Week 3 - The Amazon
So this week we have been in the Amazon which has been amazing. Currently its Sunday and we have just had our breaky and a watch of the Arsenal game, Tom isnt happy about the score, 2-2, uh oh. We have 8 hours till we catch a night bus to Puno where we visit Lake Titicaca before heading through the border to Bolivia. Its Sunday so everything is shut, so we are having a nice relaxed day.
Before we start this weeks blogs, we have a collection of things that we have forgotten to include in the blog so far:

*We saw a tornado, when going to the Colca Canyon, we witnessed a tornado happening, it was coming towards us (not in a scary way) but died out before it got anywhere too close. Was a pretty amazing sight.

*We met a group of Israli´s on our Sandboarding trip. They were crazy about pictures, they took pictiures of everything, multiple times. We thought the Japanese were bad for photos but these guys really excelled. One guy even asked me to take his camera down when i boarded down so that i could take a pic of him doing so, i said yes…if he wanted a camera full of sand waiting for him at the bottom. This seemed to be a good option for him as there was still a chance he would get a pic. Even when the sunset was going down, they carried on snapping pics of them climbing over the dune buggy and missed the amazing sight. Weird, crazy and bizzare!

*In the Andes, houses are made from clay mud and straw still. They make bricks out of mud and dry them in the sun. They then plaster over the house when complete to make it look brick. They really have some huge houses…made of mud. In the, what you would assume more primative jungle however, their houses are made from bricks, odd!

*Every morning between 7am and 8am, if you´re not awake, you get woken up by fireworks
going off in the town square. This really made us jump at first, but its a good alarm clock.

*There is an abundance of Eucalyptus tress in Peru. There were intorduced years ago and have grown everywhere, minus the koala bears.

*Our guide Percy explained to us that Peru was a conservative country…just as we drove by a statue of a topless lady, very conservative!

So last week then….

When we arrived back at our hostel on Sunday night, we explained that we would be leaving early in the morning. The man at reception that night seemed to be a drunk man, we think, who had no english comprehension and slept in a bed at the bottom of the stairs. We weren´t sure that he understood us when we asked if we could leave our luggage for 5 days. We proceeded to get our phrase book out and showed him the phrase we wanted, he continued to look at it, a cm away from his face, then said (shouted) ´si, si´. So we assumed he understood and went to bed…..only to be woken at 4.35am by the drunk man banging on our door. When we answered he said ´cinqo, cinqo, cinqo´. It seems that even with the power of the phrase book, he understood our request to be a 5am wake up call, all beit one at 4.35am! We are sure he was in some way related to shouty man from week one.

So after a broken nights sleep, we started at 8am on Monday to meet our guide outside the Cathedral. As often happens, nothing quite goes to plan. By 8.20 he hadnt arrived but the director of the company had and started walking us somewhere to meet the bus. He started saying to us in Spanglish, that we should tell the group that we paid more than we had for the trip so that they didnt complain to him that we had got it cheaper. We thought he was trying to say that we had to pay more so we had a little debate before understanding each other. Phew! We walked for ages, wondering where he was taking us, before we found our bus and our group. There were 7 of us all together. A couple from Amsterdam who were brilliant and on a holiday, 2 from Denmark who were travelling South America for 7 weeks , one of which was a dentist, obsessed with chocolate ironically and an Israli girl who had obviously hardened after being brought up in very diffcult times in Israel. She was quite a (hairy) character. We had a long drive to the Amazon, 10 hours by bus. Along the way we saw natures barbed wire walls, which are catuses that are grown out of the top of the walls, good thinking. We had a scary drive, along those roads with cliff edges and 200m drops, it was certainly a sweaty palm drive. We think that our driver stopped for a Chicha enroute, the local beer, very potent. After a too quick corner and a few loud gasps from the group, he slowed down! When we got into Manu National park, the start of the jungle, we stopped off to see the national brid…´The c*** of the Rock´. Its a bright red bird and we were lucky enough to see 3, one of which was the alpha male who was doing a ´display´ for the ladies. When we started back towards the bus, we walking into the David Attenbough fan club. We have never seen so many beige chinos in one place and the biggest monoculars ever! The main man said that we could have a look through his mono, after Toms turn, he told Tom to ´let your woman have a look´, Tom was thinking ýeah cheers Pal, I needed some relationship advice from a single man dressed in full jungle safari gear – knob!´he then told me to put some clothes on or i would get eaten alive, cheeky git! We had a further few hours drive until we reached our Amazon Lodge for the night. We stayed in Pilcopata which is the main town / village on the way to the river. After a clothes change, the group and us trekked into town in search for a bar. We stumbled across a little hut which had the local beer sign up. I used my extensive Spanish to order Cervesa and soon we had moved the tables out of the bar and all had beers in hand. There were loads of animals here, as there usually is here, parrots, dogs…a monkey! The monkey was carried everywhere on the dogs back, we have a pic in the album. We went back to the lodge for our dinner, only to be walked down the main road to a different resturant where we would eat. This is when we started to wonder how organised this trip was as it seemed that the chef had had to borrow a kitchen for our dinner. Lodge was lovely, and although there were no places for bugs to get in, it didnt stop either of us waking up in the middle of the night freaked out by any small touch of my hair, another not great sleep night, oops.

