The Amazon!!!

I survived the Amazon!!! I felt a little bit like Jane in Tarzan... Our flight out of Lima was at 6 am and my sister and brother drove me and Luke to the airport. We flew into Iquitos and right when we got off the plane we could feel the heat and humidity. Our tour guides picked us up from the airport and from there they drove us to the pier. We walked by a market that had a lot of interesting fish just sitting out on tables for sale. Since it is currently the rainy season in the Amazon the water was high and we had to walk across some planks to get to our boat. It was a basic wooden boat with leaves on the top for a roof and a small motor. We drove about an 45 min. and stopped at a "reserve" for animals. There they had elephant foot lilly pads, alligators, piranhas, bats, and some huge fish that I can't remember the name to... They also had some birds there, the parrot was really good at drinking from a glass!

We then drove about 15 more minutes and arrived at our camp. The camp was built about five feet above the ground and I thought it was pretty nice for being in the Amazon! We had a room to eat in, a room with hammocks, and all of our rooms had a sink, toilet, and shower. They only ran the generator once or twice a day for a couple of hours, but it was ok since we were out doing things. The first day we went hiking in the Jungle and our guide found a Tarantula nest/hole. He started digging and then when he got close to the spider he would shake a small stick in the hole, then the spider grabbed it and our guide was able to pull it out! I was surprised by my courage to allow a wild tarantula to crawl on me, but when it started getting closer to my head, I decided that was enough...

The bugs weren't horrible in the jungle only if we stopped for a while the mosquitos would attack. I'm sure I have over 20 mosquito bites on legs, thankfully I think they look worse than they fell. After super we went on a night hike that lasted about an hour and we mainly saw spiders. We did find a snake, frogs, and some sort of little mammal. That night when going to bed it was great to fall asleep in the pitch dark and listen to the crickets and noises of the jungle instead of car alarms, dogs, families and all the other noises of Lima. When I woke up in the morning it was raining and that instead of being mad that it may ruin our trip, I was happy to listen to it. We went to breakfast and our guide said we would wait an hour to see if the rain would stop. So we all went and took an hour nap in the hammocks and listened to the rain. After our naps we got in our boat and went to another location and we were able to hold all sorts of animals!! I was able to hold a sloth, parrot, alligator, turtle, birds, Anaconda, and lots of monkeys!! The sloth was really funny because as a child you learn that they can't move fast, but they really can't move fast and it's so cute to watch them move slow! The monkeys were having a hay-day jumping around and playing with all of us. The ones that played with us the most were two baby monkeys that were trouble makers, and one larger monkey. I sat down on the bench towards the end of our tour and the larger monkey climbed into my lap and snuggled there. He was a little cold and I think tired from playing and happy to be out of the rain. He wasn't a huge fan of the smaller monkeys coming and playing on top of him and playing with my hair, so he would just shove them off, then go back to his nap. It was precious an I now want a monkey as a pet. They are so cute, and like little humans with personalities.

Two monkeys trying to take a nap and the other one playing with my hair.

We went back to our camp after and ate lunch then we went to look for pink dolphins and go swimming in the Amazon! It took us a while to find a dolphin because the river is currently high and the dolphins go into the streams so it's easier to catch fish. But we were able to find one and that's where we decided to go swimming so we could "swim with dolphins". We all jumped in and I was scared to put my feet down, since I always want to stay as close to the surface as possible because I don't know what is below me that might eat my toes. But since we were treading water it was a little difficult to keep my feet up. It helped that we didn't know exactly what was in the water though and our guide said piranhas only attack if there is blood. We all decided that we really had to go to the bathroom too but we were all scared to go in the Amazon River because we had heard of little insects/parasites that swim up there while you are going pee. Our guide put our fears away and said that was only in the Nile River... which is right next to the Amazon. Lets hope he was right because we all peed in the Amazon! The water was really warm (even before we all went to the bathroom), and pretty dirty but nobody got attacked by anything and I can now say that I swam in the Amazon!!

Since it was still sprinkling a little that night we decided to not go on another night hike. But some of us woke up for a hike at 6 am and it was fairly muddy. But I'm glad I went! We were able to see some wild monkeys in the trees and did some bird watching. We found a vine to swing on, but because of the rain the vine was wet and it was hard to grip. But after one failed attempt our guide took off his shirt so I could use it for more grip. 

After breakfast we went fishing for piranha's I only had little ones biting my bait. For bait we used some chicken skin/fat that they didn't cook. The little nibbles were kind of fun though and a challenge to pull them out of the water. I was able to pull some out of the water, but because they weren't on my hook they just fell off. The girl standing next to me caught a little catfish though! Our guide kept it, and most of the girls felt bad for the fish...

The last adventure we had in the Amazon was meet a tribe. They painted our faces and we were able to use their blow dart. They had 2 soles for a target on top of a wooden head/stake. With my first shot I hit the head in the eye, and my 2nd shot was the right hight, but a little to the right. Even the tribe member next to me thought I was close though! Then after we all shot, they did a dance for us and we danced with them. 

We were supposed to fly back to Lima that night but after many problems they decided to cancel our flight. Trying to make accommodations for the night and schedule another flight on Monday took several hours, and we were very cranky. We were happy we had Maria with us, who needed to be back Monday for a class so she was not letting the airline get away with anything fishy. The airline paid for our taxi ride to and from the airport and our hotel for the night with continental breakfast. The next day we even had some left over money so the three of us that had to split money could buy some food for lunch. Our flight was delayed again and instead of flying out at 2:30 it was more like 3:00 and of course we were a connecting flight so we stopped in another town on the way back to Lima. Once in Lima we got a taxi and ended up hitting rush hour so it took us about 2 hours to get to our district. Maria joked and said that it was worse than crossing the Mexican border. You can definitely we say we were tired after it took us over 24 hours to get home. But the trip was well worth it! I am exhausted and tomorrow morning at 6 am we fly out of Lima to Cusco!! I am so excited to see Machu Picchu, and the allotted time we get in Cusco to acclimatize ourselves (AKA nap time!!).