Last full day onboard the Aqua Nera. It’s been a fun, memorable trip but it does feel the right time to be coming to a close and heading home tomorrow (I’ve got new roses to plant!). We’ve done really well with spotting all sorts of flora and fauna during our time here – but one thing we hadn’t seen up until today were frogs! (the giant fiberglass one at the airport doesn’t count!).
Well, mission accomplished. One of the activities for today was another jungle walk (we skipped the 6am boat ride) – this time on “terra firme” land, rather than the swampy terrain we’d squelched through a few days ago. We were only walking for just over an hour on a fairly well marked trail through the jungle on a big loop (thank goodness for the rubber boots and bug nets) but did we get our money’s worth!! As before, there was a local with a big machete accompanying our guide who would walk a bit ahead to check for a) danger and b) interesting stuff to see and c) interesting dangerous stuff to see.
First up, a baby sloth that was ridiculously cute and actually pretty active! You can tell he’s pretty young cos his coat still looks fur-colored, rather than the manky slimy green it gets when it is fully populated with mold, fungus and all the other grossness that cohabitates with sloths (feel free to go back and read my posts from Costa Rica on sloths). So we were off to a terrific start!!
Not soon after, the local guide came up to our guide, Vladamir, holding something very carefully in a palm leaf. Vladamir got VERY excited and beckoned us all over quickly – it was a tiny yellow and black poison dart frog that somehow the local guide had spotted on the forest floor! This thing was TINY – no bigger than your thumb nail – but they are HIGHLY toxic. These are the definition of a Lookin’ Frog – they are frogs just to look at. They are not for Licking. Yes – some frogs are indeed, licked, for the hallucinogenic properties of their skin’s secretions. We didn’t see any of those types of frogs – but we did see one of the vines used in the preparation of ayahuasca – a traditional tea that is brewed and used by shamans in traditional rituals and medicine. I think if you are into that kind of thing, then you’d probably be tempted to give it a go while here in Peru (I recall it was actually for sale in the markets in Cusco when Lisa and I visited 12 yrs ago) but I am not and frankly it sounds totally terrifying. You can read more about it HERE
Shortly afterwards we saw another type of poison dart frog – this time a bright red- also highly toxic. After the local guide let it go (he was holding them VERY carefully by one foot under his thumb – and he immediately went to clean his hands straight afterwards), Vladimir showed us the leaf it had been on – the glistening patch we could see was the poison excreted by the frog! The excitement continued just a couple minutes later with another “treat” brought to Vladimir on a leaf by the guide – THE LARGEST FOOKING TARANTULA I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!! It was another pink-toed special – a male and fully grown. Bizarrely enough, I’ve been finding that the larger the spider is, the less freaked out by them I am. That’s not to say I wouldn’t poop myself and scream like a demon if one dropped on my head while walking through the forest – but presented safely to me on a big ole leaf, I’m surprisingly OK with.
BUT WAIT – there’s more!! ITS ANACONDA TIME!! Yep – we saw a big ole Anaconda slithering through water – and it was awesome. I took a video below – the shaky bit at the beginning is where it suddenly changed direction and started heading straight for us – so we hastily retreated to a safer distance, per Vladimir’s urging! It wasn’t fully grown but was already maybe 5-6ft long. Such beautiful creatures.
After the anaconda we also saw another frog – a bright green one (White lined leaf frog) this time that wouldn’t kill you if you licked it – but we decided not to test our classification schema too closely, so just contented ourselves with lookin’. We also saw some cool spiky walking palm trees as well as a couple of giant banyan trees with their very distinctive buttress root system, as well as a funky bee hive. Not a bad haul for just over an hour’s walk!! Then it was time to head back to Aqua Nera for lunch.
We had one last boat trip in the afternoon, so we donned our mini lifejackets for the last time at 4pm and headed out to our skiff with the rest of the 7 nighters to see what Mother Nature might offer up to us for our very last exploration. I think Mama N felt she had overachieved in the rainforest cos she was a little more reserved in what she gave us on this last little voyage – with the exception of one bird that our guide got VERY excited about – the weird looking Hoatzin bird! Its a unique bird species that only lives in the Amazon and Orinoco basin and, according to google, is often called the “stinkbird” due to its distinct manure-like odor, caused by fermenting vegetation in its digestive system. You and me both, kiddo. Along with their 2 guts (yep, just like cows), as chicks they also possess claws on their wings which they use to climb trees and escape predators. Yes – they are pretty much still prehistoric dinosaurs! Anyway, that was about the last thing that we spotted before the end of the boat ride, so it was great to go out on a high and spot something that is pretty rare to see and that is so unique to this area.
On our way back to Aqua Nera, all the skiffs got together for a final cocktail on the river to toast a fantastic trip. It really has been fun and we’ve seen some terrific wildlife and met some interesting people along the way. All that was left to do tonight was to enjoy another photo slide show and crew presentation (I will share the slide show – if I can – when I get it from Aqua Nera after the trip) plus an extended concert from the Chunky Monkeys! Oscar – we love you for your incredible one-man show laundry service – but we know from watching you lead your fellow musicians where your true passion lies! Tomorrow is disembarkation day and we start the journey home to Chicago. We do have an interesting stop en route to the airport to a local wildlife rescue center which will include the manatee (which are very rare to see in the wild in this part of the Amazon) so that will be fun too. So just one more blog post, I’m afraid, for this trip – but I hope you’ve enjoyed them!
