Peru - Puerto Maldonado
We left the chill of Cuzco to go to the Amazon rainforest near the town of Puerto Maldonado. The town was a moped, tuk-tuk and motorcycle city – there were very few cars or trucks, just two wheeled vehicles zooming everywhere. We got picked up by one of the few vans and were delivered to the Madre de Dios River. The river is a tributary to the Amazon River and contained piranha, electric eel and caiman among other exotic species. This river did not have a bridge going over it yet, so many small, boat-like-things brought people, cars and busses over to the other side of the river. We were heading to a hotel about 30 minutes from the river, deep into the forest.
We stayed four days in a beautiful spot with a nice view of the surrounding forest. The first day we explored the area around the hotel. There were many birds – parrots mostly and some cute monkeys. Sam was not so interested in the wildlife; he just wanted to go to the swimming pool. While he swam, I was able to go bird watching with our guide, Freddy. We saw parrots and toucans, heard macaws and more monkeys and just enjoyed the view from their lookout tower.
The next day, we joined our guide and headed back to the main river. Our destination was Tambopata National Park and a protected lake called, Lake Sandoval. 3 Km of walking brought us to a canoe and a small stream. We were able to see 1 small caiman hiding by the bank of the river before the river opened up to the lake. We spent the day paddling around the lake looking for birds and animals. The lake is home to a giant river otter that is near extinction – we were not lucky enough to see them. But we saw cool birds and turtles and just enjoyed the peaceful lake. Freddy brought us to a good swimming and picnic spot so Sam could jump off the canoe and swim while we could eat lunch. Freddy had packed a great lunch wrapped in a giant leaf. When we opened the leaf, we were surprised to have a chicken and rice traditional meal that was still hot!
The third day was spent hiking 5-6 Km from our hotel through the forest to another small river. Freddy did a great job pointing out cool trees, medicinal plants, footprints of cats, signs of anteaters, etc. Once at the river we jumped onto a small canoe and explored the river deep into the jungle. We were able to watch more monkeys playing in the trees, saw a few more caiman and Freddy swears he saw an anaconda, but no one else saw it. I think Freddy sees a lot of things that no one else notices – he was really amazing at finding animals that were almost invisible unless you knew where to look.
We woke early on our last day to journey to a nearby “clay lick”. Getting up at sunrise, we went back to the Madre de Dios River and went upstream via a bigger canoe with a motor. Our destination was a clay cliff that contained a particular salt essential for parrots. In the morning hours, hundreds of parrots flock to the cliff to lick the clay. We spent an hour watching 4 different species of parrots noisily fly to the cliff and get their salt. It was quite a spectacle – parrots are not quiet birds. As we left the cliff, floating down river, we enjoyed a nice hot breakfast on the boat and enjoyed our last morning before our flight back to Cuzco.
More pictures of the Amazon are at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GrobGuat/AmazonPuertoMaldonado#
