Ryan and I woke up and lounged around watching TV. We got most of our stuff packed and I took a shower, and we headed to breakfast. We state with Chenine and eventually Betina and Martine showed up. Jill and Franzesca were also eating, and I checked my email. We had hard boiled eggs instead of scrambled today.
We went upstairs to bring our bags down and our airport transfer arrived at 9:30. At the airport we checked our bags and our GAP rep went and paid our airport tax, and gave us money for the tax for on the way back to Lima. We went through security which seemed more strict than in Lima, had enough time to buy batteries and scan the gift shop and we boarded our plane to Puerto Maldonado. It was a very short flight, only about 45 minutes. When we landed there was nothing but thick vegetation and trees. The airport was the smallest I've seen, one long rectangular building that is completely open. You debard down stairs and you can see them roll up your luggage onto the turnstile.
We met our new guide, also named Cesar, and loaded onto a bus. A short ride through the city to the office of the lodge company, the Libertador Tambopata Eco Lodge. Puerto Maldonado is just what you'd expect for a small jungle city. Everyone was riding motorcycles even cab drivers, and there were cows int he street. The office was just a small room where we put what we needed for the next few days into duffel bags and left our suitcases behind. It's insanley hot and humid and we were already covered in sweat.
Next we reloaded onto the van/bus and started a 1 hour drive to a small villiage on the river named Infierno. (The settlers named it that because its so hot to live there!) The road was one lane and dirt, and full of holes and cows. We crossed several bridges made of wooden planks - most with huge haps, and I swear almost got stuck several times! Even Ryan was starting to feel the motion sickness.
At Infierno we left the bus next to a wooden hut (with a satellite dish?!) and loaded onto the motorized canoe. It was more a flat bottomed boat, long and skinny with seats along both sides. The life jackets were huge, mine looked more like an orange dress, and once we were on our way we were given a boxed lunch. It came in a tiny covered basked, and had 2 small bananas, fried roots, white rice, veggies with beets, and fried chicken. The boat ride took about 1.5 hours. We arrived at the lodge and there were tiny black monkeys eating bananas.
We had to walk up stairs where bottle caps were nailed into the wooden planks for traction. Once we were there we went into the bar and were served cold sweet juice and got our room keys. The bungalows are totally cute, it had 3 single beds (very comfy) with mosquito netting. It's all newly tiled, including the toilet and shower, which are the nicest we've had so far on the trip. There is no electricity, but candles for light at night and solar panels to heat water for the showers. The rooms are open to a thatched roof, which means its open to the room on the other side, so we can hear everything Chenine is doing (the only downside). We had about 2 hours until we met at 6:30. I fell asleep and Ryan read and got bored.
We met Cesar and our group at the bar and went to see a slide presentation about the lodge. It had hilarious 70s-esque music but wasn't bad. From 7-8 we took a nature walk that left past the dining hall looking for mostly bugs. We saw several spiders, weevils mating, stick bugs, huge ants, and heard an incredibly loud bamboo rat. Cesar had us turn off all our lights and stand and listen and man, the jungle is LOUD! It was creepy and I'm glad Ryan didn't jump at me even though I know he wanted to.
From there we had dinner: rice, beef, custard for dessert, and headed to our bungalows for bed. The heat and humidity were really getting to me, I had felt nauseous the whole walk. Ryan slept in the mosquito net, but I opted to go without, the bungalow seemed pretty secure, even if we had to put all our food in a lock box.
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