The morning that we had to catch a plane to the Amazon, we almost missed our flight, despite having requested a taxi the night before. The hotel receptionist had to call 3 more times before a taxi finally came 45 minutes after we had requested it. At the airport, E.J. pointed out that security would not allow the bottles we had so carefully filled with tap water and treated the night before. So after we collected our tickets and repacked our checked bag to include 2 full water bottles, our sun block, & mosquito repellent (all of which we had foolishly packed in our day pack ready for our hike through the jungle), we sadly went and dumped the precious water in our other 2 water bottles. Then we watched incredulously as everyone walked through security with their full water bottles. Aaaag!
The flight was less than an hour, the scenery below changing from the crinkled tissue paper of mountain terrain to dense green jungle. Climbing down the stairs to the tarmac, a wall of wet heat hit us – it felt like we were back in Antigua. We walked 20 to 30 metres across the tarmac to a warehouse-like airport terminal. We grabbed our pack off the baggage claim and walked out the opposite door – no security, no checks, nothing. Manuel met us outside and helped us to the Sandoval Lake Lodge bus. Two other couples and a family with a teenage boy joined us on the bus
and we drove less than 5 minutes to a snake farm. The snake farm had a dual purpose – to rescue injured animals and snakes, and to do educational programs with local children and farmers. We saw 2 junior anacondas, a young boa constrictor, a water snake, a piranha (whose size and un-presuming appearance fascinated Scooter), a tiny viper (deadly), 2 eel, turtles, a blind ocelot (it looked like a spotted civet cat), and several other snakes and fish. There was a
white duck in the cage with the boa constrictor. The children must have sat next to that cage for 15-20 minutes, just waiting for the boa to strangle & swallow the duck. The duck was completely unaware of its danger – it even tucked its head under its wing for a snooze. I guess the boa had stage fright or something. Its eyes kept darting to the bright red spot squatting outside its cage. Or maybe it wasn’t hungry enough yet – they usually eat once a week.
Having a 3-year old along, of course we had to make use of the outhouse. That was a new experience for Boo (she hasn’t been to Malawi yet). She was a bit reluctant to piddle while suspended in my arms over a hole in the ground, mainly because of the several huge spider webs that surrounded us in the small space, but she did manage eventually, thankfully before my arms gave out. Scooter, having used a number of chimbudzis during his 2 visits to Malawi, was less excited to use the facilities. There were a number of citrus fruit trees in that area and the fruit were huge – lemons the size of oranges.
Back on the bus, we drove another 10-15 minutes to the company office in Puerto Maldonado. This was a very dusty town (it looked a bit like Mzuzu), where the main form of transportation was motorbikes or motorbike taxis – a 3-wheel contraption carting a 2-person carriage behind. Women & men, often with 1-3 passengers even on a regular moto, would putt around in the hundreds.
The 5 couples/families in our party changed into shorts, applied bug spray liberally, and transferred our belongings into duffle bags provided by the lodge. The staff divided us into groups – the 3 couples in one group, the family with the teenager into another, and our family in a third – and assigned each group a guide. Our guide, Miligras, helped us choose wellington boots to wear and made sure we had everything we needed. We drove the 5 minutes down to the pier where I quickly bought 2 bottles of water to replenish our depleted supply before we embarked on a long, thin boat with a little engine on the back. We all donned life jackets and set off on the silty brown waters of the Tambopata River.
After a while, we turned off onto the Madre de Dios River.
Little river taxis plied the wide river, putting from far-reaching homes to Puerto Maldonado or back for 5-20 soles. The thatched mud brick houses scattered along the shores became more and more sparsely spaced as we progressed into the more remote jungle. As the houses became less frequent, the jungle became thicker and the trees higher. While we watched the scenery around us, we each ate a delicious rice pilaf wrapped in a banana leaf. I don’t know about everyone else, but E.J., Scooter & I inhaled ours, not having eaten that much for breakfast. After about an hour, we climbed off the
boat and up the steep, mud bank on make-shift wooden stairs. At the top, there was a clearing with a small, shed-like house, some low benches and wooden railings. We all sat down, took off our hiking shoes and slipped into our wellies. Our guides found us each an appropriately sized hiking stick and then we set off on a 3 km slog through ankle- to mid-calf-deep mud. Mili told us that they had been experiencing unpredictable weather, the latest of which was a huge rainfall 4 days before. It left the path deep in mud.
