Amazon

Day twenty-six: Puerto Maldonado to Cusco

12/12/2014Amazon, Family Travel, Peru, South AmericaCuscowestwardfive Leave a comment

It’s our eldest son’s 9th birthday today. What do you get a nine year old in the jungle, with an already full backpack?

We chose… a baseball cap, a new crisp clean t-shirt, a packet of haribos and an Amazonian keyring. The simplest set of gifts he has ever received. He also receives handmade birthday cards and a card from grandparents that we’ve been carrying around with us since we left the UK.

The manager of the hotel delivered a personalised birthday cake to him at dinner last night, along with a Spanish rendition of Happy Birthday and this morning one of the guides is taking him on his own personal tour of the jungle – which he has decided to invite his siblings to. Hopefully making this one of his more memorable birthdays!

His birthday jungle tour was a success; more spiders, monkeys and macaws on secret jungle trails they hadn’t been on before.

It’s our last day in the jungle as we’re travelling to Cusco and onto the Sacred Valley and Machu Pichu next. So, back in the canoe, back along the river and back to the butterfly house. EVERYONE gets out a phone at the butterfly house as soon as they hit the wifi signal and you can hear a groan when the transfer to the airport is ready, no one appears to want to disconnect.

We then enter Puerto Maldonado airport… the HOTTEST AIRPORT IN THE WORLD. An airport which has also RUN OUT OF BOTTLED WATER!

It seems the only place where the air conditioning is working is the mens toilet, don’t ask me why. So far this is our worst airport experience and it was about to get worse.

As we go through the x-ray machines, an over zealous security guard decides to put a pin in the boys’ football to deflate it. This ball has travelled, successfully, inflated, from London to Miami, on four flights all over Ecuador, two flights already in Peru, even on the same carrier as his employer – twice. Nine flights under our belt with the same exact ball tells me that it is not about to explode onboard.

But at this crappy little airport, with no water and no air conditioning, where we are about to board one of our shortest flights is where we have our first ‘scene’ of the trip.

You see… the children don’t have much to play with and our boys play with that football every day…. and we don’t have a football pump and I’m pretty sure we’re going to struggle to find one in Machu Pichu amongst all the alpaca jumpers.

The boys are absolutely devastated. There are tears, there is shouting, there is blame, there was very nearly swearing and name calling, but as they do ultimately have the power to refuse access to the plane we calm down a bit. There was finally an apology, followed by a non-acceptance of that apology and the promise to the boys of the purchase of a pump as soon as humanly possible. I know they are allowed to do it – my point is, they didn’t *need* to do it, especially on his birthday.

So… Cusco….

Cusco is at high altitude and we’ve booked two nights instead of one to help the family acclimatise before we travel onwards to Machu Pichu. The place is lovely and warm and we’re met at the airport by Mateo. We ask his help to rectify the football situation, hoping he might know where we can buy a pump. He doesn’t.

We’re offered coca candy and told that the hotel will give us coca leaf tea and we should all have it – including the children. On the transfer we see school children in big jumpers, woollen tights and boots. I look at what we’re wearing and four of us are in shorts, and all of us are wearing flip flops.

Mateo takes us through the itinerary for the next few days. I find out that we will be spending over nine hours on a train in about a weeks’ time. NINE HOURS. Apparently it’s a very nice train, but that had totally passed me by… I make a note to pay more attention when we book stuff.

Lost:

– air

Day twenty-four: Amazon Jungle, Peru (2)

08/12/2014Amazon, Family Travel, Peru, South AmericaGold, Jungle, Rainforest, Scorpian, Tarantulawestwardfive Leave a comment

This morning Checa takes the children on a jungle treasure hunt. They are taken through the jungle’s trail system to accomplish several tasks, earning them each a prize at the end.

We watch them as they knock lemons from a tree with a big stick and turn them into fresh lemonade for us all to drink… the best lemonade we’ve ever had.

They eat termites… well, one of them does… props to you, Mia. They make bracelets from seeds and other jungle treasures.

They have bow and arrow lessons, make fresh pizzas with the hotel chef (ahem… a genuine native Amazonian tradition, I’m sure), discover Macaws in the jungle and feed the resort’s pet spider monkey (saved when it was young as it had been abandoned by its mother).

It was an incredible experience for them all and they arrive at lunch buzzing with stories to share.

Next we are taken in one of their motorised canoes to Gamitana creek. Checa guides us through the Gamitana Model Farm and all their fruit trees and crops. He uses his machete to help pick and peel all the fresh fruit for us to try – we taste fresh limes, lemons, bananas, grapefruits, kiwi and star fruit. Most were lovely – the star fruit and the bananas were not!

We were shown around the farm’s banana house where the bananas are taken to help them ripen and sweeten. We also see the glass houses where peeled bananas are dried to supply local hotels for their breakfast buffets.

At the huge sugarcane plants we’re told to stand back as snakes are usually hiding in the bottom. He cuts down one of the canes and chops it up for us all to taste.

We’ve never tried fresh sugar cane before – it is gorgeous. It’s like a sweet drink and it comes at just the right time as we were all flagging in the humidity – a sugar lift is exactly what we needed.

Then… to help purify our insides (or something) we drink sap from a dragon blood tree.

We trek through the narrow jungle trails towards Sanipanga to an awaiting canoe for us to paddle back down the creek. It is a beautiful and almost silent journey, with only birds and the occasional fish interrupting us.

On the left hand side we see two people standing in the river up to their necks next to some heavy machinery dredging the river… it looks like a giant wash-board. They smile and wave…. but it’s a really odd sight. “Gold mining” says Checa. They are illegally dredging the banks of the river for gold. It causes erosion to the river banks, changes the course of the river and pollutes the water as they use high volumes of mercury. We’re told the police do all they can to control it but as it’s so lucrative mines continue to pop up all over the place.

We continue down the main river, heading back to the resort. The sun is going down and the river is absolutely beautiful.

Day twenty-five: Amazon Jungle, Peru (3)

07/12/2014Amazon, Family Travel, Peru, South AmericaCanopy, Policewestwardfive Leave a comment

Last night was our first jungle night walk. In the blurb, there are words about – how biological activity differs between night and day, and the mystery of the animal activity that awakens in the rainforest after dark…. but actually, I think it’s all just a test of a person’s level of scaredy-cat-ness.

It appears that mine is quite high. We see two tarantulas, a scorpion (who btw jump), a funnel web spider (second deadliest spider in the world), lots of leaf cutter ants, insects and some beautifully peaceful sleeping dragonflies and butterflies.

Happy when it’s all over, I find myself batting away imaginary creepy crawlies from my head for the next hour.

Today, right after discovering a frog by my shoes, we take a thirty minute boat ride to Lake Sandoval in the Tambopata National Reserve. It’s a 3km walk to reach the lake. It’s a beautiful secondary jungle and there are animal and bird noises everywhere. We’re learning to stop when we hear a branch snap to assess what it could be – a monkey, a macaw or a jaguar (only kidding). Our guide Checa has the most extraordinary ability to spot things, tiny things, amazing things, camouflaged things…. things we absolutely would have walked right past.

We see huge termite nests, butterflies, sleeping bats, monkeys, birds, caterpillars, beautiful macaws, he even entices a tarantula from its nest with a sharp blade of grass. Our most spectacular experience was being caught in the middle of three different groups of Red Howling Monkeys in a territorial howl off. They were in battle, but not one where they are in combat, this battle is won or lost on the volume of their howl. Whichever group loses… will simply retreat back to their territory.

It was incredible and really loud.

Lake Sandoval itself is beautifully calm and peppered with fairytale-worthy-lily-pads. We are in wooden canoes and paddle out to watch giant river otters fishing for their young.

It’s beautiful and calm. All until… a small toilet emergency is required in the middle of the lake. Not ideal when you’re sat with other guests and have heard one too many stories about penis fish…. so creatively we find a new use for the Katmandu dry bag we’ve been carrying around for weeks.

Back at our jungle base camp (ahem… I mean our swish resort) armed police arrive by boat just as we’re off on our final trip of the day. The leader asks to see the manager while some remain in the boat to man the jetty. Earlier that morning we had heard a big explosion and we’d assumed it was gold mine related. It was, but it wasn’t the gold miners doing the exploding… it was the police. They had discovered the mine we saw yesterday and blew up the equipment. Apparently the owner of the equipment will be jailed and fined and the workers will also receive a custodial sentence…. but first they have to catch them. They’ve been tipped off that they might be hiding on Inkaterra’s land and have come to search the place. These police are from the ‘hard-as-nails’ variety and however hard we try, we only manage to get one of them to smile (and show us his gun).

We finish the day on top of the jungle…. literally. We walk through the treetops of the giant Amazon basin, across hanging bridges…. only two at a time. They are more difficult (and higher) than they look.

Day twenty-three: Amazon jungle, Peru (1)

06/12/2014Amazon, Family Travel, Peru, South AmericaInkaterra, Jungle, Rainforestwestwardfive Leave a comment

Our hearts sink. It’s the next morning in Lima and the same ultra efficient tour guide is waiting for us in the lobby to take us back to the airport. It’s only the airport. And it’s only a domestic flight! We haven’t done ‘tours’ like this before, but the realisation that we must have paid for her in some way dawns on us and that some people must genuinely need help to navigate airports.

Thankfully Andy feigns a massive headache and asks her to be quiet for the journey to help the tablets take effect. We try saying goodbye to her outside the airport building, but she’s having none of it. She comes with us to explain how to check in and takes the boarding passes from the check in staff first before passing them to us and escorting us to security. I’m not sure how much of Andy’s sarcasm landed with her but she may have twigged that he was lying when he said he didn’t know how to board a plane.

We part company with the tour guide, make a couple of discrete purchases for an upcoming birthday and board the plane… successfully… all by ourselves. Today we go into the jungle.

Our flight takes us to Puerto Maldonaldo, where we’re taken by van to a holding area at the rather lovely Inkaterra Butterfly House (did you know Peru is home to 3,800 species of butterflies?).