In the morning, we left by bus for another hour drive before we got to Attalya, the port where we would board a boat. Firstly we stocked up on water and Choco Bum (yes, Choco Bum) biscuits for the trip and then headed up river where we would stop to swim…..after jumping off a cliff / rock into the water. Tom didnt fancy this so took the lower rock jump, Tom will just add that this had something to do with his life jacket resembling a boob tube and was worried about a broken rib on impact. I was pretty proud of myself and loved it, although i chickened out the first time as my legs went to jelly and i nearly fell in! Once in, we swam for quite a way, the current was strong so it was more like a float down river, it was wicked. When we got to the beach that we were stopping at, I got stuck in the current and couldnt get in. I think the guide thought i was joking when i said help, that was probably because i soon realised that the water i was in, was only a foot deep, hmm panic over, i stood up and walked in…plonka! The boat ride down the river was brilliant, what a way to see the world. We stopped for a hike to the Oxbow Lake. Here we donned our welly boots and our sexy, newly purchased hats that we had brought in Cuzco, and started a trek with the reality of the Amazon nasties. We saw so many butterflys and some huge birds. We also saw monkeys, tamarin monkeys which were fab and leaf cutter ants, who really do make their own little pathways. Once we got to the Oxbow lake, we rafted across it and continued our trek. The temperature here is sooo hot in comparison to Cuzco where at altitude it has been pretty cold at times. During our walk, a butterfly took a liking to my back and stayed on my back for about half an hour while we walked. We thought it may have inhaled too much insect repellant and fallen asleep but it did finally fly off (we think). After our walk we had our dinner on the boat, which was huge, we were amazed at what they can cook on a boat. Our next stop was the Agua Calentes, the hot springs. These ones, unlike the first ones we visited in Chivay, are nothing more than rock pools with natural hot springs. They are beautiful. We relaxed in here for a bit, until the fish started biting us. The water was boiling so we used it to have a quick wash as it could be our last bit of hot water for a few days. Walking up stream, you get to a little waterfall which is lovely. We had a sit under it to re enact the Timotei type adverts, however the force of the water pulled down my pants to flash my bum at whoever was unlucky enough to see.. not quite as Timotei like as i expected! Tonight we camped on the bankside of the river. We had a perfect spot and once pitched, we built a camp fire. We all collected wood and gathered it in a huge pile, which we thought would be used to keep the fire alive throughout the night. Lucho had other ideas and approached with a hose full of petrol and lit the whole lot. Our guide, Luchos, seemed to revel in the campfire buidling and we started to wonder whether this was more for his benefit than ours as it was built too far from where we ate to help with bugs and we seemed to loose him for a while, while he continued to build it with a huge smile on his face, not wanting to spoil his fun, we left him to it. We had dinner with thousands of bugs, they all seem to come out at night so you´re never really sure whether it is a herb you are eating…or a bug. Over dinner we both saw shooting stars, we have never seen the sky so clear and so many stars. Also, as we are pretty much on the equator, the sunset and sunrises happen really quickly here. Within 30 minutes, its dark, and not long after, the moon has dissapered compleatly, leaving nothing but the stars. In the distance we could see lightning, Luchos said that the weather may change in a few days as it was so far away from us…he was not quite right on this one and during the night we experianced one of the most amazing / horrendous thunderstorms ever. At one point, we wondered whether we should sleep at the sides of the tent in case we were struck on the top. This went on all night and the rain continued till the morning.

