This morning we are meeting our guide and group at 5:15 am. Yup, another early morning but not as early as yesterday! Given the fact I have been wearing short sleeve shirts and everyone else has been wearing full length shirts I have acquired a large number of insect bites and stings. At this point my arms are pretty itchy and I have a number of red spots/bumps. It is my fault.... This is despite using a lot of bug spray on a regular basis. We were told to bring and wear long sleeve shirts on all activities. Doh!
When we awake with the alarm at 4:50 am, we hear the weirdest and piercing sound in the jungle. Sounds like a tornado wind in a horror movie. Very eerie.... We learn that is the sound of the howler monkey.
Our first activity of the day is a ten minute walk to the Canopy Tower. It is about 35 metres high so pretty intimidating to me. Lana, Scott, Diane and Richard climb the long stairs to the very top above the jungle canopy. I walk up about 2/3 of the way and then stop with my fear of heights. Even at my height the canopy and jungle looks different.
This is my most favourite butterfly: Blue Morpho Menelaus Butterfly. It is very large.
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| Lana's picture of a fire extinguisher that looks like an animal? See it? |
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| Online picture of Saddleback Tamarind Monkey. |
This is the canopy tower so as you can see you will be above all the trees when at the top. As we walked to the canopy tower lots of sounds from the jungle. Animals and insects making the noise. As I walked down and back to the ground it was interesting to listen to the jungle noises. While it is very warm, it is not muggy yet. BTW, there is no cellphone coverage in most areas of the jungle. Except at the top of this tower and at the bottom of super tall trees.
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| Canopy Tower. |
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| Another view of the canopy tower. |
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| Picture of the canopy tower base. |
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| Lana's panoramic photo from the top of the Canopy Tower! |
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| Everything is bigger in the Amazon jungle inclusive of their massive and tall trees. |
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| Lana with Diane and Richard (from Wisconsin) and Scott from New York City (Brooklyn Heights) |
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| Dennys showing us various snakes that live in the Amazon jungle. We learn there are four 'layers' to the jungle canopy. Different animals and insects at each of the layers of the canopy. |
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| A flowering shrub right near our cabin that has lots of butterflies on it. You have to really look close though to see a butterfly. |
When we returned from the Canopy Tower, we drank as much water as we could and headed to our room. We need to have a cold shower or two and then be ready for breakfast around 7:15 am. Change our clothes for breakfast with the people in our group. We all share the same guide except for Sarah and Gary from Perth, Australia but they have been on the same activities and have become friends.
There are seven of us tourists on this activity. Sarah has joined us for this one and her guide tagging along. We have not even officially started and the guides spot a Saddleback Tamarind monkey in the trees near our boardwalk. Unfortunately, we did not get a photo.
Our second activity of today is to walk to the Mammal Clay Lick to hopefully observe some animals at that clay lick. It is possible, but we will need to be lucky. This area is northeast of our refugio.
On the way, we see another rare Caszaña tree (Brazil Nut Tree). Also, we stop at a Sanipanga plant whose leafs are used by the locals to turn purple when mixed with a small amount of water. Amazing that the leaves are green, yet they turn purple. Some of us got a temporary 'tattoo' using the leaf. Definitely it discolours to purple and stays for a while.
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This is the Mammal Clay Lick observation blind. Two levels and just like a hunters blind it has slits/holes from which you look out to hopefully see some animals.
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| My favourite Amazonian butterfly: Blue Morpho Menelaus Butterfly. This is the butterfly I have been 'chasing' since arriving but I could never get a picture. All that changed today! |
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| A close up Randy took of his favourite butterfly. They usually don't spread their wings like this or ever slow down. |
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| This is my favourite butterfly who decided to land on my right shoulder and stayed with me for quite a long time and went wherever I went. I was popular with anyone who had a camera/cellphone! |
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Yup, the butterfly loves me! Maybe I am a butterfly whisperer?
