Day 17: 17/7/12
Up at 4:30am for the flight to the jungle! Not a wink of sleep with the brazilians all coming in at various hours of the night.
Got to the airport, checked in, had breakfast, got on the plane no hassle at all. Although they did have a security check for our checked suitcases which was weird. They asked had I any matches, lighter, alcohol, oxygen or pepper spray! I thought the oxygen bit was quite strange!
The plane was very short- only 35 minutes. There was nobody there at first to collect us but then our guide Luis appeared. We had to get a tuc-tuc to the office- that was interesting!! They are the moto-taxi things and it had our big bags tied on the back with rope and the three of us squished in!!
We had to wait in the office for four hours then for three other people to come on the next flight. The office was a bare room attached to someone's house. There were two people working there but they seemed to be doing nothing! There was a man, woman and child from the house next store pottering around aswell. There were two dogs, a cat, hens and chicks knocking round aswell- we didn't know what we were going to see next!!
Our guide was chatting to us and apparently he plays the guitar. He also used to paint but he lost his inspiration- the locals didn't appreciate the colours and the expression- no less!! He definitely seems to be the one-with-nature type!! The young boy next door was bawling crying at one stage and I mentioned that he sounded upset. The guide started mumbling something like a chant. You can imagine he two of us when that started!!
Then when the others arrived we headed off in a jeep to the middle of nowhere!! Very dusty road and green trees alla around. Then we had to get a canoe. When you stood on it there was a big wobble- so you can imagine how happy I was about that. There were seats on either side and a roof on top so could have been worse!
On the way We saw a Tayra (a weasel thing) 2 Caiman And some bird! We also got lunch (rice and chicken all wrapped up in a leaf!).
There are resident naturalists here doin research and they showed us around when we arrived. Padraig I could see you here doing some experiments! They don't get paid though- so no good to ya!!! Our room is fine- it has a toilet and shower. There's electricity in the dining room and wifi in the evening so it's better than we thought!
We had about two hours off when we got here. The workers all played soccer for a while so we watched their game!
Then our guide spoke to us about the differences between crocodiles, alligators and caimans. It's caimans that are here and they aren't aggressive at all. Then we went out in the boat again looking for caimans in the dark!! He was using a fox lamp at the front of the boat to try to spot their red eyes shining. The first time we saw one and got close to it, the ground was quite shallow and the engine cut out!! Of course we had the life jackets on fairly quickly! We saw about six caimans and ws also saw a capybara- its the biggest rodent in the world, it looks like a giant guinea pig. They also stopped the boat in the middle of the river for us to hear the sounds around. It was very surreal to be sitting in a boat in the jungle in the dark!! The driver then started the boat and drove us back to the lodge in the black of the night!
Had dinner then- got three courses! We weren't expecting that!! It's pitch dark now so our room with no electricity will be interesting!! Thanks to Santa for the torch we have!!
Muireann spent about 10minutes wrestling with mosquito nets before we went to sleep! Both slept soundly though!!