We were due to get up at 4am so that we could visit where the parrots lick the clay (to maintain their metabolism from eating un ripened fruit), but due to the weather, we stayed in bed till 7am. Raincoacts on and breakfast on the boat, we headed off further up river to another walk into the jungle. Here we walked for hours, stopping at another beautiful waterfall where we were given the option to jump again or swim. We were pretty tempted, till we saw the giant water spider on the bank, this soon confirmed that it was best to stay dry today. We saw more monkeys today and walked off trail to get closer to them. We also saw Macaw´s which we learnt always travel with their mate. We travelled further upstream to our lodge for the night. We were the only couple to have brought tiny bags with us and at times had wondered whether this was the best idea as it was a pain packing everyday…untill now when we stopped and were told to bring everything for the 15 minute trek to the lodge. 15 minutes isnt a long time, but when it is blistering hot, humid, you have to wear wellies because of the snakes and you have to trek through sinking mud and rocks, with a 15kg bag on your back, it isnt fun! So we smuggly grabbed our mini bags and trogged with the guide to the lodge. On the way, we came to a clearing where it was obvious that a large truck had recently been and a lot of tress had been destroyed. When we asked Lucho what this was, we found out that this was due to petrol companies. We had seem a helicopter the day before which was dropping supplies into the jungle and also surveying the land for oil well oppurtunities. It was really sad to see the destruction caused and when we asked further about this we found out that they survey the land and when they find a well, they will destroy what they need to get to it and use it. This is destroying a lot of animals habitats in the jungle and some native tribes who have no choice in this. Luchos told us that when he worked as a park ranger, he was once approached by men who wanted access to the area, he had to let them enter. The petrol companies pay thelocal people 2000 soles a month to work for them, this is about 400 pounds, double the average salary in the area. You could see from the frown on Lucho´s face that this was something that was eating away at him, especially as he has worked in the Jungle for 12 years and this was something very close to his heart. It seems that this is a bitter sweet thing for the area. Once we reached the lodge, it quickly became apprent that there was a problem. There were no clean rooms and the landlord said that we couldnt stay. We felt so sorry for Lucho, it wasnt his fault but he really beat himself up about it. So we trekked back to the boat and took a further 1.5hr trip down river to a camping platform where we pitched the inner nets from our tents in preparation for a sleep under a huge thatched roof. There were more hot springs here but as it was now getting dark, we decided not to take the plunge. There were so many bugs here as we were surrounded by trees, that we soon decided to move the tents into a circle and each sit in their tent with a light on in the middle so that we could carry on our conversations, what wimps, although I cant begin to explain how frustrating it is when you are constantly dive bombed by bugs and you know that there are poisonous snakes and spiders around!!! Tom ate a bug at dinner time, it was one of the ´is it a herb, is it a bug´ soup moments, yuk! Eating in the jungle is funny, you cant keep your head lights on as the bugs are attracted to them, so you eat in the pitch black, only every now and then someone says ´light´ when they have obviously had a moment of panic that something other than their dinner is in their bowl. Keeping a head torch on only results in a massive bug landing on your face. Its a constant lights on, lights off. The chocolate pudding made it all better though! We were going to take a night hike tonight but as we had to change venues, Lucho said that tonight wasnt the best night for him due to the amount of venomous snakes in the area…that was a thought to keep us warm at night, although thankfully he did check the roof for snakes and spiders before leaving us for bed!!! Nightmares to follow!

