We woke up by 5 to have breakfast at 5:30. Toast, omelets, and bacon, all pretty good. Our attire was long pants tucked into our socks, hiking boots, long sleeves, and DEET on any skin left showing. We got back into our boat, this time a skinnier one, and were dropped off at a trailhead. We hiked slowly looking for animals. We spotted a huge tree lizard, 2 green parrots, spiders, giant grasshoppers, beetles, and many more ants! We arrived at an ox bow lake (it used to be a part of the river but over the years has separated) and ate crakers, mandarins, and passion fruits. We floated on the lake and saw birds, mosquito eating bats, and tons of butterflies.
On the other side of the lake we hiked to see 2 giant fig trees. Cesar stopped us because he thought he heard wild pigs. We were quiet and walked slowly and on the backside of the giant tree we saw 4 wild pigs! They were dark black and hairy, and you could hear them snorting and gnashing their teeth. They had babies with them but I didn't see those, you could smell them all though!
We saw the 2 trees, the 2nd was hollow enough you could walk into it! Then it was back to the lake, we threw crackers in the water to watch the fish eat. (I didn't see any pirahna but I guess they do live in the lake) and watched butterflies bees and flies land on our clothes to lick the salt off of us. We hiked back to the river. On the way back to the lodge we saw 7 turtles sunning themselves on a log, and we pulled the boat over and got off to see a family of red howler
monkeys high in the trees!
Back at the lodge we took cold showers, and laid around in our underwear resting. Resting included getting a beer before we had lunch at 11. We had a sliced avocado with onion, tomato, and olives, chicken, rice, and watermelon. We decided to visit a plantation rather than take another walk, and took naps until about 3:30. On our way to meet up with the group there was a giant grasshopper that Ryan coaxed onto his sleeve, and then the giant bird named Sophie tried to eat it! Sophie followed us to the lodge, apparently she likes people. Chenine was feeling sick and didn't join us, so 4 of us got back into the boat and were off to the plantation. The whole visit was only about an hour, but we saw 5 different varieties of bananas and plantains, mangos, limes, pineapples, roots, basil, lemongrass, corn, ginger, and a different sour citrus that originated in Brazil! There were roosters, babies, hens, and fat pigs too!
We tried the citrus and the avocado, heard thunder, and got back to the lodge as it started raining. Chenine was sitting outside the bar so we sat and talked with the group and drank a beer while Sophie the bird walked around us. I went back to the room to eat a snack and ditch my sunglasses and then met back around 6:30. Cesar brought us a large plate of fried plantain chips and we ate those while Betina tried to convice him that her bug bite was really a worm. About 10 to 7 we got back onto the boat for our cayman viewing tour. It was kind of creepy at first, riding in the boat in total darkness, but Cesar used a big spot light to find cayman on the banks of the river by their eye reflections. We saw 3 species, a medium sized one called the speckled cayman, a huge one called the black cayman, and a really small one. We also saw a red deer, and a type of heron that is very rare, it looks white with a black mohawk on its head. The cayman just stared at you and would walk away or stand still. We were only about 1.5 meters away from them! Cesar had the boat stop and turned off the light and we heard the water and the jungle noises in the dark.
Then it was back to the lodge for a dinner of juice, rice, beef, and a chocolate mousse like dessert. Cesar and Chenine didn't want theirs so Ryan and Martine dug in! We headed back to our bungalow and got ready for bed. It was much cooler and we still kept all our windows open even though the neighbors all had theirs closed. It rained steadily all night which kept the jungle noises to a minimum.
No comments:
Post a Comment