Our first full day in Peru started with more Adventurers, travel, another Adventurer and finally ended with frogs, cockroaches and one hairy spider.
Last night when we arrived at the airport hotel, we joined forces with Jessica, Rose and Budz, who we are thrilled have joined us for another November Adventure.
We all flew from Lima at midday to the northeast part of Peru where the Amazon River and its tributaries dominate both the landscape and the local economy. It’s one of the largest cities in the world that is not reachable by road – only airplane and boat.
After arriving by air, we left by boat, but not before we added Tiffany’s sister Tracy to our crew.
As a party of nine, we joined three other tourists on a 4 hour journey starting on the Itaya river, then on the Amazon itself for a couple of hours, passing indigenous villages and getting pelted through the window by periodic heavy rains.
At last we turned onto another tributary and docked at the Lodge named for this river – the Tahuayo.
Our lodge is part of Amazonia Expeditions – a travel and research company working in this area for over 40 years. This was originally planned to be the first stop on our ‘world trip’ in 2020 but the pandemic changed our plans. We didn’t make it to South America at all that trip, so we are glad to finally be here.
We settled into our rooms, explored the lodge a little and then met with our guide to plan our excursions for the next couple of days. We jumped right in with a short walk after dinner walk in the forest around the lodge. We got geared up in long pants, long sleeves, hats, headlamps, bug repellent and tall rubber boots and we were off.
We got a great intro to the cool things we’ll see during our time here: green frogs, tree frogs, a scorpion, more cockroaches flying around than we could count, a shy tarantula and later a friendly one that came out and posed for our pictures. We saw leaf cutter ants, tiny preying mantises and one giant frog sitting at least 6 inches tall. Locally it’s known as a smoke frog and it was HUGE! And that was on the short walk. We also made friends with an owl that was just released from a rescue center that works with the lodge. It is very used to humans and is hanging around. Once it gets hungry enough it will have to move further into the jungle, but for now we get to see it up close.
We can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring. To end this day, we are writing from a screened window cabin with Rainforest sounds chirping all around and thunder rumbling in the distance.
5 Adventures Together 