We were woken up at 5am to try to see the parrots again at the clay licking area. We were getting pretty used to these early starts, although by now we were shattered and sore. We got to the clay lick just in time to see a mass of green parrots with blue heads licking the clay. They were soon disturbed by a truck from the petrol companies making too much noise. We waited around for ages in the hope that they would come back but instead they flew around the nearby trees. While we were waiting, Lucho told us about the petrol companies and that he had seen 5 people from the petrol company killed by bush master snakes here and helicoptered away, all because of their lack of jungle knowledge and the dangers. He also told us that he once found his friend who was a park ranger, getting eaten by a jaguar, he then told us how he had filmed it as his friend would have wanted people to see it and that his boss had told him to destroy the film (crazy man) and finally how the Oxbow lake that we had visited, had once been the ending place of a researcher who had stripped off and gone for a swim there, never to be found again. Supposedly his clothes where all that was found and the locals thought that he was either eaten by the caimans or by an anconda…..yes an anaconda. Hmm, after enough freaky stories and no more parrots, we returned to the boat where breakfast was waiting, fruit salad, porridge, scrambled eggs and bread…feeders!!! We had a further hike up stream, this one was more extreame than the others as loads of tress had fallen across the path making it in accesable, we thought, Lucho on the other hand did not. We clambered over the trees, all the time knowing that the dry leaves we could potentially fall into, were the favourite places of snakes and spiders. If thats not something that keeps your attention on balancing, i dont know what is. Once we survived the rambo esk jungle adventure, we carried on to see giant trrees, actually Giant trees where they make plywood from and a monkey which Lucho had never seen in the wild but always wanted to. That was a priviledge, although both of us only really saw the tree move. We carried on to our lodge and after the 3 hours trekking and the boiling weather, we were thirsty. We ran out of mineral water the day before and were given the option of boiled water, which seemed fine, until we realised it was boiled River water, mud and all. It tasted ok, it was just the grit it left in your mouth every time you bit afterwards that wasnt so nice. The dutch couple were due to leave today and some hap dash plan had been put in place to take them back to the port where they would hopefully get a taxi for the 10 hour trip back to Cuzco. Lucho, was trying to sell us all the option of staying in Pilcopata where we had stayed the first night, however we wanted to stretch our our jungle trip for the last night, although by now we were getting pretty fed up of things not really being what we were sold and the heat and lack of drink. So Lucho said that he would be back in about 4 hours and that we had free time. Free time felt like stranded time so we arranged to go with him back to the port where we would busy ourselves till he returned from Pilcopata. We made this decision in the knowledge that there was beer at the port, and that we could definatly fill the time with that! So once in port, we got the beers in with the 3 remaining others. Before long, our Israli girl got fed up of waiting about and decided that she was going home tonight and managed to jump in with the dutch guys. So now only 4 remaining, we cracked open another beer and the pack of cards and continued to beat the Danish at their own card game, over and over and over, until they were fed up of loosing and 5 litres of beer had been drunk. By the time Lucho returned about 5 hours later, we were all a bit tipsy, but very very happy. This is when Lucho decided to spring a suprise on us…it was time for the night hike! Argh, this was the time that we knew all of the nasties really came out looking for food, or un suspecting European´s with nice blood in the alcohol stream. We kitted out and tucked everything in. By the time we were ready, only our eyes were exposed. We couldnt hear a darn thing and we were close to over heating, but there was no danger of anything getting anywhere that they shouldnt. Once in the jungle, Lucho told us ot turn all lights off, yes, pitch black. Now not only do i have a fear of snakes and spiders, i also have a fear of the dark, I am glad now that i had a beer before hand as it took the edge of the fear. Before long, we saw Caiman´s which was great. There were quite a few in the water and we could see their red eyes watching us. Everywhere there were also loads and loads of Fire Flies which light the place up with their green l.e.d like eyes. Before long we reached the Oxbow lake again, yes the Oxbow lake where there may be an anaconda. We the got on the raft, to raft across the water, where there might be an anaconda, at a time when we are pretty sure they would be feeding. To be honest, it was beautiful, again we were blessed with a clear sky full of stars and with all of our torches off you could see nothing other than the fire flys and a caimen´s eyes. At one point we grounded out and i was convinced that we had grounded over a giant anacondas back who was going to flip us over and then squeeze someone, oh what an imagination! Luckly none of this happened, it was lovely. On the walk back to the boat, something crossed the path in front of me and i shouted for Lucho to have a look. It was a spider, a pretty big Wolf spider and next to it was an even bigger Scorpian spider. Once we knew that neither were poisonous, we stopped and took piccys. They were really hairy and pretty large! Lucho had a giggle fit on the way back to the lodge, seemingly he had told chef that we would be 3hrs it was now at least 6hrs and chef was going to be pretty hacked off…and he was. When we got there he had a little mardi and refused to make breakfast until 7.30am in the morning eventhough we were going to be leaving at 5am, git! As we were having dinner, another lodge stayer came running out of her room asking for someone to get rid of the spider in her bed, it was the size of her fist! Lucho reassured us that as we were staying on the second floor, there were less spiders, but that he would go and check for us, bless him. Once tucked in and sleeping, we discovered a reason why the top floor wasnt such a good benefit.. we had another horrendous thunderstorm. Monsoon rain on a tin roof was 1) Loud and 2) May as well have been a lighting rod. At one point I asked Tom whether we should sleep outside in the foetal position as low as you can get, like Bear Grylls recomeneded in his programme. We didnt, we stuck it out, and surivived getting struck or washed away.

