Intitour's space

Friday April 3^rd                  Leaving the Amazon                  Robyn K

Awoke to another wonderful day on the Amazon.  A 6am start of activities.  We went in the boats to do some bird watching before visiting the market at the local village of Indiana. Here at the market the locals buy and sell their wares; fish, fruit, vegetables, rice, chicken and dried monkey which we all thought a bit off.  You could buy all sorts of medicines from cortisone tablets to strong pain killers (panadeine forte).  All these types of drugs are available over the counter in Peru but are expensive.  One of the guides comes from the village and introduced us to his relatives

Back for our usual buffet breakfast before heading off for a walk to see the oldest and tallest Cedar tree in the area near the resort

Off in the boats again across the mighty Amazon to a local Indian tribe.  We were entertained with dancing in the ceremonial hut and then invited to join in the dancing.  A demonstration of firing of poisonous spears via blow pipes by the village men followed.  Some of us competed to hit bull’s eye with great success while others did not have enough puff.  There were the usual wares for us to buy, with most of us buying string bags with the hope of getting them thru customs.

At lunchtime we came to the end of our tour, as Joy and Frank are leaving us in Iquitos.  Wendy thanked our two guides Abelardo and Percy for the wonderful service to the group.  Wendy also congratulated us on a trouble free tour with no one being hospitalized and thanked Tim for wanting to celebrate his birthday in such a way.

We depart from Ceiba Tops this afternoon at 3pm.  

Arrive in Iquitos, repack our bags and head into town for our last look.  Have a beer on the balcony overlooking the main square. A great way to say farewell to the Amazon and end the tour.  Say goodbye to Joy and Frank and head to in airport for the trip to Lima.  Finally arrive Lima at our hotel.

We have all thoroughly enjoyed the tour and will have great memories of 5 fantastic weeks in South America.

Thursday 2^nd April                            Amazon Day 4                                                   Kathy

I awoke to the dawn chorus.  All the birds became one bird: the trumpeting, umbrella wielding horned screaming marsh tyrant beckoned us from the security of our mosquito netted sleeping platforms. After quick and cursory ablutions, we dined on fruit and scrambled eggs cooked over an open fire. Then we scurried through the jungle like a battalion of army ants, stopping only to gaze at monkeys high in the canopy, the occasional dot resembling a bird and the world’s largest bull ant. We arrived at ExploraNapo Lodge at 9.15 am and quickly departed by boat for Ceiba Tops for our final night of luxury and adventure. On the way we travelled overland by motorcarolla  (tuktuk) from the Napo River at Marzan to the Amazon at San Luis, where we boarded another boat.  It was a wild and hilarious journey.

Following a sumptuous lunch, we boarded open boats for more nature observations along the mighty Amazon.  Down a branch of the river, between two large islands, we watched grey and pink freshwater dolphins gamboling close to the shore. There are only four species of freshwater dolphin in the world and we saw two of them. How lucky are we. Percy recounted myths about the pink dolphin, about the river peoples’ fear that the dolphin could change into man and lure beautiful girls to his watery paradise, never to return to land. Strange how this story so closely resembles that of the Selkie in the British Isles. Then we visited a river family to see the wonderful Victoria Regina, the largest water lily in the world, as well as some pet boas, a baby three-toed sloth and, inevitable, more shopping.  

In the evening, our guide Abelardo hosted a dinner show to entertain and instruct us. High school students from the village of Indiana performed dances about village life that they choreographed themselves. They were ably accompanied by the ‘White Bellied Frogs’, a band formed by local guides. And so another perfect day finished.

Wednesday 1^st April                      Amazon Day 3                   Les MacLean. R.A       aka: Scorpion!

Well it’s April fool’s day and I have been asked to write the blog, need I say more?

The usual suspects gathered around the water front for an early morning coffee before our sumptuous breakfast. We have a full day planned, beginning with a walk to ReNuPeRu  Ethnobotanical  garden.   Our guides, Percy and Abelardo were keen to point out the many plants, butterflies and birds  along the way. As we approached the fish farm adjoining the garden we witnessed many birds large and small, not least a pair of horned screamers.   Abelardo coaxed the large birds to reciprocate his call and we were astounded to hear them barking like sea lions. Meanwhile a large electric blue butterfly (approx. 15cm across) flitted by to our delight.

A local shaman at the gardens  talked about and demonstrated medicinal plants with cures for illnesses from diarrhea  to a broken bone.   Some of the group were treated to a therapeutic , relaxing pre diagnosis ritual. The shaman blew smoke into their hair, chanted and caressed them with palm leaves.

At the conclusion of the shamans demonstration Percy who has an artistic flair tattooed willing participants with various ethnic images e.g. scorpion, piranha, anaconda. Les Lambert took his first step  towards joining Hell’s Angels by having a large tarantula tat on his upper arm. Jenny D. had a piranha inked into her body in a place she could not possibly see.

On leaving we were carful not to provoke the horned screamers which had taken a dislike to Angie, charging her with open wings and barking loudly.

