I decided to focus more on the spiritual side of the trip this time, so did not take many photos. But wow, what a beautiful place it was.
Ally, who is all jungled out and hates mosquitos, chose to rather chill out in Banyos, a mountain retreat with hot springs. Can´t blame her!
Highlights
- A 3 hour motorboar trip to our jungle base, watching the jungle become more and more wild and untamed as we ventured along remote waterways.
- Walks through the deep jungle, identifying plants (our guide was a veritable fundi on botany and the practical uses of plants and trees)
- Eating wild mushrooms (they were delicious)
- Rubbing in "dragons blood" (red sap from a tree) that is a wonder cream for wounds, bites and even tummy ulcers
- Watching our guide eat a large, juicy worm from a coconut seed. I said I would eat the next one we found - but we never did (thankfully!)
- Lots of new birds (magpie tanager, white banded swallow, violaceous jay, screaming piha, many banded aracari, masked crimson tanager, blue crowned trogon, blackheaded parrot and russet backed tanager)
- Seeing the Suffocation Ficus tree that uses another tree to grow up to the light (like a thick vine) and then consumes the unfortunate host within it as it grows around it.
- Listening to a symphony of bird and insect sounds while sitting on the river bank at dusk
- The enormous "Sabre Trees", 40 metres tall and 600 years old.
- Seeing a baby turtle and many different frog species
- Massive tarantula spiders under our sleeping platform. One ventured up to one of the girl´s beds and I was summoned to remove it. For some reason, I developed the nickname of "the jungle guy."
- Juan, our expert guide, who loved the expressions "awesome" and "oh, my god." Said them at least 100 times a day.
- 4 different species of monkeys (Tropical Night Monkey, Capuchin, Squirrel, Spider Monkey)
- Lots of Hoatzin birds, one of the weirdest birds on the planet, seen close up
- Reading "Practicing The Power of Now" by EckhartTolle - amazing book
- Following a trail of "leaf cutter ants" from the tree where they were collecting leaves to their nest a good 300 metres away (where they feed the leaves to a fungus that they eat)
- Exploring and swimming in the amazing flooded forest of Laguna Grande - a surreal and gorgeous landscape. The sunset was beautiful.
- Seeing River Dolphins at dusk
- Pirhana fishing with bits of chicken (I did not catch anything but lost a lot of chicken. Those pirhanas are wiley fish!)
- Birding in the early morning, floating along the river
- Visiting a local family to make bread from a local root (nutritious but not particularly tasty. I think I will stick to French loaves)
- All in all, a very relaxing and beautiful trip
List of new birds seen
- sun grebe
- magpie tanager
- violaceous jay
- screaming piha
- many banded aracari
- masked crimson tanager
- blackheaded parrot
- russetbacked oropendola
- black hawk eagle
- white banded swallow
- Greater ani
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