Puerto Maldonado, Puerto Maldonado, Peru Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Amazon today, to be honest... I haven't been looking forward to this part, and no... It's not due to the lack of WiFi or electricity, despite what people think I can survive without these. I just don't like creepy crawly creatures, snakes, alligators but most of all Mosquitoes.
We got up this morning once again before 7am, and I've decided it's the noise of all the people outside our room. We had breakfast and killed a little bit of time before the taxi arrived to pick us up.
We arrived at the airport with plenty of time spare, although we didn't need so much spare time, it was good to get there and not have to stress about being late. Not that it mattered, ended up that the plane was delayed, the gate for the flight changed and to top it off, they overbooked the flight so had to bump people. Luckily we didn't actually get bumped, but if we had, we would have got US$150, so wouldn't have been so bad. We got to our seats on the plane only to find that Bruno and I both had middle seats. So we weren't even sitting next to each other, both of us stuck between two random people.
While we sat between two random people each, the plane sat on the runway. We waited and waited and eventually took off about 45 minutes later. After a shaky take off for the first few minutes it was relatively smooth flying from then on.
We landed in Puerto Maldonado and as the doors opened, it was obvious how warm it was going to be. The humidity and heat were the worst (or best depending on what you like) that they had been our entire trip so far. We quickly got to the bag collection area thinking that it may be a little better in the terminal, however that made little to no difference. After collecting our bags we made our way outside to meet out new guide called Tony.
The original plan was to travel by bus for 10 minutes into the main office to repack our bags, but due to the delay in our plane, we made our entire 45 minute trip by taxi along a bumpy and very slow road to where our boat was waiting for us. We took the boat about 2 hours up the river along the way stopping to look at Red Howler Monkeys, Cayman & Capivara which are apparently the worlds largest rodent.
We arrived at Cayman Lodge where we got our room along with gumboots to wear while we walk the rain-forest. After checking our room out Bruno went to the soccer field and played soccer. The locals have a game there every day at 4:30, so Bruno was able to enjoy running around the field, sure he would have loved it after being stuck on the plane for so long.
I headed down to the river to relax on the hammocks which I had spotted on my way in. It was very relaxing to just lay there and do nothing but listen to the birds and insects next to the river.
We met the others at 6:30. They are Clara, Karan (pronounced Karn) & Sasha. Clara and Karan are both currently living in Queenstown, although originally Clara is from Scotland, Karan from India and Sasha is from Russia currently living in Dubai. After meeting each other we headed out for an evening walk around the forest looking for spiders, snakes, etc. certainly not my kind of thing, we did however see snakes, spiders, frogs and Dragonflies. While I knew I wasn't really going to enjoy it, I figured I'd better go anyway.
We got back and had dinner, the meal was probably the best part of today for me, Some kind of chicken curry, it was a welcomed sight.
8pm and dinner was finished, decided there wasn't anything else to do so I might as well head off to bed, not really enjoying the amazon so far.
Where I stayed
Cayman Lodge Amazonia - Arequipa 655 , Puerto Maldonado, Peru
I rated this place 4/5 - Calm and relaxing
While my first impression of the place weren't great, this was more because I wasn't really enjoying my first day of heat and Mosquitoes. After giving this place a chance, it was rather relaxing resting in the hammocks next to the river. The rooms all have there own bathrooms and showers, and while the showers don't have hot water, it's not really required as the heat in the air is warm enough. While the rooms don't have electricity, the lodge does have a generator that kicks in from 5:30 to 9:30 so you an charge your devices like Cameras and phones. No WiFi, but hey, that has to be expected in the Amazon.