Yeah that is right it is a TARANTULA
Walking off our flight from the elevation of Cusco to the Amazon Rainforest was a real introduction to our next few days...humidity hit us as we walked off the plane as it was the worse feeling ever. After weeks upon weeks of being in the mountains from Ushuaia all the way up to Peru we kind of forgot what humidity was. It was kind of funny because the day before we had been talking about how nice it is going to be to not be in such high altitude with low oxygen levels and that we will be able to breathe so much easier. Well the humidity definitely did not make it easier to breathe in the lower elevation. From the airport we took a mototaxi in to town. It was the first of several mototaxi rides we took throughout Puerto Maldonado. Mototaxis are basically the front of motorcycle with the back of a two person carriage. There are very few cars in Puerto Maldonado because the only main road from Puerto Maldonado to the rest of Peru (which goes to Cusco actually) until about a year ago or so was unpaved. So it was pretty hard and expensive to ship things in to the town. Now though the road is evidently much better which use to be a horrible bus ride of anywhere from 12-36 hours is now under 10 hours and not to bad we hear (we heard this after the fact, but we met a few travelers who bussed in to Puerto Maldonado and they said it was fine, even though our hostel owner still wouldn't recommend it during the rainy season). So because of how expensive it is to ship things in very few people own cars and also gas is really expensive, so motorcycles and motobikes are the way to get around town...they are literally everywhere.
A mototaxi in the main plaza in Puerto Maldonado
While we were in town we stayed at a great hostel named, Tambopata Hostel, which also ran their own tours. Because they are the only actual backpackers hostel in town they know if they offer the same exact tour as every other tour agency in town but undercut the price because the hostel owner and his friend run all the tours (this means they don't have to hire a guide for you) they can in the end charge $50 less. We ended up going with their tour offer and went to sleep kind of early because we had to wake up at 5am the next day to head to the rainforest. Our group was the owner of the hostel, a German student who had been volunteering teaching art to troubled youth in Peru, Emily and I. After taking a mototaxi down to the river we had an hour or so boat ride down the Rio Madre de Dios which is a contributory to the Amazon River. The river and regions main economic industry is gold. Up and down the river there are custom made gold machines which sift through the river bed looking for gold. It was pretty amazing to see just how many of these gold sifters there really were. When we arrived at the trail head we began to hike, in the muggy muggy humid weather, two hours to our small camp on the shores of a small lake, Lago Sandoval (which is an oxbow shaped lake). For the next 2.5 days we spent exploring the glories of the Amazon Basin. It was great having a local guide who grew up right on the river. Some of the highlights included:
Fishing for piranas! The first night our guide Johnny took us out on the lake and pulled out a bag of raw beef chunks. We then put it on a special (heavy duty) hook so that the pirana's teeth cannot cut through. Emily had one of the two hooks for about half an hour without catching anything. She went through 3 or 4 chunks of beef as the piranas are pretty quick, so unless you pull up really fast you aren't going to get them. Funny to say when she gave me the hook, I caught one in about one minute. In Emily's defense our guide did say they tend to only come out for about a 10 to 15 minute period both in the morning and evening. That night when we returned to our lodging (just simple shacks with mosquito nets and the owner only ran the generator from about 6pm-8pm so we could eat dinner) in addition to the dinner the owner of the lodge made for us we also enjoyed the piranas we caught. They were kind of bland tasting, not anything I would ever order in a restuarant. The next morning we went out again and Emily did finally catch a pirana that we enjoyed for lunch. A few fun facts though we learned about them...Yes they do have really sharp teeth! They only bite humans if you have an open/fresh cut of some sort (which happened to our German friend when him and I went swimming together).
At night we also searched for Black Caimans. We saw the eyes of a bunch of them out on our canoe but our guide who attempted several times to catch them was unable to. We even tried setting a trap with the fish guts from the pirana we caught but to no prevail. We also got to see endangered otters. The lake only has one family of 4 otters and we were lucky to spot them one day when they were going fishing for food. It was pretty interesting to see them play around and kind of seemed almost out of place in the middle of the Amazon but at the same time we saw unexpected things all the time. More wildlife we saw were the macaws. The second day of the trip we woke up early to go to a viewing point where the macaws socialize and eat the bark of certain trees because they contain a protein which helps them properly digest the berries they normally eat. We also had an option before our tour of going about 8 hours down river to a spot where the macaws eat the same protein but instead of from trees they eat it from clay along the river side. The second night when we came back from being out on the lake and taking a small hike through the rainforest our guide stopped and pointed his flashlight at the trunk of a large sized bush. We didn't understand at first what he was trying to show us and then all of the sudden...WE SAW A HUGE TARANTULA!!! It was the size of two closed fists and was hairy everywhere. Mad creepy!
