Curious George

Day 2 in the Amazon Jungle was a very fun, perfect day (so far the best of the trip!).  It only rained at the very end of our day hike.  I thank Mother Nature for being so kind to me because when it rains, it pours, and you cannot see anything.

We started out by visiting Monkey Island upriver.  We had no luck seeing any monkeys on this island, because it is wet season and there is plenty of food for the monkeys.  They do not need to check out the visiting humans. 

We had to put on rubber "gum" boots because last night's rain made all the trails really muddy.  I am not kidding - we were crossing huge puddles where the water was above our ankles.  With my pants tucked in and full rain gear I made quite the fashion statement.

Amazon Fashion.

We used the piqua piqua to go downriver to Tamborin National Park to hike 3 kms to Lake Sandoval (the hike felt more like 7 kms with the dodging of puddles and all the mud).  Luckily the trail was not slippery clay mud like we have in Canada.  The park had large tree cuttings (cross sections) to step on and many were floating in the gigantic puddles. 

I saw beautiful colorful parrots.  In the distance, there were 2 yellow and blue macaw parrots kissing in a tree.  The male gets oil from the females tail to make his feathers shiny.

We saw armies of ants creating trails and carrying leaves.

After slogging in the mud for 2 hours we got to a small wooden canoe.  TooToe paddled the entire group through a narrow gap and we saw a baby cayman (crocodile).  This was pretty neat but I sure wanted to make sure we stayed in the boat - no tipping! 

Little canoe for the trip to Lake Sandoval.

Judy sat next to me on the canoe.  She does not swim and as a result she was very nervous as the boat was very tippy.  I sang her a song to help calm her or distract her "Just a boy and a girl in a little canoe…".  I wonder what she thought was scarier - my singing or falling into the crocodile filled waters?!

Judy and Suzanne in the canoe.

After the narrow pathway we came to an opening - a beautiful, calm lake!  The lake was surrounded by trees and was serene, peaceful and like glass.  The lake has  800 lb black cayman, piranha, electric eels with 600 volts, and 2 meter long giant otters.  Needless to say, we opted not to go swimming.

Lake Sandoval.

We canoed across the lake to an opening where we docked and stopped for lunch.  We sat on logs in the clearing and TooToe served us lunch.  The lunch was served hot! Here our guide was packing all our hot lunches in his pack in the extreme heat and humidity, plus paddling us out across the lake.  The lunch was a traditional Peruvian jungle meal wrapped in banana leaves (rice, hard boiled egg, chicken drumstick).  It was fresh and tasted awesome. 

Traditional Peruvian meal wrapped in banana leaves.

Lunch is served!

Then...what we thought was a log about 30 meters from shore started swimming.  It was a big black cayman.  I was in disbelief until Margi let me look through her binoculars - sure enough it was 100 % croc!  It swam right where we canoed.  TooToe wasn't worried so neither were we.

I swear - it's not a log!

We hopped back in our little canoe and paddled along the shoreline for the MOST AMAZING jungle show ever!  Red Howler Monkeys in full view started howling a deep thunderous roar.  If I had been there on my own I would have had a heart attack it was such a scary, loud sound.  It sounded like a monster - not a medium sized monkey.  The red howler monkey makes the loud noise because it has a big goiter looking thing on it's neck.  It expands with his breath and kind of reminded me of bagpipes.

Red Howler Monkey.

The red howler calls got all the squirrel monkeys excited and I saw them jumping, climbing and running in the trees.  They have the cutest little faces. 

We also saw the giant otters playing and a huge white and grey heron.  Red capped cardinals were about 5 feet away, as were cormorants and many shore birds.  Little bats were sleeping attached to the bark of trees.  It was an amazing show that I will never forget.    Both TooToe and Wilfredo, the tour guides, said it was a perfect day.

We hiked back in the rain, but were well protected by the jungle canopy.  At the lodge we showered (wow - did that feel good!) and went to the main lodge for a beer to look  at pictures and recall our amazing jungle adventure.