This morning I woke up at 6:30, packed up, and then took a taxi to the plaza del Armas area. Most restaurants were closed today due to Labor Day, but Fitzgerald Cafe was open on the boardwalk. I ordered a vegetarian breakfast which came with a banana/papaya shake and veggie omelette. I then walked over to Karma cafe and used wifi for a few hours.
Next, I stopped by a Nike store in the area and picked up some long socks for the upcoming trek.
At about 2pm, we boarded a boat and headed over to Tahuayo. Along the way, there were many small communities of homes ranging from dozens of people to a few hundred people. We arrived at the lodge at about 4:30pm, a small community consisting of a dining room, hammock room, relaxing room, and many individual guest rooms.
Relaxing inside the hammock room and closing my eyes, it feels like I’m listening to music. There are hundreds of overlapping sounds from birds, insects, amphibians, mammals, and their interactions with nature.
In the main dining lodge, I found a copy of Paul beavers book and continued reading on and off throughout the afternoon and night eventually reading 60 pages and encountering interesting information about the rubber boom (1890-1915), architecture in Iquitos, iquitos’ boom then bust and now boom, riberinos and indigenous people, routine annual flooding of the Amazon, Paul’s pre-Amazon life and the history of the lodge and Amazonia expeditions, biodiversity in the Amazon, etc. I look forward to continuing to read this book during my stay.
At 7pm, we had an extravagant buffer dinner with tons of vegetables, salads, and AMAZING homemade banana cake.
After dinner, Francisco and Hugo took me out on the river to view some birds and other nocturnal wildlife for about 45 minutes, which was a nice intro to the Amazon, it’s sounds and it’s biodiversity.
Laying in bed in the darkness, there is non-stop layers of white noise. Dozens of species and Thousands of creatures suddenly plopping into the water, making their constant nonstop noises, or making their occasional notable distinct sounds. You don’t need to be 100% present to be constantly reminded you’re in the Amazon.
Why I’m visiting jungle lodge:
- Expand my boundaries of my comfort zone (especially when it comes to humidity, rain, animals, and mosquitoes)
- Appreciate and experience the biodiversity and climate in this region
- Appreciate the lifestyle of of the native people in this region
- Enjoy the childlike feeling of trying something unlike anything you’ve ever done before
- Experience adventuring both during the daytime and nighttime in this region
- Experience the remoteness, pristine, lack of human footprint/development in this region
Link to today’s photos: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LDlDimNXVWHqKrC26k68EAiKUKrOc568