There wasnt a lot of research or planning for the Amazon part of my journey to Peru. I just had a gut feeling that since I was going to be in the area I should make my way down there. I asked the tour company that had handled my trip to Machupichu to handle that too. I had no preconceived notions and no idea what to expect.

When I got off the plane, I was lead to a wooden (yes – wooden) bus with with rolled up plastic sheeting that could be used as “windows” in case of sudden rain. My picture of the dashboard does not do justice for this epitome of dashboard decoration…

Nor was I prepared for the hour and a half boat ride with the korean whisky swilling boat driver.

The whiskey:

This is the Ecoamazonia Lodge. My bungalo was made of wood and set on stilts with a grass roof and netting for windows. I should have taken a picture so it could be shared. Oh well.

I also wish I recorded the din of the jungle that lulled me to sleep at night. Imagine the song of crickets -then  amplify it in your mind to the power of 10.

The mosquitoes were fearless and big enough to violate chickens. Like LOOK at this beast below…just sitting there staring at my finger and planning it’s attack.

Once we settled into our bungalows, we were taken to Monkey Island to feed the monkeys…

This “wild” turkey has nothing to do with my story. But at least I wasn’t like the slickers from New York and LA who took 2 dozen pictures of each other drinking from a coconut.

The next morning, they dragged me out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5am to take us on a jungle tour/boat ride….

But first they had to bail the boat…

Lazy reflections in the still glass like water…

Apparently the fruit from this very fruitful tree is a powerful aphrodisiac:

Al the pretty things like parrots and butterflies flew to fast or high for me to capture with my crappy camera so here’s some the creepy crawly things…

Believe it or not – this is a spider:

..and this massive web system was done by ONE industrious spider:

This was a really cool tree. It was 500 years old:

Now to give you an idea of scale, here’s me at the base of this tree:

This is me trying to look cool while being attacked by bees:

Here is the view from the top of an even bigger tree. There was a rickety ladder that wound around it to a platform at the top. As you can see it makes the rest of the jungle look like a lawn:

Later that night we went for a sunset cruise on the Rio Madre. The driver nearly capsized the boat while we were in it. Perhaps he had a bigger flask of whiskey in him this time…

One last sunrise before leaving heading back to Lima: