In the Amazon, Part Two

So, do you want to hear Part Two of our Amazon visit? Good. Here it comes:

Saturday

We got up and dressed Saturday morning, then went just outside our hut to cover ourselves with bug spray. Anytime we opened or closed our hut door, we'd do so in a hurried way so as not to let any bugs (or other creatures) in our room. I'm sure we looked a sight with each of us running in and out of our hut to shower in bug spray. 

We were excited to head to the Amazon Research Center (ARC), and felt extra energetic ahead of breakfast. At the dining hall, Tim and I grabbed coffee, and Giovanni -- the Lodge's waiter -- motioned for Taylor and Wyatt to come outside and bang on the drum. "Breakfast!" the kids yelled.

Banging the drum for breakfast.

We are going to miss Giovanni!

At 9am, we climbed into the boat, and drove up river with Lander and Mr. Acho. We didn't see much wildlife on the way, so the ride lasted about two hours (it would have been longer had we seen animals). When we arrived to the ARC, dang, it felt HOT outside. The kids were pining for a swim, so after getting a tour of the ARC from Lander, we changed into swimsuits and headed back to the dock. The cool water felt wonderful.

Swimming by the dock of the ARC.

Thirty minutes after our swim, the kids and I were walking to the hammock room when we saw Pelancho, one of the ARC staffers. He said to us, "Caiman!" and motioned toward the water. We followed him down the steps and onto the dock, and sure enough, there was a caiman on the other side of the boats. A flipping caiman, right near where we had been swimming. We learned later from Lander that this was a "friendly caiman," and one that likes to hang out in front of the ARC. [OMG.]

Saturday afternoon, Lander took us on a hike in the trail grid behind the ARC. The grid contains 55 miles of trails laid out in transects that spread over 1,000 acres and slice through four different ecosystems. It's the largest scientific trail system offered in the Amazon. The trail grid is super cool, and we saw a ton of stuff. Lander showed us an iodine tree, another tree from which you can collect 'jungle kerosene,' an açai tree, fire ants, tapir tracks, and bullet ants. Btw, bullet ants are HUGE and rightfully nasty-looking; if you get stung by one of these suckers, you're gonna be in a world of pain. Lander told us he'd been stung about six times in his life (no, thank you). We saw, too, a ton of termite nests, and we learned from Lander that you can place your hands on a termite nest, let the termites crawl over you, then crush them on your body, and use the termite paste as mosquito repellent. Give me ALL the termites, please.

Looking at and learning about trees in the jungle.

Can you see the massive bullet ants on the green leaf? They are giant ants!

At some point while we were hiking, Lander told us a story about when he was a kid in his village, and his family was out for a walk in the forest with their dog. His family essentially ran into a giant anaconda. Lander's family could see that the anaconda had just eaten, which is why it didn't make a move on the family. Lander, his dad, and siblings picked the anaconda up and took it back to their village. From there, they sold it to the rescue center.

During our hike, we learned that Lander had had malaria five times between ages 10 and 17. FIVE times.

The coolest thing we saw in the trail grid was an anteater. An anteater crossed the trail we were on and ran up a nearby tree. We watched it move to a second tree and then stare down at us. Soon, the anteater appeared to be drooling. Lander shared that the drool was because the anteater was angry -- we were in its way.

Anteater!

A close-up.

A bit further in the trail grid, and the rain came. We didn't even bother with our rain jackets this time; we let ourselves get wet. Lander calls it a jungle shower. By the time we got back to the ARC, we were sopping wet, and I was ready for a soapy shower.

My shower -- in the ARC's shared bathrooms, of course -- was cold. There hadn't been enough sun as of late to heat the solar panels well enough to produce warm shower water. I'm not sure how clean I got in that shower, but hey, I had already had a jungle shower.

That evening, we hung out in the dining hall with Laura, Jim, Gretchen, and Bam. We talked about our time in the Amazon, we talked about our lives back home. 

