have heard from us, but we just got back from the Amazon where we without electricity for the past 2 weeks (day 21-34). It was an amazing adventure and we will try to do it justice now by retelling some of our favorite stories from these last two weeks. We will break it up into several blogs, so be patient. :)


First, upon arriving in Iquitos, we met our guide, Christian, who would be our constant companion as we slushed through the rainforest. He immediately wanted to sit down and discuss itinerary which was a little much for our sleep-deprived minds (and how I am going to survive call, I wonder?) He suggested a 10 day camping trip, which was a little more than we wanted, but showed us this was not going to be a cushy resort experience. We eventually got it down to wanting to see frogs, monkeys, maybe a few birds, survival camping, rainforest remedies (I am a newly graduated doctor after all), canoeing, jaguars, pink dolphins, and giant snakes. We were informed that the jaguar was unlikely but the rest was possible.

We took a 3 hour boat ride down the Amazon river and onto the Tahuayo River to our lodge. The Amazon is impressive. You can tell where it meets other rivers by the deep brown color of its water. It also moves impressively fast, at least at this time of year which is the tail end of the wet season. Scattered along its banks are houses on silts, plantations of bananas and other tropical fruits, and of course the rainforest. When we arrived our lodge, the flood waters had completely covered all land around it. This changed as our time progressed and it was neat to see the change in the ecosystem. You can check out the lodge at www.perujungle.com .

Over the first couple of days, we traveled by boat and canoe to explore the flooded rainforest. We saw so many birds... including 4 species of kingfishers, countless species of green parakeets and parrots, several species of hawks. Christian seemed to be able to name them as soon as he saw specks of them on the horizon. I think he quickly realized that we were not big birders and he didn´t point them all out... either that or he thought we knew each species after seeing them once.

I was a little sick the first couple of days, and was coughing quite a bit. Christian remarked that my cough was scaring all the monkeys so one of our first trips was to see the herbalist to have me treated. She made a salty grapefruit concoction and also showed us her immense garden full of medicinal plants. I am not sure if the medicine helped but my cough did diminish after that treatment.

We also went to see the hoatzin birds, which are these strange creatures that don´t fly all that well. I was more interested in all of the frogs that we heard along the way and Jimmy was more impressed by the pygmy marmoset who came crawling down the tree to see us when Christian called it.

We also got to use the lodges zip-line, which Jimmy tried to use ascenders for the first time... much harder than he thought it should be, especially after years of rock climbing.

After a few days of life at the lodge, we geared up for survival camping but that is a topic for the next blog.