Megann's Blog: Peru (day seven)

The magnificent travels of Megann Phillips: a journal

Day 07 in Peru

March 21, 2013

Oh, the rainforest!

        We went on four hikes today: one very early in the morning, one before lunch, one before dinner, and one night hike. For the AM hike we adjourned with a guide to Oxbow Lake, which used to be another branch if the Rio Madre de Dios, but is slowly drying into oblivion as the years pass. Our group hopped aboard paddle-powered raft and watched with hawk eyes the shores surrounding us. We didn't see much-- a prehistoric-looking flock if brown feathered birds, several bats beneath a log which flew off into the forest as we approached, a  caiman in the distance. The setting was serene and little-disturbed by the commotion of animals or humans alike. We passed a half hour fishing for piranha, and I'm proud to say that I, Megann Phillips, have caught (and released, of course) a flesh-eating piranha in the Amazon River Basin. 

        Our next hike was to a lookout over Clay Lake. Apparently, macaws, in general, need to consume clay in order to negate the toxins of the fruits and seeds they  digest, and macaws in the area flock to the cliff-like red clay banks of Clay Lake in order to do this. The company Dad, Cara, and I are touring with has a concealed lookout point facing these banks, and we all lie in wait there for nearly forty minutes expecting the colorful birds to make their grand debut. Unfortunately, although we could hear the calls if the macaws and see them resting in trees in the distance, we never got the close-up look we were hoping for. This came later.

        Back at the ecolodge, in between our second and third hikes, four red and green macaws flew into a tree just behind the thatched roof of the dining area. They were gorgeous and vibrant... and bigger than I expected, unlike the howler monkeys we saw around the same time.

        Before I saw the monkeys, I heard them, hooting and hollering loud and deep. I expected to see some enormous ape-like creature up in the trees, but instead found cat-sized, delicate little things flying branch to branch above me. One, I noticed, carried the slight figure of an infant on her back.

        On our third hike, we found ourselves traipsing though the gardens if a local shaman, all the while being lectured about the diversity if uses for a variety of rainforest plants. I was surprised to discover that the shaman could use his remedies to "cure" almost anything-- from menstrual irregularity to Parkinson's Disease, male sexual dysfunction to cancer and stomach ulcers. We tried shots of these holistic cures after our tour of the shaman's gardens was over, but when everyone else downed three different shots, I only managed one; I attempted to enjoy the Cat's Claw, which is supposed to remedy menstrual cramps, but it tasted like cough syrup. I focused all of my intentions in the following minutes on not vomiting.

        Our final excursion into the forest was lead by our guide (Delford) long after daylight hours had passed. With a silly-looking head light pulled over a wide-brimmed hat, we all walked as slowly as possible in order to spy the bugs that surely spotted us more often than we ended up spotting them. There we plenty of mosquitoes in the night-- even more than during the day. We saw a tree frog with it's tadpole tale still attached, and a caiman in the swamp; but the highlight of the outing was an enormous tarantula which Delford lured out of her nest with a thin twig.