Dana's Travelogue Sept '18 Peru Part 5

Day 2 Sept 11 Amazon at Ceiba Tops, Canopy Walk

An early start took us to a sister lodge up the Napo River. To get there we took a boat ride to ‘Indiana’ village then caught a motor taxi up and overland to another town on the Napo River and took a different boat to another 'sister lodge'. It is called the ExplorNapo lodge and is much more ‘rustic' ..open air bedrooms with mosquito nets around the beds and a group of stalls with campground pit toilets out back.

They had put out bananas and there were some super cute monkeys eating and posing for us.

We ate breakfast there and then hiked to the canopy walk, Still the largest canopy walkway in the world according to our guide, it was truly dramatic to be walking so high over the rainforest.

Not Kim’s favorite part of the excursion as evidenced by his nervous slow pace and skeptical looks.

Hiked back to ExplorNapo lodge for lunch and on the way back to the boat stopped off to meet a Shaman. After a lesson on the medicinal properties of the many Amazonian plants, flowers, vines and leaves he performed a short example “healing”. Lanette and I bought some ‘Cat's Claw ointment(Amazonian BenGay/biofreeze) and Dragon’s blood serum for mosquito bites.

We got back to Ceiba Lodge and our guide asked us to meet him at 6:30 to do a night hike through the forest,looking for the more nocturnal inhabitants. We saw a tarantula and the eyes of several caymans..the local crocodile, endless insects and lots of different frogs!

I will mention this part of the trip is not for the squeamish... The heights of the canopy walk alone and there's no end of insects (not even mentioning the mosquitos) and potential for other more exciting creatures like snakes, scorpions, crocodiles and predatory cats etc. Kim and I treated a couple outfits with permethrin and slathered on Skin So Soft to keep from being too chomped. We did get a few bites and have had our Yellow Fever shots and been taking anti Malarial pills to boot.

But that troublesome aspect aside it was truly incredible to be in the Amazon...so unlike our normal neck of the woods.

With the pace we were keeping and the early mornings, it wasn't surprising that as soon as dinner was over we all turned in super early.

Day 3 Fishing in the Amazon!

Kim and Steven got up crazy early to do some fishing in a lake that has peacock bass. They caught all sorts of other fish but didn't get any bass. Lanette and I joined another group and went a short way downriver to do a little Piranha fishing. We each caught several little ones but let them all go. I had a good sized one on but he flipped the hook before I could get him into the boat.

It was entertaining but with the weather turning even hotter than before by about 7 or more degrees we were grateful to head back to the lodge by about 11.

We hung out in the pool to cool down and after lunch there was some blissful downtime which Lanette used to nap and I caught up on work via Wi-Fi calls, text and email.

Todays cool creatures around the lodge were Pedro and Alfredo the colorful Macaws and Cynthia the Tapir. And I saw some huge bright blue butterflies.