Puerto Maldonado and the Amazon Jungle
After a nice relaxing day in Cusco, some shopping, a good team meal and maybe a couple too many Pisco Sours, we set off early the next morning for the airport, and our flight to Puerto Maldonado, gateway to the amazon jungle.
It was a bit frustrating, as our 45 minute flight was delayed by two hours, and there really isn't that much to do at Cusco airport!
Once we took off, we flew out over the Andes, and before long we were coming down over the jungle. I thought we might be landing in some remote area, but Puerto Maldonado is quite a big city, and as Tony put it, 'it is not a thing of beauty!' We got transferred by minibus to a little jetty, and then by motorised canoe about an hour and a half down the Madre de Dios river to our Eco lodge. 
We were so late arriving that we had to eat our lunch really quickly, smother ourselves in inset repellant and then go by boat over to 'monkey island'. 
This is a sanctuary for rescued monkeys, either because their habitat has been destroyed, or they have been caught and sold as pets. They are reintroduced to the wild, and are now breeding successfully, but because the island doesn't provide them with a full diet, the rangers make a trip every afternoon to leave fruit for them. We saw quite a few capuchin and spider monkeys and a small marmoset, but we couldn't stay long as it was starting to get dark, and on the return trip we watched the sun going down over the amazon.
We headed back to the lodge, and at 6pm the electricity came on, which was very exciting, as we could go to our cabins and unpack. There was also a ceiling fan, so it was nice to cool down. After supper we went out in the boat again with a big search light to look for caimans. We only saw a couple, and they were quite small, so we realised how lucky we'd been in the Iberá wetlands to have seen so many of them. We did see an amazing display of lightening though, over the trees on the far side of the river, which lit up the clouds from behind, like an explosion. At one point, the guide turned off the light and the engine, and we just drifted in the dark,  listening to the sounds of the jungle and the river, and looking at the fabulous starry night sky. We had an early night, as the electricity goes off at 10pm. We thought we'd never get to sleep, as the jungle at night is REALLY noisy, but we both slept very well. 
We had a 5.30 am wake up call, breakfast at 6, then off in the boat again for a trek through the jungle. The jungle in the morning sounds very different, but equally noisy. We could hear loads of different animals, but you can't see them as the foliage is too thick, or they're up in the canopy. We did see a tarantula, which the guide coaxed out of its hole with a long twig. He said it was only a baby, but it looked enormous, so I'm glad we didn't meet an adult one! We learnt a lot about the trees and plants, and how they are used by the native amazonian people, as our guide had lived with them for a year. Some people also had a go at swinging on vines, but I didn't want to fall in the mud and land on army ants, which were trying to bite through our boots! We trekked to an observation tower, which was 20 meters high and gave a good view of the canopy (once I dared open my eyes!) and over a small lake, but we didn't see much apart from hundreds of butterflies.
We got back mid morning, and had a swim in the lovely cold pool, followed by an amazing lunch -I had delicious rice which had been cooked wrapped up in a banana leaf parcel, and a hard boiled egg. After that there was a chance to go piranha fishing, but I decided to opt out of that, and spent a couple of hours relaxing in a hammock in the shade looking out at the river instead. Lovely.
When Tony and the others got back, they had caught one small fish, and quite a few leaves and twigs, so lucky we weren't relying on the catch for our supper.
Three of the group were flying on to Lima the next day, so we had a few farewell drinks in the bar after supper, getting to bed just before the electricity went off.
After another early start, we were back in the canoe for the return trip to Puerto Maldonado. We had done really well avoiding mosquito bites until that point, but when we pulled our life jackets out to put them on, they were all full of mosquitos, which flew out in great clouds, and I got bitten on my forehead, nose, cheek and elbow !! Luckily our return flight was on time, and we were back in Cusco mid-afternoon, for one last night in the same hotel. Unfortunately, we found out that if you go down to sea level, then when you come back to altitude, you have to start acclimatising all over again, so everything was an effort and left me puffing and panting again! Time to sort out the large rucksacks, and re-pack the small ones, as the next day (Saturday), the truck was going to Arequipa with our luggage, but en route we were being dropped off to go by minibus to Chivay, and from there to Colca Canyon..... Goodnight