After an enjoyable lunch we set off in a motor launch for a 40 min. trip up a small creek (larger than the Broken river) to the ACTS field station( Amazon Conservatory  of Tropical Studies) Abelardo gave an interesting talk on the source and course of the mighty Amazon, the largest river in the world. From here we walked to the Amazon Canopy  Walk. The structure stretches for 500 metres and contains 15 spans of varying lengths. At it’s highest point  the canopy walk is 37 metres from the forest floor. As luck would have it we were the only group experiencing this amazing  walkway at the time enabling us to leisurely walk and rewalk the many levels. The canopy is deep in the Amazon forest and allowed us to witness  life at all levels of this dense and majestic forest.

We left the structure after a beautiful sunset and set off on a 50 min. torch light walk through the jungle to ExplorTambo Camp. Here we experienced great food and slept on the netted platforms for a well earned rest.

The high achiever award for the day went to Robyn Kelly for her courageous Walk the length of the canopy.

Tuesday 31^st March                         Amazon Day 2                   Frank

After a good night’s sleep in our mosquito net encased beds, we were all early to rise (daylight) to muster in the mess room for our pre  breakfast boat excursion looking for the birdlife in the area.  Under the expert guidance of our guides Percy and Abelardo and capitanos Milton and Alfredo, we navigated the many waterways and went out to a reed island in the middle of the Napo river, the seventh biggest feeder river that runs into the Amazon.  This river begins its course in Ecuador and runs into the mighty Amazon downstream, near Iquitos.

As the sun rose and daylight brightened, we circled the island at a very slow pace in our open boats and immediately birdlife appeared all around us.  Species such as yellow headed black birds, fork tailed fly catcher, striated heron, red and white headed buzzards, white chested swallows, yellow tailed caciques, and numerous other species including the rare umbrella bird which is a bird that is keenly sought after by twitchers.

The highlights of the morning included the sighting of three grey dolphins by the eagle eyed Ric and Les Mac, and also as we were approaching a number of white chested swallows perched on a snag, our trusty guide, Abelardo, spotted a baby three toed sloth in the branches of a tree coming out of the water.  Under the expert boat handling of capitano Alfredo, he maneuvered our open boat directly under where the sloth was sitting stone like in the branches of the tree.

Around sevenish we all headed back for a beautiful breakfast in the lodge mess room and then boarded the boats again for a morning of piranha fishing.  After a 45 min run up river Alfredo steered the boat up a side creek where we tied up to some mangroves and rods and bait were passed around the crew.  With a few instructions on how to fish for piranha, such as splashing the water with the rod tips to imitate struggling animals, we baited our hooks with bloody meat and cast into the black waters.  After around 30 – 40 mins of heaps of bites no piranha were landed, so the decision was made to up lines and shift to another spot.  In the process of moving we passed the other crew who seemed to be dragging fish overboard in good numbers.  Anchoring beside them we then again baited up and before long had a first good sized red piranha flapping in the boat.  Half an hour later with 3 good red piranha and one white, plus a cat fish, it was time to head back to the lodge for lunch.    Here our chef Peter prepared the piranha caught by both boats in a sauce of tomato, coriander and red capsicum and served it for our lunch.   Delicious.

The afternoon saw both groups heading off into the dark jungle for an exploratory walk looking for native flora, fauna and insect life.  Not a lot was seen due to the time of day, but we all enjoyed a stroll in the jungle.  After emerging very sweaty from the dense jungle cold showers were had by all and a bee line was made to the bar.

To cap the day off we did a night walk in the jungle guided by torchlight. Although no large were sighted there were many spiders, some extremely venomous according to our guides plus some resting butterflies.  The walk took over an hour so when we got back to camp cold showers were in order and off to bed.

Monday 30^th March                        Amazon Day 1   Explornapo                         Angy

Early departure from Iquitos, down the Itaya river by boat. To join the Amazon river for several miles then turning up the Napo river, one of the 17 largest tributaries to feed the Amazon on its way to the Atlantic.

After a delicious cooked lunch at Explornapo lodge we went in2 boats in search of the Hoatzin birds that look like a chicken and are very shy.   After going up an extremely narrow creek we came across several colonies and while trying to get a good view Abelardo spotted a brown throated 3 toed sloth half way up a Cecropia tree.  Many other splendidly plumed birds were spotted including white throated toucans and weaver birds – russet  back oropendola.

One of the boats also spotted a tree snake and a fishing spider.

Also of great excitement was the spotting of a hairy tarantula about to descent onto Gill’s head, a laughing falcon, many banded aracari, smooth billed ani, lesser kiskadee, yellow headed cara cara, roadside hawk, great egret, striated heron.

After dinner, we set off at 7.45pm to experience the sounds of the night from the water.   We sat in silence with the guides using spot lights to find the animals via their shining red eyes.  Between us we spotted a giant owl butterfly, 2 toed sloth, bats, frogs, butterflies, a caiman, opossum and a fishing spider and we also heard an owl.

We managed to see all this in half a day, a great treat… what lies in store for tomorrow?