Mrs Bear got up at 5 AM to put on wader boots and slog 4 miles, round trip through inches of mud, to a jungle lake…Afterall, this is a rain forest. Then she gets to sit in a narrow dugout canoe which, to me, has “capsize” written all over it. So I, instead, opted to sleep later, have a wonderful breakfast at a beautiful lodge, and write this blog. You, the reader, can decide who made the better choice, but you might want to wait until my wife gets back to view the photos I asked her to bring back…if she brings herself back !!!
So I just went outside to show y’all what trekking to the Amazon is all about: tents, oppressive humidity, and swarms of mosquitoes!!! Well, it is incredibly humid… nothing dries out… and there are biting critters around. But we decided to stay in a nice bungalow at a lodge with excellent cuisine rather than do a backpacking jaunt.
OK, back to the Amazon. Actually, we are on Madre de Dios, Mother of God, a river whose two branches began in the Andes neat Cuzco and Puno, two of our past stays on this tour. So, the water flows down from the Andes and Lake Titicaca, to Mater de Dios, and on to Brazil and the Amazon. When we were at Machu Picchu, our local guide had mentioned that there was a divide in the Sacred Valley, with rivers flowing east to the Amazon and west to Lima and ultimately the Pacific. In his thinking, this meant the Amazon and it’s tributaries spanned the entire continent.
Our kodge is a little rustic…While having the best veggies I’ve ever eaten, they have limited power…everything is turned off at night and midafternoon. I slept the night by using my shower towel…the dampness acted as a nice cool down.
More on our experiences here when we get back to Lima.
The Adventures of Barry Brink 