After our airline saga, we finally arrived at Hotel Enai, only 8 hours late. We are staying along Rio Madre de Dios, which runs through the Peruvian Amazon toward Bolivia. This region is just outside of Puerto Maldonado, a town which has grown from a modest 20,000 people a few decades ago to a city of over 100,000 people, thanks in large part to gold mining in the area. Driving in, one certainly got the impression of a town that was not flush with cash.
Our hotel is delightful. There’s a pool, Wi-Fi and, more importantly, air conditioning. we tried out all 3 within the first hour of arrival and were quite pleased.
While we knew the weather would be hot (Amazon jungle in August seems to have that vibe), I can’t really explain how incredibly hot it is here. It never gets below 75, and the humidity similarly is in the 70%-80% range at all times. That means that a breeze, which should feel delightful, instead feels a bit more like the rush of hot air you get when you open the over door and stick your head right into the heat to check your muffins. When it got up to 100, we were all wilting. How people in the Gulf states do this is beyond me.
We started the day with a trip out to the parrot clay lick. This involved a pre-dawn boat ride down the river to where the birds gather. At some point, they start to fly down and cling to the side of the cliff side to eat the clay for its critical sodium and calcium nutrients.
There are so many kinds of parakeets, parrots, and macaws! I can’t recall them all now, but I do remember that some have stunning blue and green feathers on their backsides with scarlet feathers underneath. My photos don’t do this setting justice at all.
Along the way back, our guide somehow managed to spot a sloth, so we pulled over to watch it. They won’t win any races, but they are cute!
After a hearty breakfast, Luke and Anna-Sophia went to take a nap (what else is there to do as the weather heats up into the triple digits?) and I went to sit by the pool and read. I made it about an hour outside and then gave up and joined in siesta hour.
Luke and I indulged in a post-nap/pre-lunch swim, then we all went for a quick lunch before we launched on our second activity of the day: Lake Sandoval. This lake is well-known for having abundant wildlife and being generally unspoiled by humans because it is fully contained inside Tambopata National Reserve.
Along the river ride to the park, our guide spots a caiman on the river bank.
Not 10 minutes after we set out into the park did one member of our party try to kill himself. We stopped to talk about a giant ficus tree when Luke put his hand on a railing, discovering the hard way that a caterpillar was sitting there. Now this was no fluffy, benign caterpillar, but a caterpillar who packed a painful punch via its venemous spines. Ouch!
Once we were all convinced Luke would survive, we started the 3km walk to the lake. To ensure we get full props for making that walk, remember that it’s about 100 degrees out with 80% humidity. Sweat pours off of you, but does absolutely nothing to cool you off since the air is already so saturated.
Along our walk, we encountered Brown Capuchin monkeys and Howler monkeys. Anna-Sophia felt they were benign enough to not get caught up in her dislike for old world monkeys.
There were birds, monkeys, turtles, and more caimans. We had hoped to see the giant otters, but they were nowhere to be seen; hopefully they were someplace a little less suffocatingly hot! We still saw tons of cool animals, and the lake is gorgeous, so no complaints here!
After watching a troop of squirrel monkeys (so cute!), we paddled across the lake and back toward the boat dock. At this point, the sun had set and so we walked back to the boat by flashlight. For the record, I don’t like the jungle at night. Creepy-crawly critters are everywhere!!
We got back to the hotel, had dinner, packed, and are now exhausted. I really wish we had ended up with 2 days here as planned instead of just 1, but it was worthwhile all the same. Just like the Arctic, I don’t truthfully know how long rainforest jungle will exist, and I want to see it while I can.
Vacation Days 