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Another backlog post from our jungle excursion last week.

By the way, we are all in Huacachina right now, which is an oasis in Peru’s coastal desert. Last night we met “Desert Man”, truly the Indiana Jones of the desert. Since Scott and I have the time, we’ve decided to go on a tour of the deep desert with him to “hunt” for fossils and experience the desolation and open sky. We leave tomorrow morning, and I cannot wait to tell you more about our adventures. It’s going to be great.

Sadly, Casey and Kyle are leaving tomorrow morning. Sniffle. We’ve had an awesome time with them!

Wednesday, March 18

Wednesday morning there was a sloth hanging around the lodge. We all fell in love with it. (By the way, sloths are called “perezosas” in Spanish, which means “lazies”.)

The sloth is up in the right hand corner of this pic, under the overhang of the roof.

Our tour of the jungle started with a 5 hour boat trip up the Rio Madre de Dios on Wednesday afternoon. The ride was beautiful (with just a little rain). And we had a few wildlife sightings along the way, including a few capybaras (the largest rodents in the world) and one, rare, black caiman.

I can’t get over how different wildlife viewing is in the rainforest versus the desert. A volunteer at the Wasai Tambopata lodge commented that the animals here are much more “slinky”, which I think is appropriate. Animals in Africa seemed to depend on their speed to survive. Animals here in the jungle depend on their stealthiness.

 

The lodge was definitely more than what I was expecting. We were each set up in our own thatched roof bungalow, with running (although not hot) water, and power (between the hours of 6pm and 10pm). There was a central lodge where we had meals, and a number of paths through the surrounding jungle to explore.

That evening, we were taken on a night walk through the jungle. The main sighting: bugs. Including a huge tarantula that our guide coaxed out of its hole for us to see. Also, at one point, our guide had everyone turn off their flashlights. The darkness and sounds were amazing, and creepy.

I was glad to get back into our hut that night, where I could listen to the wildlife (aka bugs) but not have to be among them. That is until we heard from Casey that she had to shew away more than 5 cockroaches off of her bed.

Since the power at the lodge was scheduled to go out at 10pm, it was an early night to bed.