Other random facts that even Bear Grills probably doesn't know...
1) One of the local type of ants known as the army ant has large pinchers on their ends. These pinchers are used by the local as a form of stitches. When someone gets a gash on a limb, somebody else holds the skin together then takes one of these ants who will clamp down on the gash effectively making a stitch. You can just pull the body of the ant right off and the pinchers will stay in play for a week.
2) A different type of ant (I forgot its name), which are about 3cm big make their hives around the roots of trees. These ants are extremely dangerous. Every year there are a few reported cases in the Puerto Maldonado area of kids being bitten and die from these ant bites. If an adult gets bitten it can paralyze your limb for a few hours to days.
3) The roots of the palm tree most commonly used for hearts of palm can be ground down and are good for your kidneys.
4) Because the canopy of the rainforest is so thick there is a type of tree known as the walking tree, can evidently move up to a meter a year so it can reposition itself for better sunlight intake. Its roots are crazy long and stick several feet high into the air. The way it works is that new roots will grow in the direction the tree wants to move and older roots from the opposite side will automatically begin to retract from the ground.
5) Fish Tail Plants, which look like fish tails are almost 100% water proof and the locals and every where in town uses them for their roofs. They are so resilient they only need to be changed once every 10-15 years.
6) We ate fresh Brazil nuts (which are actually usually harvested a little bit before we were there). They were delicious. On another interesting note about them though, is the goo surrounding the nut inside is a natural cure for acne.
7) We saw tons of termite nests. Good things we learned about these insects that most people think only destroy things and cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars...eating a few a day can help regulate asthma, rubbing/crushing a few of them on your skin works as a natural bug repellent, smoking out the hive in a closed building can also be a good bug repellent.
Our final day out in the rainforest we had an option of going to a small wildlife refuge, Reserva Ecologica Taricaya, that takes in wild animals that were illegally taken in as pets and then abandoned. We saw a wide variety of monkeys, birds, and even a leopard. It was cool to see these animals up close. We had been able to see them all week from a distance but to get right up to them was amazing. Unfortunately most of these animals for one reason or another won't ever be able to return to the wild. While we were there we also we able to experience a 50 meter high suspension bridge which walks you above the canopy of the rain forest and we got to hang out for a bit in a tree hut built in to one of the highest trees in this region.
The following is a collection of photos from the wildlife refuge...
Overall we had an amazing time in the rainforest. The day we returned we went to a small jungle lodge on the outskirts of town to go have some Thai food. The place had been recommended to us months earlier from a fellow traveler. It was a delicious meal (the lodge is owned by a lady from Thailand) and a nice relief after the three sweltering days in the jungle.
Listening to the konch as we head down the Dios de Madre
Our German friend, Sergio, driving the boat while our guide refills the gas
Rio Dios de Madre
Weird creepy crawler
Emily climbing the roots of an iron tree
Cool picture of the inside of a dead tree
Snake!
More Snake!
Snake (our guide thought it was a great idea to play with it on a stick)
Fishing for piranas! The first night our guide Johnny took us out on the lake and pulled out a bag of raw beef chunks. We then put it on a special (heavy duty) hook so that the pirana's teeth cannot cut through. Emily had one of the two hooks for about half an hour without catching anything. She went through 3 or 4 chunks of beef as the piranas are pretty quick, so unless you pull up really fast you aren't going to get them. Funny to say when she gave me the hook, I caught one in about one minute. In Emily's defense our guide did say they tend to only come out for about a 10 to 15 minute period both in the morning and evening. That night when we returned to our lodging (just simple shacks with mosquito nets and the owner only ran the generator from about 6pm-8pm so we could eat dinner) in addition to the dinner the owner of the lodge made for us we also enjoyed the piranas we caught. They were kind of bland tasting, not anything I would ever order in a restuarant. The next morning we went out again and Emily did finally catch a pirana that we enjoyed for lunch. A few fun facts though we learned about them...Yes they do have really sharp teeth! They only bite humans if you have an open/fresh cut of some sort (which happened to our German friend when him and I went swimming together).
My Catch!
