Amazon – Part 1

We returned from our excursion into the Amazon two days ago and I am still digesting the experience. As we were walking around yesterday, I told Alex that I feel like the 5-night trip was somehow life-changing…I just can’t quite tell how yet. So many words come to mind to describe it! It was fascinating, challenging, HOT, beautiful, shocking, HUMID, and a million other things. We saw monkeys, sloths, river dolphins, tarantulas, a huge array of birds, we went piranha fishing, and we got up close and personal with the jungle. I’m not quite sure how to document the experience, so I will just write about it chronologically!

Leticia

Our jumping off point for the tour was Leticia, Colombia on the Amazon River. Leticia is the Southernmost point in the country and directly borders Peru and Brazil. As we weren’t leaving until the next day, we took a short tour of the city.

The borders between the three countries are very relaxed with no border guards or entry barriers. Our guide took us into Brazil where we got our first full view of the Amazon River. It felt a bit unreal to finally stand on the banks of the Amazon, it has always seemed so mystical to me. We came during the “dry season” and the river was just about at it’s lowest. At it’s highest, the river rises up to 120 feet!

After enjoying a Caipirinha, a traditional Brazilian cocktail, we went to the town square. Every night at around 5:30 hundreds of thousands of birds come there to sleep on the trees. I have never seen anything like it and the sound was deafening! Very cool.

We ended our evening at a local restaurant and started our next day with a traditional Colombian breakfast cooked by our b&b host – tamales and chocolate! Delicious 🙂

Jungle Day 1

I was so geeked (and somewhat nervous) to start our trip into the jungle! We hopped on a boat and rode about an hour and a half to our first destination, a lodge on a tributary of the Amazon where we would stay for three nights. The lodge was beautiful, I was actually shocked at how nice it was. They had room for up to 25 visitors, but while we were there we only shared the trip with one other person – a tourist from Italy. The lodge was run by an indigenous couple and a 3rd employee who all contributed to an amazing experience.

Once we got settled in, we started with a hike into the jungle. This was the start of my understanding of the extent of the heat. Not only was it hot (high 80s, low 90s), and humid (close to 100%), but there was absolutely no wind. We were also advised to wear long pants and long sleeves to avoid mosquito bites. On top of that, we had to wear big rubber boots because of the mud and streams. WOW…the sweat was unreal. But hey, so were the sights!

The jungle surrounding our lodge was considered the “low jungle” because it completely floods during the rainy season. The low jungle is very different from the “high jungle” where we would go for the last two nights of our trip. The low jungle is a bit less dense and supports much different plant life. Because of the flooding, the trees generally do not grow as big and they also create really fascinating root systems.

After the hike, we cooled off with a boat ride and quick dip in the Amazon. During the swim, we got our first look at how quickly a storm can roll in and it was beautiful.

That evening, our guide took us out on the boat to search for caimans! He drove down the river with his headlamp looking for the glow of their eyes. When he saw one, he would just snatch it out of the water! On this trip we only found babies, but they can grow to be up to 15ft…I was satisfied with only finding the baby caimans 🙂

That was only day one and it already felt so exotic! Alex and I are sitting in the Bogota airport right now waiting for our flight to Cartagena where we will meet my mom and Johnny for about 10 days. I’m enjoying going through all my photos of the last week and look forward to sharing more!