I´m back from my jungle trip and both alive and free from head injuries. I do however have (no exaggeration) about 300 bites though. Mostly on my legs, to the extent that sitting down and walking both hurt quite a lot!
It was great fun though. We decided not to go to a lodge like most people do but to go further into the rainforest to a big reserve called the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve which is about 180 km from Iquitos. There were 6 of us and 3 guides and we travelled upstream from a town called Nauta, about 2 hours drive from Iquitos (which is about as far as you can get!) We got on this tiny little boat, long and thin like a barge with an engine at the back and a straw roof. It takes about 3 hours to get to the reserve and then the first day we went about another hour further in. We stayed in a hut in a village the first night and then yesterday 3 of us and the guides went further upstream whilst the others stayed at the village. It was so nice to be on the river and the views were incredible. Once we were in the reserve we branched of into a tribuitary and it got much narrower. There were lots of birds everywhere and msot excitingly 2 types of river dolphin- one pink and one grey. They were everywhere, jumping around any playing!
The first day I tried going swimming as the guide said the dolphins would come and play but within 5 seconds 100s of timy fish were biting me so I jumped out. There are lots of piranhas there too so I´m glad I did!
When we got further upstream on the second day we hired a local guide and he took us canoeing in his fishing canoe. He was fishing with a spear and we tried later but it was really hard. Sara managed to get one though! We stopped off after a while and walked into the rainforest for a bit to a stream. There we did some fishing with rods for our lunch. I was hopeless but finally got one! I sat down after awhile though to balance myself and I think I might have got most of my bites then. I was so determined to get a fish i forgot about everything else! We then ate the fish (Tiger fish) for lunch. It was so nice, the freshest I´ve ever eaten!
We carried on further after lunch and then camped by the edge of the river that night. It was so noisy in the tent as we were right in the rainforest. Some birds almost sound like a siren or traffic noise and you almost forget where you are!
Today we just travlled back by boat. It was so relaxing.
Wow sophie - I am so jealous of so many parts of this! Escpecially the fishing..i was watching ray mears and it made me really want to go fishing, but we couldn't find anywhere in portugal. But with a rod is much cooler.
ReplyDeleteAlso well done on the blogging - it's fun for us all to have updates :)
xxx
Forget the rod, it's all about the spears- you canoe along until you see bubbles and then throw a long sharp spear hoping to catch one of a school of fish. Or if you are the local guide 2 or 3! I was pretty hopeless!
ReplyDeleteIt all sounds amazing, Sophie! I went swimming in an old quarry yesterday, which was fun but dolphin-free. Hope it's not too much of a shock to be back at work again. Have you re-remembered all your Spanish?
ReplyDeleteLove, Jo xxx