The Peruvian Amazon

Months earlier, Sarah and I had signed up for a 14 day tour through Peru with GAP Adventures. In August of 2007, I had done a trip with them to Machu Picchu and was really pleased with GAP, so Sarah and I decided to give it another go. From my experiences, the tour is very well organized and the tour leaders are not only extremely knowledgeable about Peruvian history and culture, but very passionate about teaching. In my previous visit to Peru, I had hiked the Lares Trail and went to Machu Picchu, but I had always wanted to do the Inca Trail, plus there was so much more of Peru I wanted to see, so despite having already seen Machu Picchu, I was still really excited for the tour and to see more of Peru.

After our epic bus ride from Santiago to Arequipa and then Arequipa to Lima, we arrived in Lima to meet with the rest of the group. I won`t say much about Lima because there really isn`t much to say. In short, it is nothing special. I am not a fan at all. It was my second visit to Lima in 2 years - I have no desire to go back there anytime soon, and I really had no interest in seeing it again this time, but alas the tour began in Lima so I planned on arriving the same day the tour began to minimize my time there. We met up with our group and knew right away that we were in for a great 14 days - everyone was really outgoing, fun, friendly, and anxious to have a good time. The GAP tour leader, Walter, went through our itinerary and some other tour necessities before we all really introduced ourselves and started socializing. There were 8 other people in the group - Anita and Nadia (fun, sweet Uni students from UK), Una and Maria (hard-core hikers/rock climbers from Finland), Jan and Tara (mother-daughter team from Australia), and Andrew J and Andrew S (the staple lovable, crazy party animals from Australia). The Andrews were surrounded by 8 women. They were noticeably happy and schmoozing with all the ladies at our first dinner together!
After going through all the technical stuff with Walter we all headed to dinner and got to know each other a little bit, there was not one moment of silence as everyone was sharing travel stories. Sarah and I were excited to be with such nice, fun people for the next 2 weeks. We all went to bed early after dinner, as we had to be up at the crack of dawn the next day to start our journey.

We spent the first 3 days of the trip in the Peruvian Amazon and it was nothing short of incredible. We flew into a very small airport from Lima and hopped on a small riverboat that took us 3 hours to our jungle lodge...we were truly in the depths of the jungle. The lodge was actually really nice, basic as expected, but comfortable and cozy. There was a little hut with hammocks (screened in, thankfully, the bugs were evil) and a nice dining area. The place was owned by a crazy-Boho French woman who rescued a little spider monkey from the nearby jungle - its mother was killed by natives and she walked around with it wrapped around her all day. It was actually pretty to have this little monkey in a diaper running around the lodge and swinging from the wooden ceiling beams.

On our first day we did not arrive until about 4 in the afternoon, so we had some free time and then set off on our first jungle excursion - a night trek. It reminded me a little of my first night dive, I was a little nervous to walk into the creepy jungle in the dark but as soon as we got in there everyone was so excited and loving it. We armed with torches and the guides had machetes to clear paths for us. We were given knee-high rubber boots which were totally necessary - the entire jungle floor is 3 inch + deep mud. Our 2 guides were excellent, spoke very good English and clearly loved the jungle. They told us about all the different trees, plants, and their uses. We have always known this, but the rainforest truly has a cure for EVERYTHING - they showed us plants to cure asthma, arthritis, repel mosquitoes, etc. Truly amazing. Within minutes we encountered a tarantula that was easily the size of my entire hand, palm to finger tips, very creepy! One of the Aussie guys, Andrew S (nickname Strody) is terrified of spiders so he jumped back and kept his distance, but I must say that he handled being that close to a massive spider like a champ. The rest of us got pretty close for photos and to examine it. I had told the guides of my terrible fear of snakes and warned them that I was not joking - I told them that if they tried to be funny and stick a snake in my face that I would be truly furious, and luckily they took me seriously. We were walking along and one of the guides, Steban said ¨Mary, stay in the back¨. He came to the front of the group holding a foot long, skinny, white and brown striped snake. I actually remained quite calm but stayed at the back of the line. Gross, evil creatures. Luckily, that would be our only snake encounter in 2 days! After we survived our first night trek, we went back to our cozy rooms, enjoyed a nice cold shower (no one complained that there wasn`t hot water, who needs it in the scorching jungle?), and crawled up under our mosquito nets to rest up.

The next day we got up early and made our way back to the jungle for a full day trek. We were lucky to have no rain at all, dry season was approaching. We stayed dry, but again the jungle floor was all mud and there were times when we had to trudge nearly knee deep in rivers to get to the trail. So much fun. The jungle sounds were so peaceful and of course everything was GREEN. We saw tons of bugs (some with way too many legs), birds, lizards, and caimans (similar to crocs, but much larger - they can grow up to 5 meters long!). Strody bravely survived walking through spider webs and many encounters with ¨Jesus spiders¨ - they walk on water so even as we were trudging through streams they were all around us. It was HUMID and we were all covered in mud, sweat, bug spray, and sunscreen. It was an incredible adventure that I will never forget. We returned to the lodge for some relaxing and then a night boat tour of the river to try to find some caimans lurking along the shore. There were no clouds in the sky, and since it was so clear we saw tons of stars and heard nothing but crickets and birds all around. It was so nice to be away from cars, motorbikes, and other loud city noises. Unfortunately though, our mission to find caimans was unsuccessful. Oh well, at least we got to see some during the day.
I slept like a baby under my mosquito net that night. We were so lucky to be there. Our time in the Peruvian Amazon is something I will never forget. I just hope that we all do our part to keep the rainforest alive and thriving for future generations, it is the home to thousands of species of plants and animals that the world needs to survive. I was so impressed by how much our guides knew about the plants and animals living in the Amazon, but they were the first to say that there is so much more that they have not yet discovered...

Our group hopped a flight to Cusco where we would begin our Inca Trail trek, perhaps the leg of the whole trip that Sarah was most excited for.