Following dinner, Lander and Mr. Acho took us out for a nighttime boat ride. Before we had even left the waters of the ARC, we saw our caiman friend and then a second caiman (you can see their eyes -- like a gold color -- just above the water). We saw a few more caiman nearby, a ton of bats, and an emerald tree boa.

A friendly caiman. Maybe.

Can you spot the emerald tree boa?

It was such a wonderful evening and night.

In fact, everything was wonderful until about 3:35 the next morning, when I woke up and kind of, sort of had to go to the bathroom. That's when the inner monologue started: "Sarah, you're getting up in two hours -- just wait." "Sarah, you'll be so much more comfortable if you go now -- just go now." The voice telling me to 'go now' won out, and so I fumbled around in the dark-dark night and found my glasses, my flip flops, and a long-sleeved shirt (because, mosquitoes). I stumbled out the bedroom door and made my way down to the bathroom. And darn it, it was a party in there! Bam and Gretchen were there, too -- ha! We all got the 3:30am call, evidently. For what it's worth, I know for sure that I picked up several new mosquito bites during that middle-of-the-night bathroom trip. Thanks a lot, bladder.

Sunday

Sunday morning came early. We were on the boat about 6:15am with Lander and Mr. Acho to go fishing again. And yes, we had another lovely breakfast on the boat. This time around, we didn't catch as many fish, but we (and by we, I mean Lander) caught our biggest piranha yet. We also caught a one-dollar fish, a freshwater barracuda, a couple white piranhas, and some catfish.

On our way back to the ARC, we stopped by the tree in which we had seen the tree boa the night before. That boa was still there, still curled up.

Can you see the boa now?

Getting the best possible view of the boa.

Of course we're all climbing this tree branch in flip flops.

Taylor has no plans to fall into the drink.

I don't want to end up in the drink either.

After Acho docked the boat at the ARC, the kids asked to go swimming again. We threw our swimsuits on and ran from the dock into the river. I'm not gonna lie -- I spent most of my swimming time looking for caimans.

In the afternoon, we hopped into the boat once more for an easy ride up river. We saw capuchins -- including two moms with babies on their backs. We sat and watched the capuchins for a while; it's breathtaking to see them jump from branch to branch and move through the forest.

We made our way to an enormous lake, called Dolphin Lake, and Acho stopped the boat. We all jumped in for a little swim. This lake was not hot like the one we had visited just a few days before, but it was definitely hot in spots. When we were back in the boat following our swim and headed for the ARC, I asked Lander: "Lander, were there caiman and alligators in that lake?" Lander replied, "Oh, yes. But they're friendly."

Jumping off the boat and into the lake.

Swimming time!

Taking a breather by the boat.

We were lucky enough to see squirrel monkeys on our boat ride to the ARC. Some of these monkeys, too, had babies on their backs.

After another delightful dinner with Laura, Jim, Gretchen, and Bam (Aoife's arrival to the ARC got pushed to Monday), we all said goodnight and retired to our huts. Because the rooms our family was in had only twin beds, we had two rooms -- Tim and Wyatt were in one, and Taylor and I were in another. Tim went to his room to lie down, and the kids came to my room to read before bed. And that's when I heard, "Mommy, there's a spider." Sure enough, there was a freaky-looking spider on the floor next to my bed. What did I do? I got Tim, and made spider-removal his problem. 

Mission: Get this crazy-looking spider far, far away from my room.

Tim, ever the genius, suggested I go get a cocktail glass from the bar in the dining room. While I was retrieving said glass, I ran into Jim. I told him about the spider, and asked if he wanted to come see it. He did. So the two of us went back to the room, and I passed the cocktail glass to Tim. Jim thought the spider looked like a tarantula. [OMG.] Tim placed the glass over the spider to trap it, then slid a piece of paper under the spider. He wrapped the glass in the remaining paper and quickly moved outside. Carefully, he removed the paper and shook the spider out of the glass. We watched the spider land on the ground below. Jim took the cocktail glass back to the bar, and then we all went to sleep. 

