Days 6&7: June 22 & 23

Day 6 was spent in Cuzco, walked the streets yet again, did the same ol' same ol....we're just excited about going to the rainforest at this point! We were tired of the craziness of the streets and even stayed in for dinner having Twix and water for our meal! This trip made me learn I would not like living in NYC. I like my independence of my car, and I kinda get tired of tons of people everywhere! So let's just skip this day!

Day 7!! We got a taxi to the airport on our way to the Amazon Rainforest!! Our flight was short, only 45 minutes. We had a little scare when our plane was landing, same level of the trees, that swooped back up in the sky for about 15 minutes. We were all a little shaken up by this, but we landed safely in the end. Our tour guide from the trip, Donnell, picked us up at the airport in Puerto Maldonado. He was really nice. Our luggage thrown atop a van, and a group of 8 of us piled in. We drove a bumpy ride for 45 minutes then took a 2 hour boat ride to our lodge, Refugios Amazonas. It was a great temperature, the sites were beautiful.














They served us lunch on the boat in a banana leaf, it was probably the best food so far. Asian rice, scrambled egg and veggies.

Here are pictures of the lodge and our room:


It was an open air atmosphere, with no wall to the outside world. That is so you could experience the true jungle. No doors, just curtains separating rooms. Electricity for 5 hours of the day (in the lobby, not in room), but you are gone usually during those hours, so basically no electricity. No hot water. The walls separating guests rooms are bamboo wood, about an inch or so thick. So you can hear everything your neighbor is doing from travelers diarrhea to zippering their bags at 11pm!! (No bitterness here). It was awesome hearing the parrots, macaws, toucans and monkeys making beautiful sounds though!!


If you click on the picture to the left, there are some macaws in the trees. (There ya go Mom!)










Our first planned adventure was to go cayman searching. Most in our group were tired from the long day, so Temp, this girl Maya and Donnell and I went out on the boat at 8pm (pitch dark). About a 20 minute hike, we got on the boat. We had a large lantern and searched the river for cayman which are a relative to the alligator. We found 2 and that was really exciting. Those cayman can get up to 15 feet long! These were around 8-10 feet. It's cool to see their eyes glow with the light shining on them. That's about it for the first day, lots of traveling, the next gets even better!
**Temp took the cayman picture.**

The cool thing about our lodge is that they have an agreement with the locals that this could be a temporary arrangement. As of now, the locals provide all the foods cooked by the lodge in their farms, and if one is traveling through the jungle and gets hungry, the lodge will provide free food to them. The lodge pays market price for all of the food so the locals don't have to go 2 hours into town. They have a sorta contract that only has 9 more years, the locals determine if this lodge and the tour will continue (if it's mutually beneficial). Keep in mind, there are no doctors, stores, any conveniences that we have here in the states. This is a building in the middle of the rain forest, and NOTHING else!!

And last, some video: