Peruvian Amazon

From Cusco we flew to Puerto Maldonado (near the border of Bolivia) for our 4 day adventure in the Amazon.

The trip began with a funny blip in that our airport shuttle died in front of the town prison. They brought a replacement vehicle quickly.

Then we hopped on our river speedboat and went 3 hours upstream on the Amazon River tributary called the Tambopata.

On our way to the lodge we came across some Capybaras, the largest rodents of the world. (Like rats but more cute and without tails.)

And also a small spectacled caiman.

For the first 2 nights we stayed at a nice lodge in the jungle with screens if not windows.

The first night there we took a jungle walk with our guide, Luis, who thankfully saw all of the insects and animals before we did for some flashlight photography.

Long tail black Amazon scorpion

Jungle Tropical Wolf Spider

Leaf Katidys

Jungle Flat Headed Tree Frog

The next morning we got up at 4am to take a pre-dawn speedboat trip several more hours up the river. How the driver avoided the rocks and logs at speed in the dark is beyond me.

Sunrise pause at a ranger station to register for the reserve that we were entering

There we saw a clay lick where birds take their mineral supplements.

The guide told me that this image has 4 species of birds but I don't recall their names

The next day we hiked an hour and a half through the jungle to a small lake. We hiked back the same way after dark. Always exciting.

There some meat baited fishing occurred to catch some piranha. The guide said that it would only take minutes and sure enough, any line dropped in the water had instant hits, most successfully stealing the bait.

Then we hopped into a boat and rode around the lake spotting animals.

The following day we travelled many hours downstream past Puerto Maldonado to Lago Sandoval. From the main river we had to walk an hour into the jungle and then take a rowboat over the lake to get to our accommodations for the night.

Before they added this path it was a muddy trek to the lake

There were lots of monkey troupes in this area as well as large caimans up to 5 meters long.

These accommodations were more rustic with gaps in walls and floors

Lago Sandoval has families of carnivorous Giant River Otters which are apparently on the top of the food chain, even taking on the giant caimans on occasion. They are like wolves, we were told, hunting in packs.

Note the tail

Caiman

Cubs fighting over a fish

After 4 full days in the Amazon we were happy to arrive in Lima for the hot water and lower humidity. Lima is a city of 11+ million people and shares a climate like that of San Francisco, CA also along the Pacific Ocean.

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