But sleep was not for long. About 2am, a giant thunderstorm hit. I don't think I've ever, ever heard rain come down so hard or so fast. There was rain, thunder, and lightning -- all the works. Tim was up, I was up, Wyatt was up; Taylor's the only one who slept through it. We think the river had risen by a full meter when we saw it the next morning.

Monday

Our plan on Monday had been to spend most of the day going to yet another lake -- a special lake where we could see more caiman and pygmy marmosets (the world's smallest monkey) and incredible birds. But after that insane rainstorm from the night before, we were having second thoughts, especially because there was a four-hour round-trip hike involved to get to and from the lake. We talked to Lander and rearranged our day.

[Also, we showed Lander the photo of last night's spider. He told us it wasn't a tarantula, but just a regular jungle spider. Still, that thing needed to go (outside).]

In the morning, we went back out into the trail grid and hiked for three hours. On this hike, we saw some owl monkeys, a jungle chicken, the common potoo bird, and other birds. Wyatt spotted a yellow-footed tortoise buried under some branches. We did not get rained on, and the mosquitoes tore us up.

We waded through some small streams and big puddles following Sunday night's rainstorm.

A trail grid marker.

Did I take a cold shower after our hike? Yes, yes I did.

After lunch -- Aoife had joined us by then -- we headed up river on the boat. We motored for almost an hour before we saw white-moustached tamarins in the trees. We watched them jump trees for a little while, and got going again. Then -- then -- Lander motioned for Acho to cut the boat motor and pull over to the riverbank; he had seen something in the trees. Lander whipped out his binoculars, scanned the trees, and whispered excitedly, "Pygmy marmosets! Two of them! In the trees!" Pygmy marmosets are tiny, and how Lander was able to spot these two (or any of the animals he spotted during our stay), is absolutely beyond my comprehension. Lander got out of the boat and had us follow; Acho came, too. We stood just a bit into the forest and looked up -- and we saw the pygmy marmosets. Here again, we were in awe. We watched these amazing little monkeys run up and down the tree for a while, and then, when we couldn't take the mosquitoes eating our legs anymore, we climbed back into the boat. Lander and Acho stayed on the riverbank, just mesmerized by the pygmy marmosets. As we drove back to the ARC, we thanked Sachamama.

Photo of a pygmy marmoset taken through our binoculars.

Now there are two!

Dinner on Monday night was bittersweet. It would be the last night our Amazon 'gang' would be together. Bam, Gretchen, and our family were leaving the next morning. Jim and Laura would be staying until the 10th, and Aoife would be at the ARC until the 17th. We had formed this tight community over the past week, in this amazing and challenging environment, and we felt sad about breaking it up.

The ARC kitchen crew had baked us a marvelous chocolate cake, and we sat at the dinner tables for an extra long time that night. 

Our Amazon gang, clockwise from bottom left: Sarah, Taylor, Gretchen, Laura, Aoife, Bam, Jim, Wyatt, and Tim.

Look at this beautiful cake! The people who work at both the Lodge and the ARC are seriously amazing.

To no surprise to anyone, another downpour had started. Lander and Tim had talked about going for a night hike, but bailed on the idea once the rain started. We spent some time on Monday night with Lander, too. Wyatt gave him a picture he'd drawn of the Amazon. We asked Lander to help us remember the animals we'd seen (we were keeping a running list). And we talked about our incredible experience, and thanked Lander for all that he'd done for us.

Tuesday

My alarm rang at 5am, and I grabbed my glasses, flip flops, and long-sleeved shirt, and shuffled in the dark-dark to the bathroom. I probably picked up another 37 mosquito bites while going to the bathroom, but at that point, couldn't muster any energy to care. By 5:30am, the ARC staff had put out coffee, and Tim and I took 10 minutes to sit and caffeinate. We then roused the kids, packed the rest of our bags, and said our goodbyes. By 6:15am, we were in the boat with Lander -- Acho was staying at the ARC -- to head for the Lodge. Bam and Gretchen would meet us at the Lodge in a few hours; we would all go together from the Lodge back to Iquitos. We had chosen an earlier start because we hadn't yet seen El Chino and we wanted to; El Chino was a village down river from the Lodge. Several of the Lodge employees lived in El Chino.

