Malc and I have been out of the jungle for a few days now and are currently in Taganga enjoying a few days on the beach before a 20 hour bus ride to Caracas to fly home. This little stint will bring our beach days to a whopping 7 in total this trip, so don´t be suprised when we rock up back in the UK with faint, yet sexy, t-shirt tans!!
Anyway, the real reason for this update is to rave about our 7days, 6 nights in the jungle with Gerson, Wilder (Lobo), Wilder´s oldest son Martin and their families. We had an absolutely amazing time and are very glad that we decided to book a trip with Gerson, who is a local guide from Puerto Miguel (South of Iquitos and Nauta) and not a big company. Unfortunately Gerson had injured his foot on a machete the week before our trip, but Gerson made sure that it didn´t impact our experience, not only did we get 3 days of Gerson´s expert knowledge, we got 3 days of Lobo´s expert knowledge too and were lucky enough to learn about the jungle from both of them.
Our first three days with Gerson and Martin were spent seeing the jungle from the boat, as land is scarce in the wet season and even some of the houses in the village have been totally flooded. The local communities are extremely adept at coping with the change in environment, making the most of the abundant fish while they are easy to catch and visiting neighbours, shops etc by small boat. I think the whole place must look very different in the dry season when the communities farm the river banks that are currently deep under water.
During our river trips to spot animals we saw white and red tailed Sloths, Squirrel Monkeys, Giant Lily pads, Caimen (Gerson is extremely good at spotting and catching them), Pyranas, and Pink and Grey Dolphins. Gerson´s knowledge of the jungle, local folklores and the history of the amazon supplemented all of our animal sightings beautifully. I never knew that the giant lily pads are named after England´s Queen Victoria, or that the locals believe the moon created the giant lily pads in honour of a girl who drowned in the river after falling in love with him, but I do now!
Martin and Lobo were the expert fishermen, I have never seen anyone fish with a hand held spear before but these two are masters at it. I don´t think there were many times that they threw the spear and didn´t catch anything. I was the only person out of all of us that never caught anything with the spear, mainly I think because I throw like a girl! To add insult to injury I only managed to catch a fish from the sardine family during our Pyrana fishing expedition too.... seriously, who manages to fish in Pyrana infested waters and catch a normal fish.......needless to say we didn´t take a photo of that and I returned the fish to the water.
Our second three days were spent camping in the Amazon, Bullfrog/Armadillo hunting, fishing, swimming in the river, looking for more Sloth´s, Parrot spotting (we saw Macaws in the wild) and on the last night we tried Ayahuska with Lobo. Lobo really came into his own during the Ayahuska ceremony and I felt totally at ease with him looking after us, he is an expert Shamen and is very experienced at guiding ´new comers´ through the experience. I had a few hallucenations during the night and my temperature soared as my body cleansed itself (it appears I had a lot of cleansing to do), but despite the temperature and being very sick at points I felt brilliant the next day. My body felt very clean and I felt very peaceful, I am still sure I saw a snake but Lobo assures me I was having a vivid hallucenation, I´m glad it was only a small snake, not an anaconda!!!
The camping in the jungle was brilliant, the first night we slept in hammocks under mosquito nets (Lobo had old army mosquito nets for the hammocks) hung from the trees. The plan had been for us to do two consequtive nights in the jungle, but as the skies opened and it rained all night long, we had to go back to the family house the next day just to dry out. The second night in the jungle was a day later, during which we did the Ayahuska ceremony and on that evening Malc, Lobo, Martin and I were in a family size mosquito net under a plastic sheet,which protected us from the rain. When the wet season finishes and the villages are no longer flooded, Lobo plans to build another house to run the Ayahuska ceremonies from, which will make going to the toilet easier (I forgot to put my shirt on when I exited the mosquito net and as a result was biten to shreds by mozzies) but I am glad that we got to do our ceremony in the jungle, despite the mosquitos!!
I really hope that I get to go back to Peru one day and do another trip with Gerson, Wilder/Lobo and Martin, maybe next time we will visit in the dry season. All the people we met through the trip made our time in the amazon region very special and the whole family made us feel very welcome. We are not the only people to have had such a fantastic experience with them either, another couple from the UK had such a great time with Gerson and his family that they set up his website for him and nominated him for an award, which he deservedly won. It is thanks to them that we were able to find him and have the experience we had too, so if you know anyone who is planning a trip to the Peruvian jungle pass on Gerson and Lobos web addresses (amazonguidanceservices@gmail.com, jungleguide1@hotmail.com.... links to sites attached to this blog too) and tell them to go with a recommended local guide (preferably Gerson and Lobo), not a company. This way the money people spend goes straight to the local communities and you get to actually interact with the community there.
I am attaching some pictures below to give you all a better idea of the time we had, the people we met and the animals we saw. I shouldn´t forget to mention that Lobo´s family made us extremely welcome in their home and his children are fantastic, I think we amused them greatly with our awful western dancing and although we had somewhat of a language barrier they made us feel extremely welcome, I really hope that one day we get to meet them all again.
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| Nature spotting.......and wishing we had a better camera... |
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| Squirrel and Toad taking in the giant lily pads |
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| Gerson, our amazing guide and an amazing vista over the water from the boat |
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| Malc, Martin and the Caimen |
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| Sunset on the river |
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| Malc and the Pyrana he caught |
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| Libertad. We ate coconuts from that tree, which is owned by the person in the house on the left of this picture |
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| Gerson, Martin and Lobo |
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| The hammock I slept in on night one in the jungle |
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| Malc after his successful attempt at spear fishing |
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| Puerto Miguel |
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| Yes, the moquitos really were as big as I say they were.... |
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| View from the tent on the second night camping in the jungle |
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| learning about surviving in the jungle with Lobo and Martin |
