Jungle Boogie - 20th April 2009

We'd booked ourselves onto a 2 week tour of the highlights of Peru with Tucan Travel. Our first port of call was Puerto Maldonado – a gateway port to an array of lodges dotted along the Madre de Dios river in the Amazon basin

An hour and a half up the river from Puerto Maldonado we came to our lodge – a fantastic setup with lots of little bungalow huts, and a bar and restaurant serving up some excellent fresh food each day.

Our first trip into the jungle was to Monkey Island (everyone loves a Monkey Island) in the middle of the river. Although these monkeys are now somewhat tamed, as they are pretty used to the tourists turning up every couple of days, it was still great to see these funny little buggers in their home environment. Swinging from vine to vine, they suddenly drop down to ground level to take a banana from the group, and it was not uncommon for them to find comfortable ground sitting on top of someone's head.

The best part of the following day was spent trekking into the jungle checking out some of the rainforests critters, and learning about the purposes of loads of the jungle trees, the most memorable of which is the Justice tree which used to be used to tie criminals to, so the red fire ants that live within the tree could bite the prisoner to death in 8 hours. Pleasant.

Just being in the jungle was an exhilarating experience. The sounds of the jungle are incredible, with the tucans, parrots, and all sorts of other things flying around squawking pretty damn loudly. Plus the smells and the humidity all added to the experience making me feel a million miles from anything I'd experienced like this before.

A night trip up the river looking for alligators showed us just quite how clear the sky can be when you escape city smog, as we could clearly see the milky way and the occasional shooting star (plus 3 wee alligators, which we saw for a total of about 6 seconds before they disappeared under the water!).

All in all, a cracking experience, but I won't have any desperate urge to go back to the jungle if its this kind of touristy setup. Spending time with some undiscovered Amazonian indigenous tribe however, is still on the list of things to do.... maybe next year.