Ten minutes into our boat ride to the Lodge, the motor completely fell off our boat. We all sat there stunned for a few seconds and then Lander said, "I am so sorry, but can you please help me paddle?" Lander, Tim, Taylor, and I each took a paddle, and began paddling back to the ARC. Of course, we were paddling up river, and it was a heavy boat with all of us and our bags. From time to time, Lander would call out, "Ayuda! Ayuda!" And sometimes he would call out, "Acho!" There was a plus to our paddling though, and that is that we saw a woolly monkey staring down at us from a tree.

Gulp. That's not good.

Paddling back to the ARC.

We paddled our way back to the ARC, and got out of the boat. ARC staff brought out a new motor and got to work straight away on repairing the boat. We filed into the dining hall, got another cup of coffee, and had a good laugh with our friends.

After about 25 minutes, Lander told us the boat was ready. We were now in a different boat, and the staff had placed a high-powered motor on this boat. How high-powered? Well, let me just say we drove from the ARC to the Lodge in 30 minutes (it had taken us two hours to get from the Lodge to the ARC).

We dropped our bags off at the Lodge and then headed down river to El Chino village. In this 250-person village, there's a Kindergarten, an elementary school, a high school, and a couple stores. It was so, so cool to see the village and learn about the people in it. We also had an opportunity to visit a women-run artisanal market, and we picked up a few handmade souvenirs.

El Chino village.

Learning about El Chino.

Every home is built on stilts.

Women artisans packing up after we went "shopping" at the market.

The first story of this building houses one of the village stores.

Looking up river from El Chino.

Then it was back to the Lodge to prep for the ride to Iquitos. But Sachamama had one more treat for us -- one of the guides spotted a three-toed sloth in a tree just off the Lodge's property, and he alerted us to it. Through our binoculars, we could see the sloth (slowly) moving around the tree. We loved seeing this animal!

About 10am, we boarded the boat bound for Iquitos. Gretchen and Bam were there, too, as were three of the four Lodge guests who had arrived Friday. All of our guides came with us.

Walking down the dock to the Iquitos-bound boat.

That's the Amazon River in the background.

The guides fed us a boxed lunch at the Lodge office in Iquitos. We had some time to kill before heading to the airport, so Lander put us in a couple tuk-tuks and took us through an Iquitos market. We also walked down to the river and saw a humongous bridge being built. This will be the first bridge in Iquitos; you may recall that, as of now, Iquitos is only accessible via boat or plane.

Hello from our tuk-tuk.

Riding through Iquitos.

Visiting a food market. Note the alligator head -- nothing goes to waste.

Walking through the market.

Looking at the bridge being built. When the bridge is finished, Peru's president will come to Iquitos for the dedication.

Nope, not candy. Grubs on a stick.

Grubs in a bowl. Tim and Wyatt did NOT go for these; they like 'em fresh out of nuts in the forest. ;)

About 3pm, our large group -- guides, too! -- hopped in a van and drove 30 minutes to the Iquitos airport. All of us guests were on the same flight -- the 5:45pm flight to Lima.

At the airport, we exchanged goodbyes with Lander. We are really going to miss him -- he inspired us and taught us and became our friend.

The Amazon left its imprint on all four of us. We're not the same people who showed up at the Lodge on February 1, toting flimsy plastic water bottles and mediocre bug spray. We're still wimps (I mean, we'll never pick up an anaconda or get near bullet ants), but I'd like to think we're slightly stronger wimps. We spent eight days in the jungle, surrounded by nature at all times, doing and feeling things that we've never done or felt before, and we'll carry those memories with us forever.

Sachamama gave us a most wonderful adventure, deep in the Peru jungle. To this spirit mother of the Amazon, muchos gracias.

Thank you, Lander, for everything.