Our typical 9-year-old boy was in seventh heaven. He squelched down the middle of the path, finding the deepest puddles. He left one wellie behind in a particularly deep hole one time, and Mili told him he had to
be more careful from then on. His wellies were full of mud, his jeans were covered up to the crotch, his water bottle had been dropped in the mud, making his shirt, where the water bottle swung, also streaked with mud. The rest of us took a circuitous route, meandering from one side of the 4-metre wide path to the other, sometimes going a little ways into the forest in our quest for the least muddy avenue. Boo looked like one big mud and pink streaked blob holding a stick. E.J. was not much better because he would pick her up every time the path became impassable (otherwise, it would have taken us all night). His shirt, where her big, mud-caked boots rested, was one mass of mud.
I was the only one not covered – the mud splatters I did have were from Scooter leaping into a mud puddle and splashing it all over me.
Mili helped pass the time for us by telling us about the butterflies and insects, or pointing out trails of army ants. She told us how the local tribesmen once had to prove their manhood before marriage by hugging a Tangarana tree for 12 hours while naked.
This in itself wouldn’t be so uncomfortable, except that this tree forms a symbiosis with fire ants. The ants make their home in the tree and eat the fungus that grows there; the tree is constantly cleaned of various fungi and parasites while the ants receive food and a home. In other words, the trees are crawling with fire ants. Now, anyone who has been bitten by a fire ant remembers the fire that simmers in the spot for the next 15 minutes. Can you imagine having your whole body, including your more sensitive private parts, burning for 12 (and more – I imagine those stings don’t last only 15 minutes!) hours? Scooter was suitably horrified.
We saw many termite mounds on the trees. Mili said that these blind insects don’t eat the trees, but only use them as a home. They eat dead wood. I always thought they were voracious eaters that would eat all wood, simply because we are always fighting them for our ceiling and garden. We saw 2 huge butterflies – the Blue Morph and the Swallow Tail. Incredible! All in all, the flat walk was exhausting and seemed interminable, just because of the sucking, endless mud. For the most part, we didn’t feel the heat because the path was in deep shade. Large trees with lianas rose up all around us (there was also thick undergrowth, so it wasn’t primary forest). There was the constant sound of birds calling to one another and the flutter of wings, though we didn’t see any birds clearly.
We reached the end of the path unexpectedly – suddenly there was a bench with a man sitting on it in front of a wall of trees and undergrowth. I remember thinking,
“Wow! His boots are white!”
Tiredly, we stripped off our mud-plastered boots and socks, dipping the first into the canal to one side to rinse off some of the worst of the mud. Scooter’s socks were a brown, sodden mass and we ended up throwing them out. Mili directed us into the waiting canoe, where we collapsed gratefully and sat a bit listlessly while the man with white boots paddled us through a narrow canal of water cutting through the tall growth all around. Here in the canal, Mili said there were anacondas, water snakes, electric eels, and vegetarian piranhas: not somewhere that you want to take a dip. She related the story of a local man who had survived an anaconda attack the month before. One family lives in the protected area – they were there long before the government protected the area, so they have permission to live and hunt there. One of their men was paddling towards the canal with his dog on the prow of the canoe when an anaconda circled the boat and rose out of the water to snatch the dog. The man hit it with a paddle and it retreated into the water. Then it rose up again and grasped the man by his arm, trying to pull him into the water. He was screaming for help, and thankfully, there was a tourist boat nearby.
The men paddling that boat hit the snake repeatedly with their paddles until it let go of the first man. The family went out the next day to hunt and kill the snake. I guess the snakes are territorial and it would have continued to prey on people coming in and out of the canal. Mili said she saw the skin and it was metres long. After that story, we looked a bit more nervously at the canal and the large, calm lake into which it fed.
After about 200 metres, we emerged onto Sandoval Lake. There were hundreds of birds flying overhead and calling to one another. Mili pointed out the red-bellied Macaw (green except for one spot of red on their bellies) and the cobalt-winged parakeets that flew in family groups of 3 or 4. We saw 10 or so yellow-headed vultures floating on the thermals or settling into some tall, dead-looking branches on one side of the lake. Among the macaws and parakeets, we also saw tropical cormorants, white-winged swallows, and a few scarlet macaws. In amongst the tree roots sticking out of the lake, there were striated herons, capped herons, green Ibis, social flycatchers, and various king f
ishers. Up in the branches we saw red-capped cardinals and a red headed woodpecker. After about 20-30 minutes in the canoe (paddling along one side of the lake, almost to the opposite side), we arrived at the quay for the lodge. We docked, the last among our busload of people to arrive, and trooped up the stairs (groan – more stairs – these wooden and covered in steel mesh) to the lodge. Our first view of the place was wonderful – rustic, yet comfortable and cool in appearance. It had long galleries and screened in porches lining the front. There were wooden benches overlooking the lake and paving stones making little paths through gardens of labeled plants. We walked into the lodge in the late afternoon to be greeted with a cold glass of lemonade each. At that point, I didn’t care if it did make me itchy - I was going to down every last drop of that sweet, icy drink!