Up at 5am, again and we got the boat back to the port. Here we waited for an hour while a pirate looking man was loading planks of hardwood into a lorry. The funny thing is here that there is no urgency with anything. Even when we asked if they could move the lorry, we sat for a further 30 minutes until they had finished and moved it. Laid back and horizontal comes to mind, its great. We visited a ´zoo´at Pilcopata as a last chance to see some animals up close. By zoo, it was actually somewhere with a lot of land and a few caged animals owned by people who claim to have rescued them. It was brillaint to see them but the face on the Monkey said it all. Lucho put a Toucan on my shoulder, who then proceeded to poo on my bum, very nice. Tom says its good luck, I hope so! What he meant was it was good luck that it hadn´t happened to him. We saw more Macaw´s and parrots, Toucan, a Vulture, A Monkey, Tortoises, the largest rodent Capibara who was really sweet and clearly wanted a stroke as he kept jumping up at us, Wild boars and a Tapir. Wild boars supposedly can kill you, so you werent allowed in there. We then had the rest of the huge journey back to Cuzco. Once back, we found that our bags were still at our hostel so Tom could relax. We had a lovely and well earnt hot shower, got our laundry done as our clothes were nearly ready to walk themselves and went for dinner. We had a BBQ for dinner and as i found plastic on one of my sausages, we got free Pisco Sours. It is funny because at altitude, you cant drink. Yesterday we were drinking over a litre of beer with a tipsy reaction, today we had one beer and felt dizzy, the Pisco Sour just finished it off! We finished the day with chocolate peanuts in bed. Yum!

Up late, for a change, after the best nights sleep for a week in a proper bed with pillows. We went for breaky at a local deli and ordered what we thought was an ommlette, only to get a fried egg, chips, tommato and rice, not quite what we had in mind. We booked our bus out of Cuzco to Puno which we will be boarding in 6 hours from now. We had dinner down druggy alley. All of the dealers congregate at the top which makes it a mission at night and they all look prettty dodgy, but the resturant we found did a really nice menu for 20 soles, 4 pounds to us. So as we are soon to be leaving Peru, we went for the traditional´s, Pisco sour, garlic brea d (well not traditional but free!) Ceviche which is raw trout ´cooked´ in onion, lemon juice and chilli and is Lovely! Cuy al Horno, aka Guineu Pig (Sorry Vicks!) but this was finito so we didnt get this, instead we had Alpaca steak and finally pancakes. Very yummy and mucho cheapo. The 24th October is a traditional day where the native people celebrate what we think is a saint type person. When we left the resturant we walked into the square which was full of locals dancing to the musicians onstage, one of which looked like the Peruvian version of Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters. We had a little boogy and watched some of the fireworks. Health and Safety here is non exsistant so we werent suprised when some of the spinning fireworks made their way up and then down into the crowd. It was a fab night.

Today, we have had another lazy one. We do sound lazy but two weeks trekking the Inca Trail and then the Amazon is pretty tiring as as neither of us had any particularly good level of fitness before we left, is pretty impressive! Tom´s knees and shoulders are aching so we havent felt bad about resting. Plus as today is Sunday again, everything is closed so we have had breakfast, a trip to the Cross Keys English pub for football again and then we will have to think how else we can fill the time till the bus! Still having an amazing time. Missing home, family and friends loads as we are now getting over that holiday timescale, wish you were all here to enjoy this amazing experiance with us. Love to all and next blog to come in a week!!! xxx