Jungle Fever

Wow, what an amazing trip into the Amazon!!! After spending a day in Iquitos fighting the extreme heat and humidity, we escaped 140km upriver on the Amazon to a jungle lodge called Muyuna Lodge. The lodge complex was sitting on a side arm off of the Amazon right in the middle of the jungle and it was absolutely stunning! We had a little jungle hut with our own private bathroom and our own hammock to ourselves. The entire thing was covered in mosquito net to keep the gringos safe from the creepy crawlies (and there were a lot of them, trust me!).

Upon arrival we were greeted by the manager with a cold juice while some lodge staff took our bags to our hut. Immediately after lunch we set off on our first jungle trek. This was a shorter hike that took us in behind the lodge, but we managed to see and hear more than some people see in their entire stay at the lodge. Several spieces of monkies, including the famous Howler Monkey and the smallest monkey in the world, the Marmoset Monkey, lots of birds, a tarantula spider, bullet ants and a bunch of other insects and plants. Our guide Julio was quite excited by the Howler Monkeys and when they stopped making the howler sound, he quickly took over and made his own howling sound. Not sure why it is that most natural guides think they can attract the animals by trying to imitate their sounds....it never works!

We met a bunch of other lodge visitors over our buffet dinner and in the evening we were all treated to a night ride in the boat looking for nocturnal life. Again we were super lucky and managed to catch a Caiman. Caimans in the Amazon can live up to 70 years and grow up to 7 meters long. The one we caught was about 3 years old and roughly 1 -1.5 meters long. We all took turns holding it. Very, very cool!

The following couple of days we made excursions of various sorts, looking for wildlife in the area. Another jungle trek which was more remote and a bit longer than the first one had us discovering more monkeys and snakes. One of the snakes that we saw is the most poisonous land snake of the area, the Fer De Lance. It was sitting on a log by the water's edge and it had a serious cut on its body. Our guide thinks that a hawk must have grabbed it and then dropped it. Lucky for the snake to have survived! We also saw an aquatic Fer De Lance.

We made an attempt to go Piranha fishing but a severe rain and thunder stormed moved in on us. We got caught in the storm on the water trying to rush back to the lodge. The rain was so heavy that it was almost impossible to see where we were going. Two lightning bolts hit the water right in front of our boat making us all feel tingly and strange....and very scared. One of them killed our motor and the driver had to work pretty hard to get us moving again. Very strange that it didn't hit us since our boat was made of aluminum or something similar. I had a moment of "Hmm, this is why I was so afraid of thunder as a kid - I'm going to die from lightning", but thankfully we managed to get back to the lodge. We were all pretty shaken up and decided to go fishing the next day instead. Piranha fishing was super fun. We both caught a bunch and I also caught something else fun and weird. The chefs at the lodge cooked them up for us for lunch and they were all very tasty. We also had a chance to see giant Lily pads, prehistoric birds and river dolphins. There are two kinds of river dolphins in the Amazon, the pink dolphin and the gray dolphin. During the dolphin searching we also got a chance to jump in and swim around in the Amazon! Pretty amazing! But also a bit weird since the last few days had been spend getting information about all the poisonous and dangerous stuff that lives in the jungle and in the river.

This place would be heaven for any bird lover. Every morning we would wake up to a very loud concert of birds hanging out in the trees outside the hut. When on the river we would see so many different birds that it was hard to keep track. Parrots, Toucans, Herons, Hawks, Vultures, and so many birds native to the area that I can't remember the name of. One of them was especially fun. It would sit down and make a sound like a big waterdrop was dripping out of a huge tap (blooop), and while making the sound it would flip the bum feathers up in the air and expose the bum.

On the last night after a rain storm had blown through I was hanging out in our hammock and really enjoying the cool air moving in. I thought that if the air gets this cool, I could easily enjoy living here. As the evening went on I kept getting cooler and I keep thinking that "this is great", but after a couple of hours I found myself in bed with a big fleece blanked wrapped around me and I realized that the air was not getting colder....I was having a fever! It was over in a couple of hours and then I felt fine again. I probably reacted to the very hot weather and might have been a bit dehydrated.

It was hard to leave the lodge. We had so much fun exploring the jungle and the river and all the people at the lodge were super fun to hang around. I would very much recommend anyone who would like to see the Amazon to visit the Muyuna Lodge. The staff makes the entire trip super easy. You can be met at the airport in Iquitos and be taken care of from there on. Seeing the Amazon is an experience unlike any other! A very special trip!