Look at those teeth
Emily's catch, finally, the next morning
Sunrise over the lake while we were fishing
At night we also searched for Black Caimans. We saw the eyes of a bunch of them out on our canoe but our guide who attempted several times to catch them was unable to. We even tried setting a trap with the fish guts from the pirana we caught but to no prevail. We also got to see endangered otters. The lake only has one family of 4 otters and we were lucky to spot them one day when they were going fishing for food. It was pretty interesting to see them play around and kind of seemed almost out of place in the middle of the Amazon but at the same time we saw unexpected things all the time. More wildlife we saw were the macaws. The second day of the trip we woke up early to go to a viewing point where the macaws socialize and eat the bark of certain trees because they contain a protein which helps them properly digest the berries they normally eat. We also had an option before our tour of going about 8 hours down river to a spot where the macaws eat the same protein but instead of from trees they eat it from clay along the river side. The second night when we came back from being out on the lake and taking a small hike through the rainforest our guide stopped and pointed his flashlight at the trunk of a large sized bush. We didn't understand at first what he was trying to show us and then all of the sudden...WE SAW A HUGE TARANTULA!!! It was the size of two closed fists and was hairy everywhere. Mad creepy!
Beautiful Birds (I took this picture while sticking my camera through binoculars
Random Lizard
FROG! Bud and Weiser you have a new friend.
Sunset, waiting for that sun to go down so we can hunt some caimans
Bats!
Ahhh...the scenery (during the time we waited for the sunset we probably got bitten by 5,000 mosquitos
Swinging from the vines
Awesome flora
Swinging from more vines
Turtle on the Lake, or half shell?
1) One of the local type of ants known as the army ant has large pinchers on their ends. These pinchers are used by the local as a form of stitches. When someone gets a gash on a limb, somebody else holds the skin together then takes one of these ants who will clamp down on the gash effectively making a stitch. You can just pull the body of the ant right off and the pinchers will stay in play for a week.
2) A different type of ant (I forgot its name), which are about 3cm big make their hives around the roots of trees. These ants are extremely dangerous. Every year there are a few reported cases in the Puerto Maldonado area of kids being bitten and die from these ant bites. If an adult gets bitten it can paralyze your limb for a few hours to days.
3) The roots of the palm tree most commonly used for hearts of palm can be ground down and are good for your kidneys.
4) Because the canopy of the rainforest is so thick there is a type of tree known as the walking tree, can evidently move up to a meter a year so it can reposition itself for better sunlight intake. Its roots are crazy long and stick several feet high into the air. The way it works is that new roots will grow in the direction the tree wants to move and older roots from the opposite side will automatically begin to retract from the ground.
The roots of the walking tree
Hmmm...good idea or bad idea for Brett to eat random mushrooms?
5) Fish Tail Plants, which look like fish tails are almost 100% water proof and the locals and every where in town uses them for their roofs. They are so resilient they only need to be changed once every 10-15 years.
6) We ate fresh Brazil nuts (which are actually usually harvested a little bit before we were there). They were delicious. On another interesting note about them though, is the goo surrounding the nut inside is a natural cure for acne.
7) We saw tons of termite nests. Good things we learned about these insects that most people think only destroy things and cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars...eating a few a day can help regulate asthma, rubbing/crushing a few of them on your skin works as a natural bug repellent, smoking out the hive in a closed building can also be a good bug repellent.
Lago Sandoval (with one of the canoes on the lake that you got around in)
Sunset from a observation tower on the lake
Sunset from a observation tower on the lake
Our final day out in the rainforest we had an option of going to a small wildlife refuge, Reserva Ecologica Taricaya, that takes in wild animals that were illegally taken in as pets and then abandoned. We saw a wide variety of monkeys, birds, and even a leopard. It was cool to see these animals up close. We had been able to see them all week from a distance but to get right up to them was amazing. Unfortunately most of these animals for one reason or another won't ever be able to return to the wild. While we were there we also we able to experience a 50 meter high suspension bridge which walks you above the canopy of the rain forest and we got to hang out for a bit in a tree hut built in to one of the highest trees in this region.
The following is a collection of photos from the wildlife refuge...
cute
Tucan Sam anyone?
The canopy walk
I was a bit scared
Green Love
Weirdest Looking animal ever. Literally non of its body parts seem to actually fit together.
Overall we had an amazing time in the rainforest. The day we returned we went to a small jungle lodge on the outskirts of town to go have some Thai food. The place had been recommended to us months earlier from a fellow traveler. It was a delicious meal (the lodge is owned by a lady from Thailand) and a nice relief after the three sweltering days in the jungle.
Walking off our flight from the elevation of Cusco to the Amazon Rainforest was a real introduction to our next few days...humidity hit us as we walked off the plane as it was the worse feeling ever.native wetland plants
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