In front of the bar were low tables surrounded by over stuffed chairs – inviting but sadly off-limits for mud-caked patrons such as ourselves. We went as fast as we could to our rooms at the end of one long gallery, where we found our bags already safely ensconced, carried on the backs of the much-faster porters. It was wonderful to shower off all the mud and pull on clean clothes. We had an hour or two until Mili met us again for a night walk, so we walked down the gallery to the main part of the lodge. We delightedly sank into the 4 well-placed hammocks inside the screened-in porch, where we could read, write, talk with other members of our larger party, or watch the gardens outside. Scooter and Boo played endlessly in the hammocks the entire 2 days we were there. E .J. enjoyed this part of our holiday the most – we could sit and relax without worrying about having to hurry anywhere, and stairs were not a major component of any of our treks.
After a while, I wandered down by the lake to watch the sunset – very peaceful with lots of reds and oranges. As I was standing out there, I heard a great flapping and rustling. Big birds started flying into the tree to the right and then hopping across to the tree above me. One of the other women in our party was with me and she identified them as stinky turkeys. There were a good dozen of them, but it was too dark for me to take a picture or see their markings clearly. The night-time groans and echoes reminded me of Liwonde National Park in Malawi – the grunting of the hippos replaced by the chain-sawing of the red monkeys.
At 6, just about the time we all were ready for
dinner, we set off on our night walk. E.J., decided from the beginning that he would just carry Boo rather than deal with her crying every time he put her down. Mili took us into the grounds of the lodge first and we saw a pink-toed tarantula sitting at the base of its cocoon-like web. And we thought our horse spiders were big in Antigua! She took us from tree to tree and spotted different insects and spiders for us with her bright flash light. My torch was very pathetic in comparison – we had to have pitch black for anyone to even notice that it was on (rather frustrating when trying to spot anything further than a foot away). Sean was thrilled with each
new discovery – tailless whip scorpions, leeches, wolf spiders, praying mantis, chicken spider, orb weaver spider, wandering spider, golden silk spider… As you can see, ‘spider’ was predominant on the list of sightings. But Mili assured us that there could be snakes hanging down from the trees too. By the end of the walk, I was a bit paranoid – brushing my hand over my hair anytime something touched it from above, and surreptitiously running my hands over
my clothes every time I broke yet another web over the path. Though what I could have done if one of those poisonous spiders had invaded my space, I do not know. I felt some sympathy (but not much) with the arachnophobic tourist in Mili’s previous group – she jumped into the anaconda- and cayman-infested water to escape a spider she saw in the canoe. The rest of the time, she stayed in her room. I am not sure how much safer that made her - E.J. took a very nice picture of a golden silk spider on its web above his bed… All in all, I was rather relieved to end that hour-long walk and enter the well-lit lodge. Besides, dinner was ready and we were all very hungry by this time. I am not sure we even identified what we ate before it was gone.
My husband just lost his job and I am worried about my dogs. I suppose this only makes sense to dog-lovers, and maybe not even then...
Four years ago, when we first moved here, she and her pack of male offspring owned the neighbourhood. They lay in wait for unsuspecting pedestrians, who they would race out and attack to the sound of much screaming and barking. They would strut up the road past all the fenced-in dogs, making the latter attack their fences in a frenzy of territorial fervour. Pepper and Wei Ming would race up and down our wall, leaping up, sticking their heads through the holes in the decorative blocks and tearing at the chicken wire with their teeth. Then the street pack would come right up to the wall and leap up to meet the heads emerging from inside. If a barking war could kill, at least one of them would be dead.
Wei Ming. As soon as we could, we neutered them. They have regular shots, worm medicine, baths, oh - and food. We take them to the vet when they are sick and we treat Ranger's hereditary mange (she is very in-bred) whenever it patches her fur. My husband plays fetch with them, our son wrestles with them, they wrestle with our toddler (much to her disgust), and they roll over under my feet whenever I go outside so I can pet them. They take their guard duties very seriously, barking at anything that moves day or night. The only time you will not see or hear them is when they must flop down and pant in the heat of the day (or when it is bath day). Ranger is a hunter and faithfully brings a dead rat to my kitchen door at least once a week. Pepper greets us each time we come home by bringing us one of his toys and dropping it at our feet as a welcome-home gift. Wei Ming is faithful only to us and will not go near anyone else.
