Once we were in Leticia we tried to find an Amazon tour. It was Sunday, so nothing was open. Lo and behold, the tourist agent who we'd met in the airport found us at the hotel. He had a tour guide he wanted us to meet. We were a little skeptical, but went along. The guide had albums, a xeroxed copy of a Lonely Planet write-up on his tour, and lots of info. So, he sounded legit. In retrospect, it was amazingly naive of us to pay this guy $800 and then, worse yet, go off into the unknown with him, his guide, and a boat operator based on what we saw. How difficult could it be to reproduce what looks like a page out of Lonely Planet? At any rate, it all turned out to be on the up and up and we were OK...but I did give it some thought while heading down the Amazon in the boat...albeit too late to actually get out of it if we were in any kind of danger. I think we just kind of went with our gut feeling. He took us to a shop and rented rubber boots for us. I thought, after the fact, who would do that if he planned to kill us somewhere in the jungle?? We bought the huge rain capes we'd seen everyone wearing in Leticia. I've never been so happy for purchases in my life!!!
Here we are getting aboard our boat to head down the Amazon. We don't have any shots of the travelling portion here as it couldn't be raining any harder. We just huddled under our ponchos.
Once we arrived at the spot from where we had to hike, we headed off with our guide through the mucky wet jungle. Ralph carried my pack, thankfully, and the guide carried Ralph's. I became quite attached to that poncho and my rubber boots!
Isn't this a cute shot of me? Don't I look like I'm having the time of my life!!
We arrived at our destination "resort", the Marasha Reserva Natural and I use the term "resort" loosely, but not as loosely as I wll use it for the next place we stayed! There were several cabins here as well as dorm type rooms.
This was our cabin. It was quite nice, actually. We were lucky as it was the slow season, so we had no room mates. We could have had up to 5 people in that room...that would not have been fun!
This was the shower...not great, but OK. No hot water, of course!
This is the toilet...seems to be a shortage of toilet seats all through the Amazon!!!
This shot is a bit blurry but, unfortunately, it's the only one we have. All the beds had mosquito netting. We'd bought 5 tubes of deet-filled repellent before leaving Leticia. These were mostly for me as Ralph calls me his repellent...they go to me, not him!
They have a toucan that hangs around the eco-lodge. It is just so great to see a bird like this, in the wild, but up so close.
He was very curious.
He liked to peck at your feet...of course Ralph wants a shot of this. "Let him come closer and peck your feet!", he says. "Yeah right, have you seen that beak???"
Yikes!!!!
Another bird resident, a macaw.
This was really quite a lovely spot and we were lucky to have no rain while here. I'm resting up from my slog through the muck!
This is a view of the lodge from the river. We are on some little backwater tributary to the Amazon. We are actually in Peru now. There were about 10 to 15 young girls staying here on a school trip of some type. As well, there a few other guests.
Here we are heading off to look at birds in the area. I'm prepared for the rain, but eventually removed the beloved poncho.
Here is your birdwatcher in the act!!
Here are the "turkey birds"...can't remember their other name.
Quite spectacular plumage!
We also saw "mikos" or monkeys to us.
The guide called them down with bananas. Cute enough from a distance.
They were very friendly. Here they are, on Ralph's arm, fighting over the banana.
We paddled through these humongous lily pads, maybe 3 to 4 feet across.
Here's the intrepid explorer heading off through the jungle!
The lilypads had a kind of wafflling to the back of them. I guess the little boxes catch the air and keep them afloat.
It is certainly very jungly here!!
There are zip lines here. They require you to rappel up this tree to the top in order to get on the zip line. The young girls were doing this.
Lots of bats here too!
We went out, after dark, with our flashlights looking for caymen. Thankfully, we only saw their eyes. Apparently they can be 12 to 15 feet long here!!!
Here we are getting aboard our boat to head down the Amazon. We don't have any shots of the travelling portion here as it couldn't be raining any harder. We just huddled under our ponchos.
Once we arrived at the spot from where we had to hike, we headed off with our guide through the mucky wet jungle. Ralph carried my pack, thankfully, and the guide carried Ralph's. I became quite attached to that poncho and my rubber boots!
We arrived at our destination "resort", the Marasha Reserva Natural and I use the term "resort" loosely, but not as loosely as I wll use it for the next place we stayed! There were several cabins here as well as dorm type rooms.
This was our cabin. It was quite nice, actually. We were lucky as it was the slow season, so we had no room mates. We could have had up to 5 people in that room...that would not have been fun!
This was the shower...not great, but OK. No hot water, of course!
This is the toilet...seems to be a shortage of toilet seats all through the Amazon!!!
This shot is a bit blurry but, unfortunately, it's the only one we have. All the beds had mosquito netting. We'd bought 5 tubes of deet-filled repellent before leaving Leticia. These were mostly for me as Ralph calls me his repellent...they go to me, not him!
They have a toucan that hangs around the eco-lodge. It is just so great to see a bird like this, in the wild, but up so close.
He was very curious.
He liked to peck at your feet...of course Ralph wants a shot of this. "Let him come closer and peck your feet!", he says. "Yeah right, have you seen that beak???"
Yikes!!!!
Another bird resident, a macaw.
This was really quite a lovely spot and we were lucky to have no rain while here. I'm resting up from my slog through the muck!
This is a view of the lodge from the river. We are on some little backwater tributary to the Amazon. We are actually in Peru now. There were about 10 to 15 young girls staying here on a school trip of some type. As well, there a few other guests.
Here we are heading off to look at birds in the area. I'm prepared for the rain, but eventually removed the beloved poncho.
Here is your birdwatcher in the act!!
Here are the "turkey birds"...can't remember their other name.
Quite spectacular plumage!
We also saw "mikos" or monkeys to us.
The guide called them down with bananas. Cute enough from a distance.
They were very friendly. Here they are, on Ralph's arm, fighting over the banana.
We paddled through these humongous lily pads, maybe 3 to 4 feet across.
Here's the intrepid explorer heading off through the jungle!
The lilypads had a kind of wafflling to the back of them. I guess the little boxes catch the air and keep them afloat.
There are zip lines here. They require you to rappel up this tree to the top in order to get on the zip line. The young girls were doing this.
It was an incredibly tall and wide tree. A shot looking toward the top.
Here is where we left the canoes to go look at the tree. Quite a beautiful shot.
Here we are resting up before dinner and our night raid on the caymen!!
Lots of bats here too!
We went out, after dark, with our flashlights looking for caymen. Thankfully, we only saw their eyes. Apparently they can be 12 to 15 feet long here!!!
We had a good night's sleep here and headed off in the morning, after breakfast, for our next eco lodge. Little did we know, we were really taking a big step downward in accommodation!
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