It’s at the butterfly house that we are told that this is the last wifi access for five days as there won’t be any at the resort. Of course! It’s a jungle! It makes total sense! But had this possibility dawned on us before now? Nope. Not at all. Andy even has a Skype call scheduled within the next 48 hours. Apologies and reschedule requests are promptly sent and we ‘power off’ all our devices.

Next, we’re taken by a motorised canoe for an about an hour further into the jungle. As we are travelling lightly we are allowed to take all of our luggage. Others have to leave some behind at the butterfly house to collect later.

Trailfinders have booked us into the Inkaterra Amazon resort. It is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. The photos and blurb that we’d signed up to didn’t do it justice and we are happy that for the next 4 nights we will be in total jungle luxury (minus the wifi).

Each group are given their own jungle guide and our family have been allocated Checa who later that evening takes us through all the tours and activities available to us over the next few days. He has grown up in the jungle and has an incredible amount of knowledge and the children warm to him instantly.

We take the twighlight river cruise with Checa and his huge spotlight and search for nightjars, owls, capybaras and caimans. We’re successful with the caiman, all quite small and identified by the glare from the torch in their eyes. We also see capybaras but no owls or nightjars this time.

Items gifted:

– five Inkaterra branded refillable water bottles!!!!!

Day five: Equator, Ecuador

04/10/2014Amazon, Ecuador, Family Travel, QuitoEcuador, Equator, Quito, Volcanowestwardfive One comment

Today we head to Mitad del Mundo – Middle of the World – The Equator. There are two equators here, the original one and a second more accurate one (since the invention of GPS). Rather than real and not-so-real one, they prefer to be called old and new. We head to see both.

Mitad del Mundo

At the new equator (red line), the tour includes Ecuadorian culture and traditions – we learn how men in amazon tribes tie their bits up high with string to help avoid penis fish swimming up their urethra, how they shrink the heads of their enemies, how their spears have one end for animals and one end for humans (still used today in some parts of the Amazon where they are fighting with miners and poachers), how there are two doors in all Amazonian huts, one to come in and one to go out, to help keep bad spirits away, how the tribe wives were buried alive (dosed with sedative) alongside their husband on the male’s death.

Amazonian

The most alarming thing I learnt today was that the tradition of shrinking heads is still carried out today – but today it is practiced in order to fulfil international collector’s desires rather than because of any cultural tradition. Rather than wait for someone to die of natural causes and then cut the head off, remove the skull and shrink the skin, they will still choose to kill someone that has wronged them in order to fulfil the order. The middle man profits the most – heads are sold within Ecuador for $25,000 and then for more than triple around the world. The tribes, apparently, get very little. (We were told not to worry, we wouldn’t be targeted as the collectors want strong Amazonian facial features for authenticity.)

Shrunken head (right)

The tour includes several experiments that take place both on and around the equator. The tour guide was full of facts and the experiments were brilliant. It’s safe to say today’s trip pretty much nailed science for the kids this week. They learnt all of the following with no dramas, no negotiating, no bribery and no planning or research on our part:

What are northern v southern hemispheres.
The effect of the Earth’s rotation on the direction of wind and storms in both hemispheres.
The position of the sun and its effect on the depth of shadows at the equator. (In two weeks time, if we returned at midday and stood on the equator we would actually have no shadow at all.)
How tornados and cyclones spin in different directions as one is in the northern and one is in the southern hemisphere.
Forces – how it is only possible to balance a raw egg on a nail if you are exactly on the equator as it’s the only place where the force is entirely downwards with no sideways pull.
How easy it is to pull down a person’s raised arms when they are on the equator compared to if they stand either north or south of the equator, where they are able to resist.
How the equator in Ecuador is the highest point on the equator around the world.
How Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is 2.1 kilometres further from the earth’s core than Mount Everest.

And then… there was the sink experiment! Does the water spiral down the plug hole in different directions if you are a) on the equator, b) in the northern hemisphere, and c) in the southern hemisphere. Watch this video – you could probably win bets with this.

Oh and here is the video of our ‘balancing an egg on a nail’ experiment.

On the way back we hiked down into Pululahua Volcano, which is now green fields, inhabited and farmed! Well… when I say hiked, what I really mean is skidded down on a lot of loose stones, desperately hoping that no one took a tumble as I had forgotten to bring any form of first aid supplies. It appears that Clarks girl’s velcro trainers and two sets of Nike’s football/astroturf boots may be an inadequate choice to hike down a volcano. To top it off, as we hiked back up, trying to cope with the effects of being altitude novices, a lady who lives down in the valley literally sprinted past us on the same rumble we’d been skidding all over twenty minutes earlier.

Later at Notavalo Market (Cuicocha Lake) we met this gorgeous couple selling pots:

Gorgeous couple we met at the market.

Tips:

The visitor experience at the new equator is significantly more impressive than at the old one. From our experience, people get their photo taken at the old one, but you actually learn stuff at the new one. They are very close so you can easily do both – both have entry fees.
Trips into the Amazon must be taken with a guide/company to avoid areas where miners, poachers and tribes are in conflict.
You can arrange to stay with one of the tribes – just be aware, you must wear the same dress as them.

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