We started this morning early, well… at least I did. I woke up sometime around 3:00 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep because it was so hot. There’s no relief here from the heat regardless of time of day, and at 3:30 AM the sun starts rising and it gets even warmer. The fans in the room do help, and we’re not even here in the “hot” parts of the year. I not sure I even want to imagine what that may be like! Today, we started our day with a tour of a local farm that helps provide Inkaterra with bananas (banana chips have accompanied nearly every meal in some fashion) and other fruits and vegetables. We saw various plants and trees, fruits and berries, and enjoyed the farm overall. There are no animals or heavy equipment, all of the farming here is done by hand. We saw trees bearing “bread fruit”, star fruit, passion fruit, and many others. Most farms here are self-sustaining and that’s about it… they make enough food for their own consumption and just farm to live. This one is a bit different given their relationship with Inkaterra, and you can see it in the fact that they have DirectTV (a company we also rain into in Antarctica, oddly) and cell phone service for the locals. Leaving the farm, we trekked into the amazon on a very small, enclosed trail that led to a river inlet.
The local farm
I haven’t mentioned it yet, but when writing this I’m sitting looking at the Madre de Dios river, and Inkaterra is situated just off of the river. The farm, and the hike we took, were mean to separate us from the Madre de Dios and let us take a canoe for a little over a mile and enjoy the nature along the way in one of the tributaries. The hike past the farm, however, was one of the most terrifying I’ve ever been on. It started with small groups of mosquitoes, but as we walked on they were beginning to swarm. I don’t know why save for the deet, but they don’t seem to like me on this trip.
Between myself and Jen as we walked, however, a cloud began to form. It would get so thick that, when the sun caught just right, I couldn’t see anything below Jen’s waist but a wall of mosquitoes, the most I have ever seen in my life. It looked like one of those scientific studies where they have a box full of mosquitoes and a test-subject puts their arm inside… except there were three or four times the number of biting bugs. I was waiving my hat from time to time in front of my face because there were so many mosquitoes I was afraid I would breathe them in. It would have made a great “OFF!” commercial, I’m surprised we didn’t get more bites than we did, and all the while we kept walking and walking, and they grew more and more dense.
We did finally make it to the river, and having applied more deet it was time to get in yet another boat. We were traveling with a lady and her brother who were from Lima, and we all clambered in without incident. Jen and I fist-bumped at yet another successful canoeing after our crazy South Africa experiences, and we floated down the river without really seeing a lot but how low the water was. When we reached the Madre De Dios, we pulled tight to the larger boat that would take us back to Inkaterra, and once again stayed clear of the bottom of the river while climbing out of the canoe.
This butterfly is completely light-blue on the other side of its wings. It was something to see!
I considered skipping the second outing today… I think I’ve seen what the Amazon has to show me at this point and we can sum it up with: bugs, fruit, mud, and trees, but it seems silly since it’s the last. We had lunch at the lodge, some time to let our lunch settle, and then headed over to the meeting area (officially the “Ecological center”). We headed out, and just as our guide warned us it might rain… and laughed at us not having rain gear… it started pouring. We were in the boat, safe and sound under a roof and behind plastic, when the rain came. It hammered down as we raced through it, hardly feeling its effects. The same could not be said for our camp, and the water had flooded the path in parts when we came back. This turned out okay, as the paths have raised tree-trunk steps that never made any sense to me until that afternoon, but it did make for an interesting experience that I enjoyed quite a lot!
We were safe in the boat on the way to our second excursion when the rain hit
On the excursion, a light rain continued the entire time, and the guide took us across the river to Inkaterra’s other site to show us “Hacienda Concepcion”. This is a newer one of the Inkaterra properties, and where the jungle has been battled back a bit from our lodge, and the mosquitoes controlled, Hacenda Concepcion is placed right in the middle of the forest with no clearing. We were surrounded by mosquitoes the minute we left the main camp (not sure if they control them there or not, I’m assuming to some degree they do). We headed to a lagoon for a quick river tour, and I quickly tried to get in a fight with our guide as we drifted along. We were in a small canoe, and I think to some degree both Jen and I were tired of the canoe tours. The guide was also being pushy, however, to eat the local vegetation and to ensure we saw the birds he was pointing out and then would ask us where they were to ensure we found them too.
I’ll admit my mood wasn’t the best, and that I don’t really care about birds, but this was quickly becoming infuriating when I was perfectly happy to have him talk and float down the river without the forced-engagement. He pushed the boat under a tree and insisted we try the beans. I passed a few back (I was at the front of the boat), and then after Jen tried one the guide again encouraged me to try it after I had told him “no” repeatedly. He then took the time to ask me “why” I didn’t want to eat it, and I geared up to unleash exactly what I thought of his guide-abilities. Jen, however, defused the situation and asked to move on, saying I didn’t like the flavor and the guide let it drop. The last thing I want to do on vacation is feel like I’m being told what to do without choice, and belittled when I make a choice, but this was not our regular guide or our regular excursion (our guide went “into town” yesterday instead of staying for the evening excursion) so there wasn’t a lot to worry about. For the most part the staff has been phenomenal here.
Out of the boat, we trekked to the “Medicine garden”, where Inkaterra keeps some of the local plants that have medical benefits in little farm boxes. Here again there were mosquitoes, and they did not seem to be phased by bug spray at all (at least not on Jen). While I was relatively safe for some reason, Jen was getting bitten and was not enjoying the tour. We asked a few times to speed it up, and the guide took his time anyway and eventually guided us into a more-sheltered area where eventually the mosquitoes left us alone. We talked about the Brazil nut, and how it is collected and used, and then we sat for a while and talked about a few things and some of the plants we had seen. We then headed back to the lodge by boat, again missing some of the rain but seeing a beautiful rainbow. We were able to see it from end to end, one end on each side of the river. It was pretty neat!
I didn’t get any pictures of the excursion that i know of… but here’s the double-rainbow we saw on the way back!
We got back to the cabin, and started planning our next moves. At dinner the staff would tell us when we had to get our stuff to the front door and when the boats left, and we’d be on our way back soon. We got back a bit early from the tour due to the bugs and our insistence, so we took some time to nap, write, and read books. Before dinner, we had a few minutes and decided to grab some passion-fruit pisco sours (there have been *many* of these this trip), and by the time dinner came we were both very happy with everything. Dinner was outstanding, one of the best we’ve had here, and then it was time for a shower for me, and bed.
All week, I’ve been planning for tomorrow. I have a nearly-completely set of clothing that we’ve laundered along the way for me to wear, though I need to swap jeans for a pair from my suitcase. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that before, but we left the big suitcases in storage in Puerto Maldonado due to size, and re-packed into our backpacks. I remembered everything except nail clippers, and a second pair of pants. The pants would have proved useful, as right now I’m sitting in pants that are mud-stained and smelly due to miles upon miles of walking, but I’ll be swapping them out the minute we find a restroom after our luggage is returned to us. Everything else, though, I’ll save for a last-minute show and change… and hopefully I won’t be too terrible to sniff when I get back home.
Aftermath of the rain at the lodge
