Enter the Amazon

As the title suggests today we entered the amazon. It was, as one would expect, tropical, dense, humid and beautiful. We left early and boarded a flight and before long I could see the thick foliage of the rainforest out my window. The humidity hit us as soon as we got off the plane, and once the bags were picked up and we had got through the necessary processes we were on a bus and on our way. The bus took us to a river (not the amazon river) where we boarded our third mode of transport for the day, a boat. Unfortunately for Courtney she hadn’t fully recovered from her bout of gastro and so the whole process wasn’t much fun. For me it was pretty great! The boat ride took about an hour and on the way we were fed some fried rice that was served packed inside a giant vine leaf. As I ate from my leaf I looked out over the river flying by, the magnificent flora we passed, and felt incredibly lucky.

From the boat we walked up a muddy path deep into the rainforest to our huts, miles from any town with no road anywhere nearby. I say huts but really it was more of a quite luxurious retreat. We were greeted with some cold and refreshing juice and the rules of the place and then got to see our rooms. Not surprisingly, they were excellent. One wall was non existent which allowed you to look out into the rainforest and hopefully catch some wildlife there, which we did. It also included a very comfortable bed with mosquito net, and a hammock which got a lot of use.

We didn’t have much time to put our stuff down before we were off on our first walk further into the amazon. As you can see by today’s blip it wasn’t long before we found some wildlife. This photo is of a breed of spider that is one of the few in the world to have colonies, and although the picture only shows the silhouette of one spider there were hundreds all living together inside a giant series of webbing. Next we came across some very cool leaf cutter ants all trekking their wares, single file towards their nest. They were fascinating and we were informed they collect the leaves not to eat but rather as a form of farming that they grow a fungus on.

We kept walking, heading towards a metal tower that we could climb which would give us a view from above the canopy. Along the way we spotted out first (of many) monkeys. After snapping the camera trying to get any kind of shot of him we finally continued and made it to the tower and started climbing. It took a while as it was about forty levels high. We were almost to the top when someone spotted a toucan, or as one of the Americans who were with us called it “The fruit loops bird!’ It was phenomenal, perched right at the top of a tree in clear view that we never would have seen from the forest floor. Many photos were taken of him and the view in general as it was breathtaking. We also spotted a bat falcon and a rather giant ant that would float, if knocked off the canopy tower, to land safely on one of the levels below. Eventually we went back down, headed back to the retreat and had some drinks and dinner, before heading to bed and spending our first night in the Amazon.

- Damian