Jungle Jive..

The Reserve

We trade in the van for and enter a canoe. Now the entry into the canoe was a bit more of a challenge than we expected and required coordination, strength and a spring in the step from a questionable ladder to the front of the canoe and two steps down to our seats. As the days and canoe trips became more frequent we became quite good and never went overboard. Down the Madre de Dios (mother of god) which is a tributary of the Amazon. Well, I am here to tell you this tributary is like the Mississippi on steroids and running fast! 45 minutes later we arrive at the lodge, up the bank and a very nice welcome and then to our cabin. Wayyyy Cool cabin. Electricity for around 5 hours a day but lanterns light the way and the cabin.

Lake Sandoval

The next day finds us in the good hands of Carlos, our guide, for a 10 k walk to a small canoe and out into Sandoval Lake where giant River Otters await us and a family of 6 or 9 put on a show for the next half hour catching fish and cracking the bones.

If you do it I will do it....

Well that was the theme after our guide brushed some termites off a termite hive onto the big leaf you see in the picture. Well, we all did it...

Then our guide Carlos found a huge worm that crawled out of a rotting palm tree, he washed it and then asked for volunteers...well, I've got another video that as soon as we have better internet, I will post another link to it. No...we all did not do it, Clyde did though. YUCK!

 

 

 

Canopy Walk

The second half of the day finds us climbing 120 feet into a canopy built over 3 really big trees with hanging bridges connecting the platforms - 6 of them. Holy shi--- that was a walk to remember. Lets just say Krim finished the longest and grabbed Jim, and said hold me for a second. Pucker factor 8.5. Oh yea, I forget to mention this is a rain forest and the rain paid a visit in a big way. The birds took a vacation but the experience was still awesome.

Piranha Fishing

The next day it is off on a 1.5 hour canoe ride in driving rain with our new buddies from Canada and great people. Our other new friends from Nordic countries left that morning. Not us! Breakfast at 5am, hit the canoe and we are in search of the big bad Piranha! - yep, the little fish with the big teeth! We are going to face them down, pull 'um in the boat, start a fire and have a Piranha picnic! A fishing we go and success, we all caught a fish. We had to stay a good part of the day because one of our party had trouble catching a fish and I don't want to embarrass that person but he hangs out a lot with our Tina. Finally Jim (oops) lands a fish and we are off, but not before I hook a big 'ol fish that excites the crew and our guide runs up to grab it with a big smile. Heck, he was not even mad I broke his new rod. The rod we used was a vintage model found the jungle. Ok, it was a wood pole with 20 pound line and a hook but hey, it furnished our lunch. What a kick - we ate Piranha instead of the other way around!. A long day ended with dinner in a lovely lodge dinning room in the jungle with our Canada friends and a couple of bottles of wine from Peru.

 

 

 

All in all, life is good...when a rainbow greats you at the end of the day...

PS. We lost a couple of days of posts due to an ailment that I call "How to lose 10 pounds in 2 days" or my new recommendation of "Never pass up a bano, any bano is a good bano"

 

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