Tuesday 22nd September 2015
Here was the basic room in which I slept, type of room in which we slept. Very basic but comfy enough though, and the most important bit was the mosquito net, so important in the jungle!
We had brekky at 7am and were ready by 8.25am to jump in the canoe to go deeper in the jungle on the Rio Yarapa! Here is the map again to give you an idea again! That blue line from the upside down V below the Delfin Lodge name.
Ready to go!
Most of the way during 5 hours, the scenery was like this. As most of us seat alone, being on a canoe in the jungle for 5 hours is that time in your life when you just meditate really, you have that time for yourself sitting there without moving where you can think about so much stuff, if you ever have to sort out an issue, I would say just go to the jungle sit on a canoe going on the Amazon meanders. Sit there, watch the landscape, it is peaceful, and think. Awesome place for that.
One of the bird (hawk?) we saw on our journey.
The next bird. Each photo is cropped to zoom on the bird as they were pretty far each time!
Wonder if this one is the female of that first one, or another specie.
Another hawk?
That bird was so funny, you could tell he had just dived to grab some fish, he was still so wet ahahaha.
Kingfisher. That`s the bird we saw the most during the ride, but so hard to photograph!! He kept flying away very quickly, most of the time we actually saw it flying around super fast. This was the only shot I managed to get of him sitting on a branch. A second after I clicked…it was gone!!!
Another bird which looks a bit like a kingfisher from far but is a different one.
As we were in the dry season, the river level was pretty low. That meant there were lots of branches to avoid and some spots where the canoe would need to be pushed. This is one of them!
Franck, Stefan and Nick got out of the canoe in their rubber boots in the river and pushed the canoe to keep it going.
A bit later, there was this spot where there were so many branches above the river that I was seriously wondering how we would go through. Another boat actually was stuck, but it was a more fancy one with that shade cover on top. That`s the thing in the Amazon Jungle, better go for the smallest lightest lower thinner canoe which can go everywhere rather than that one, poor them, they definitely got stuck here and would not go through further unless they changed boat. But how were we to go through???
Well, simple, on the right was this tiny spot under the big branch in which we just fitted, as long as we totally went our head and back to go under it. We made it very quickly, that was super cool. 😀
The only thing though is that we got lots of the insect which dances on the water in our boat!
Now that insect is a funny one. Each time we were passing some big branches, there were hundreds of them falling from the branch onto the water. No idea why! Franck didn`t know either. That insect looks like this.
At some point Franck and Beto saw lots of big cat fishes so Franck stood up with his harpoon, standing there at the front of the boat, ready to catch one but then there were none in view anymore.
We stopped here for a bathroom stop, view of the river from the top of the mini hill.
And yes, we could use leaves as toilet paper!! 🙂
We saw Macaw birds really high in the trees. So pretty birds!!
Later we saw this purple tree, it was creating a stunning contrast of colors with the surroundings.
Close-up
We finally got to the spot in the jungle where the guys wanted to take us. We could see they had already come here, but it was still a bare place with nothing set, no tent or human stuff, so that looked pretty cool to us. First Yair and Franck used their machetes to clear up the space around trees where we would setup the hammocks.
Then we grabbed hammocks and put them in the white mosquito net you can see on this picture.
Setting up the hammocks with lianas and branches.
Tying up knots.
From the side, they look like elephants! 🙂
During that time, Beto had started a fire and boiling water to cook rice and chicken.
Which chiken are you gonna say? Well one of those two alive ones you can see on the boat…Fresh chicken, yummy. 🙂 But it does take time though hey.
We were starving and I regretted not knowing that we would often eat so late. Yeah, yeah, we are in the jungle, right. I still missed Huascaran snack bags we had on the Santa Cruz trek ahahaha, those bags…:-)
Luckily, Jana had brought lots of snacks she had not eaten during her hiking in Huaraz where Stefan and her had just been. She was our savior!
And finally around 3.45pm we had lunch, yeah.
After that, we went into the canoe again and stopped in this spot where we swam in the river, and it was our shower time actually. Biodegradable soap, or simply just swimming there for most of us.
Refreshed, we got into the canoe again and went further upstream on the river, for a night cruise of the Amazon rio to try to see some night life, in particular caimans.
The sunset colors were really pretty, a beautiful candyfloss pink.
The moon was out, slowly getting to being full soon again. Can`t believe last time it was full was when I was in the Galapagos. Galapagos felt suddenly so far away when I looked at that moon!! Time flies too fast!!
Continuing in the darkness.
It was again really nice to be out there just to hear the jungle. Going downstream, Beto turned off the motor and just let the canoe go with the river flow, in silence. What an overwhelming feeling to be on a rio in the Amazon Jungle, in silence, at night, looking at the darkness and imagining the jaguars, tapirs, monkeys and other animals which still inhabit it even if there are fewer and fewer, the Amazon Jungle is still so huge! What did we see? Not much. We saw lots of fireflies, orange, speedy, so pretty little fairies, really magical. But not a single caiman. Some birds sleeping on branches also, but with no flash and the boat moving. I couldn`t take any decent shot. We went back to our temporary campsite and had dinner as soon as we arrived and retreated to hammocks around 8.30pm which had been covered each with raincover by Fernand the guy helping out Beto, Yair and Franck who had stayed at the campsite. 8.30pm was when the rain started, what a perfect timing. It was not a too strong rain, and what an awesome feeling to be each in our hammock, cosy, about to fall asleep, listening to the jungle sounds and the rain falling on our rain cover. Loved it! 🙂
Tomorrow, a day to explore the surroundings! Waking up at 5am, let`s go walking!
Pom explores 