Peru - Puerto Maldonaldo

After a very short flight, we arrived in Puerto Maldonaldo, a town in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Well at least it was our starting point, as we had a little bus ride and then a boat ride up the Tambopata river to our lodge.  

The next few days were spent exploring the rainforest and it was an overall incredible experience.  Due to the hot weather we could only have our activities early in the morning and then late in the evening/night.  During midday, it was more about surviving the hot sticky heat.  The nights were amazing, as they came alive with a real ruckus of animal noises!  Our Village of Llangennech is as quiet as a church mouse in comparison.  It even drowned out the power generator that the lodge ran a couple of hours a day.  

Whilst at the lodge we got to do a number of fun activities:

• One of the first things we did was a visit to Oxbow lake.  This was originally part of the river we were on, but many many years ago it became isolated from the rest of the river.  And we saw some amazing things there.  Our favourites were the Giant river otters, white caiman alligators and the howler monkeys.  A definite winner was the otters, as we got to see a whole bevy swim to catch their breakfast and then eat it just in front of our boat.  It was fun seeing the whole family being playful, including some of the otter pups trying to steal some fish from their parents. Whilst we did not see any, there are lots of piranhas in the lake… we didn’t we stick our fingers in to find out! They are more common in the lakes than rivers as they tend to prefer calmer waters, and when it rains the river is not calm at all.  During our stay the water level was quite high, and we saw it increase as we had some heavy rainfall during the night. 

• During a night walk we got to see an array of spiders, including a massive Tarantula! It was bigger than Mish’s hand! Apparently they call them chicken tarantulas due to the fact that the little ones follow the parent in a line, just like chickens.  One of the spiders we came across spun a golden web, that you could actually pull and it would not break easily.  Incredible strength.  Along the way we saw a number of moths, stick insects and lots of fungi.  You could actually see the fungi spores drifting across the torch light.  Our guide Eddy, had eagle eyes spotting most of the insects, but Maxine worked hard as well and spotted a few ones first!

• We also visited a clay lick for parrots and were rewarded with seeing many red-green Macaws on the lick and in the surrounding trees. 

• The lodge we stayed at, works very closely with the local community and we got to visit one of the local fruit farms.  Most farms are family run, and pass on from generation to generation.  Actually they are not allowed to sell their land as it technically belongs to the government, which in turn allows them to farm it.  Whilst on the farm we got to see a massive sow and a lot of long legged chickens.  Those were side shows to the farm, the main event was the huge amount and range of fruit that they grow.  We got everything from bananas, peppers, chilli’s, avocados, star fruit, Cacao beans, to more exotic ones that we can hardly pronounce correctly.  Harriette was a real trooper, and took a tiny chilly and just popped it into her mouth (knowing that it was a chilli).  Everyone in our group was suitably impressed.  Luckily they had plenty of sugar cane on hand for her to suck on to reduce the heat burn in her mouth.  Maxine, in the meantime dug into the Cacao beans, both farmed and wild ones.  Once cracked open the beans are covered in a flesh that is very delicious to eat, while the beans themselves require processing to be tasty as chocolate.  We even tried Copacoz (used to make white chocolate). A lot of the fruit and vegetables (like Casava root), is picked and then forms part of our meals at the lodge.  

• We had an early morning hike through the rainforest with Eddy our guide.  It was a learning experience for all of us.  We learnt more about the various tree species that live in that area.  How some of the palm trees look “pregnant” due to bulges in the middle, to store water for the dry season. How some actually “walk” (walking palm trees). And how some are vines, that have actually wrapped themselves around some old trees and completely replaced them (killing the old tree in the process), such as strangler figs.  Along the way we also saw some cute little Titii monkeys and some huge ant colonies.  It is incredible to see how diverse the rainforest is and how well it works as a complete ecosystem.  Even the hordes of mosquitoes are needed to pollinate the Cacao trees. So without mosquitoes there would be no chocolate! 

• The girls also got a bit of a treat at the lodge, with a traditional archery lesson.  The bow and arrow were quite different from what the girls are used to, but that did not stop Harriette from scoring a bullseye.

• We also did a hike to the observation tower in the middle of the juggle to see the sun set.  The tower actually broke through the top canopy layer and we could see for miles out into the forest.  So far that we could see the Andes mountain range in the far distance.  The sunset itself was stunning with the huge clouds playing with the sun rays.  And as the sun was setting we got to see a whole bunch of macaws sitting in the top branches of the trees and flying past. Normally in pairs or family units, as they mate for life. 

• Under a starry night we took a slow boat ride to find caiman alligators in the river.  Amazingly Eddy found a couple.  One was a black juvenile caiman and also a very rare dwarf caiman.  Both were small in size and amazing to see up close (just a meter or so away from the boat).  Part of the night life that came out were a huge amounts of bats.  They just soared centimeters above the surface of the river, as that is were all the bugs were hanging out.  Hence the bats flying and gobbling up all the pesty bitey bugs!

• Throughout the stay we saw a huge variety of birds, making your average ornithologist jealous!  Some of the birds we saw (not a complete list as there was just too many):
• Hoatzin.  This bird sounds like its asmatic, this is due to a natural build up of gas in it digestive tract that comes out on a regular basis.  It is also is known as the smelly bird, as it cover itself in its own feces to keep cool.  Sticky!
• The majestic red and green macaws
• Lots and lots of blue headed macaws
• A few toucans.  We heard a lot more that we actually saw
• A couple of vultures that we saw soaring on some thermals on the way out from the lodge. 

We also got lucky to see a couple of Capybaras on the riverbank on one of our river rides.  These are the largest rodents known to man, and they are actually very large.  You can definitely see the rodent features in them, making it look a pig sized cross between a rat and a hamster.  Over the couple days we were here, we got to see a number of rodents, both nocturnal and daytime ones.  

After a few days in the rainforest, we unfortunately headed back to Puerto Maldonaldo to fly out to Rio via Lima, ending the Peruvian part of our South American adventure.