Our rest day in Cusco was fun. We visited a church with a famous carved pulpit and got fleeced by a man who told us about a few bits in the church and then demanded 20 soles. It was almost worth it as at one point he showed us a very very old organ from the 1600s and the door fell off. He propped it back on but then the whole front panel and some inner bits fell out onto an innocent bystander. Peter and I had trouble keeping a straight face as the pair of them tried to stop this historic instrument crashing onto the floor. The day ended with a pint in the pub and the best Sushi I have yet had in South America.

We said good bye to Cusco and took the road into the rain forest. Stopping to get petrol we again saw our French friends who were waiting for the garage to open to get their broken filter housing fixed. Apparently they had gone to the local Ford dealer to get their oil changed and they broke the filter housing and after three days they had given up on Fords and gone to this small independent garage.

We drove all day up into the mountains and through cloud forest before descending into the Madre de Dios basin, part of the southern tropical rainforest of the Amazon basin. The Amazon basin covers a staggering 4 million square kilometres. It is home to 10 million living creatures and produces 10% of the world's oxygen. It also has a less than attractive list of hazards including Malaria, Dengue Fever, Jiggers, Leishmaniasis, River Sickness, Yellow fever and many nasty parasites. Sadly it is still being destroyed by deforestation. We saw areas that had been deforested for cattle and crops as we drove down from the mountain.

The northern tropical rainforest is dominated by many large slower moving rivers (and frequently submerged land) including the river Amazon itself whilst the southern area has a greater number of slightly faster flowing rivers and more actual rain forest. What is quite amazing is that at this point we were just over 200 metres above sea level. In a straight line the river has more than 1800 miles to get to the Atlantic Ocean. No wonder it flows so slowly.

The road we drove on actually goes all the way to Brazil and is very well maintained, so it was quite a comfy drive. The town we were heading for was Puerto Maldonado. We arrived late afternoon and found a nice lodge overlooking the Rio Madre de Dios. Puerto Maldonado is a rather bleak town founded in 1902 as result of the early 20Th century rubber boom, which brought many Europeans to the area. The rubber boom over in the 1930's it survived for a bit whilst oil exploration went on in the area but now I am not sure what it survives on. It annually attracts gold diggers after the rainy season when the rivers deposit a heavy layer of gold dust along the very muddy river banks.

We sat on the terrace overlooking the river for an hour but it was very very hot and muggy so we eventually gave in and retreated to our air conditioned room. The following day we decided we should venture out so took a day trip up the river into the Tambopata-Candamo reserve. It was even hotter and more humid, sticky and muggy but we did enjoy it.

The trip started with a half hour boat ride up the wide and muddy Rio Madre de Dios. Following this we walked for an hour through dense rainforest. Finally we spent four (very uncomfortable) hours on a small hard seated boat on an oxbow lake with pristine rain forest all around. Our bottoms took days to recover! Mine more so as the lack of toilets facilities meant large areas of flesh had to be exposed on occasions to some nasty biting forest insects.

Lunch was served in a banana plant leaf tied up with string (good way to cut down on the washing up). We did see Cayman (including the rare black Cayman), Turtles, very smelly Peccaries (wild pigs) which we smelt from the boat a good 100yards before we saw them, cute little Squirrel monkeys and Capuchin monkeys, Rainforest red squirrels (very red and bigger than our squirrels), Yellow and Blue Macaws, several species of Parakeets and Herons and assorted other birds including the oddest bird in the Amazon, the Hoatzin. This strange turkey looking bird is only found in the Amazon. It has retained prehistoric features including the ability to live on leaves. Also its chicks have claws on their wings. It rarely flies, makes very strange grunting noises and doesn’t smell very nice.

We were both relieved to get back to the air conditioned room at the lodge and didn’t venture out till next morning. We then drove back to Cusco for a bit of a rest and for Peter to listen to the Playoff Finals between Watford and Crystal Palace.