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| This is the guide showing the anteater everyone was following from the trail far below. |
Sarah's photos the anteater very high up in the trees.
Another excellent photo from Sarah of the anteater.
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| There is a small anteater high up in the trees. Maybe he or she is hiding.... |
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| Collared Trogon bird high in the canopy. Our guide took this pic with our camera using his telephoto lens. |
It was a good hike/walk although we did not see any mammals at the clay lick. Our best find was the anteater up in the trees. We are waiting on a video taken by Sarah to show this anteater. Back to the room and we have our next activity at 19:00. Lana decides she will not join our group, but stay back in the room. She is beat from the heat. Our activity is the Sunset Cruise.
I wanted to show you part of the stairwell that rises from the river up into the jungle.
More of the stairwell, but from the very bottom.
Scott's pictures (he is the one up front taking the selfie). On our way to the sand bank where we will stop and open up some drinks and relax while enjoying the sunset. Behind Scott (NYC) is his husband Charles. Behind Charles is Sarah and Gary from Perth, Australia. Of course, me on the back and ahead of me Diane and Richard (Wisconsin)
They haven't even starting drinking yet! ha ha
Beautiful sandbank with good chatter. I think I was the only one drinking water. With being in the jungle, heat and humidity I don't dare try to compromise with beer or wine.
We were gone for about two + hours from the start of the walk down to the boat and back to the lodge. It was pretty dark walking up the stairs as night falls fast here in the jungle. Lana in bed still. Showered in hot and cold water and joined the other three couples for the dinner buffet. Amazing how we all have a routine as each of us always sat in the same places...
Lana and I needed to leave early as we have the 20:15 Night Walk with Dennys. The other couples are beat after the long day. Unfortunately, after about twenty minutes Lana needed to get back to the lodge to use the toiler which we learned was just the start of her severe reaction to the heat. Dennys helped ensure Lana made it back to the lodge and then we continued our adventure in the dark to find insects. Plus, Dennys has an ultra-violet light to locate the elusive scorpion. We do not come across a scorpion though.
Leaf cutter ants picture up close. Hundreds of these ants carrying leaves on branches and on the ground. They always go for the freshest leaves. Apparently, they don't eat the leaves but take them into their gigantic nest and the leaves ferment and create the perfect growing for mushrooms!
Very creepy! This is a huge
spiders nest and is created by a community of spiders who catch prey in this web and share. Plus, it is a nursery for baby spiders. Oh how sweet, unless you walk into this nest by mistake!
Wolf Spider (non-venomous)
No, these are not distant stars. This is a picture of
predatory glow worms. In order to capture these creatures, you must turn off any lights. They only glow when it is pitch black. They are on a 'lick' area and catch prey that gets too close to their light. When we turned off our lights they began to glow like a XMas tree. Fascinating!
I have seen some big
caterpillars in my time, but nothing comes close to these monster! See how it perfectly blends in with the plant. Not sure how the guides always spot these creatures?
Imagine this crawling on you when you are out camping?
Scorpion Spider which blends in with the tree.
Returned with Dennys around 21:20 in the pitch black of course. Very productive night for me seeing all these insects you read about or see on Nature documentaries. Still warm and muggy. We do NOT have to get up super early tomorrow! Breakfast around 07:00 so we can say goodbye to our group. They are all leaving for Puerto Maldonado. Almost everyone stays three nights except for us. I agreed with Dennys that we would move our mountain biking tomorrow to 08:30 instead of 09:15.
Our mosquito netting was tied up on our return and that is hugely appreciated as it is almost impossible for any bug or creature to get into bed with us. We are both looking forward to a longer sleep. Our last full day is tomorrow. My draft blogs for the last three days appear to be corrupted so that has gotten me tense. What the!
For today I had 14, 250 steps and eleven (11) floors so a pretty good day of exercise.
This is our door to our room.
This is our door knocker.
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