Jungle boogie!

Holy Hannah but we´ve been busy since we got to Cusco. John´s caught you up on most of it, but there were three days of Inca ruins, salt pans, Machu Picchu of course, with insane roads to get to it and rude Peru Rail employees to boot. On the way back from the ruins there was the cutest kid who ran all the way down the hill meeting the bus at each switchback (did John write that part?). Then we had one short night´s sleep and were on a bus at 6 a.m. to head for Manu National Park. The crew we were with was great, and we saw all kinds of wildlife ove the course of things.
A partial list: Quetzal, Oropendulo, Toucan, Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Wooly Monkey, Red Howler Monkey, Egrets, Cormorants , Turkey Vultures, Squirrel Monkey, ´night´ mokeys, Agouti, Maccaws, Wild Turkey, Sun Bittern, Caiman (eyes), Wolf Spider, Scorpion Spider, Red Tarantula, Cane Toad, even bigger toad, all kinds of giant grasshoppers and crickets, Hawk, Armadillo, Capybara, and a few more I´m sure.

After John wrote last, our guide, after dinner, regaled us with tales of moths that lay eggs in your dirty clothes and then, when you wear them again, their larvae burrow into your skin to grow, and ones about ants attracted to food in your room, that can then get on your bed and in your ears where they quite happily eat and sting you.

It was really easy to fall asleep.

At five the next morning we got back on the bus for a short ride to the boat landing. We made a quick stop at a small coca plantation on the way where William showed us a few other native plants, including one that has a red substance inside that people paint on to repel mosquitos. It´s also used as an ingredient in some lipsticks, and William decorated most of the party in war paint, just to set the scene.

We helped move the load from the bus to the boat, then settled in for our ride down the river. About 90 minutes after starting, we scrambled up a steep muddy bank and down to a small stream. Above the stream there was a small collecting pool for really toasty hot springs. At one point there were about 15 of us in a pool the size of your average hot tub, but half as shallow and less efficiently shaped. It was quite fun. I only fell once climbing up to the damned thing, scraping my arm, and surely engendring a bruise, though it has yet to show up. As we slipped down to the main cooler pool, where butterflies, including great big blue ones, fluttered around the sides, William, our guide appeared with his arms full of sandy mud. We were instructed to rub it all over ourselves, and were soon a bunch of muddy savages. Much photography ensued. We let the mud dry off and washed up, feeling much smoother with all our dry skin sloughed off, then back to the boat for a delicious lunch of chicken and rice.

A few more hours in the boat, and we disembarked near the Bonanza lodge. We shouldered our bags and helped to unload, slipping and sliding along the muddy path to the compound. I decided not to carry the eggs, being unsure of my footing. Only one person, Oscar, actually fell, and aparently it was spectacular. I´m sorry to have missed it.

We settled in to our cabins, had a snack, and were issued rubber boots before heading out on a late afternoon and early evening walk. We scrambled through all kinds of rainforest, saw the family farm, all kinds of birds... At one point William and his friend Alex were hacking apart a fallen tree to try and get at some bugs we were to eat for supper, but there were none to be found. Quelle dommage.

We were into the forest to seek out insects at this point, so John went back to the lodge with Alex so as not to be faced with the reality of spiders. The bugger took the light with him too, which left me at a medium disadvantage. Fortunately, my companions were very sweet and took good care of me. It was a great walk, except for the part where the giant grasshopper got on my ass and no one would remove it.

Supper was delicious, and we hung out for a good while afterwards, talking and laughing, before retiring to our beds.

Another early morning ensued, and was met with pouring rain. After breakfast we kitted back up in our boots and rain ponchos and everything and set out for a longer walk through the jungle. We´d been issued with little plastic bags of snacks, and banana-leaf-wraped lunches. The selection of animals was pretty low due to the rain, but we looked at a bunch of cool plants, including one with a flower called Inca´s braid, whose blooms can be cut off to make parrot noses. There was also a garlic tree, a few kinds of ficus, John got to hack into a rubber tree with a machete, a walking tree, an ´´erotic tree´, whose roots look like phalluses, that comes with its own set of beliefs. We scrambled over all kinds of fallen trees, walked through rivers, many of which were well above the tops of our boots, and eventually reached a bigger river, which we were to swing across using a liana. Knowing there were Caimans in the river did not make this an enticing prospect. A couple of people swung across quite well, and then William went over to cut down some foliage that was making the landing a bit dangerous. Our Irish companion, Barbara, swung across next, and landed quite well, but was too nervous to let go of the liana, and so fell in. Then it was my turn, and I was decidedly nervous, not least because both my hands and the vine were very wet and slippery. I fulfilled my own nervous prophecy, as usual, losing my grip and sliding down the vine until my feet were eventually in the water, at which point I had no chance to let go. I was swimming towards the bank, wet and unhappy, but fine, until I got stuck in a tree just before the bank, and couldn´t get out. William then came to save me, and I clambered over the tree, but I was a big mess by then.

Once everyone else had swung across and I´d emptied out my boots, William announced that we were all just too wet and that it was a long way back the way he planned to go, so it was probably better to just go back to the ranch for lunch, and that we could cross back over the river on a bridge.

The bridge turned out to be a very slippery tree across the river, and by then my glasses were so wet and muddy and steamed up that I couldn´t see, and I was all full of complete panic. William helped my edge gently across the log and I was finally ´safe´. Thank goodness for William.

We trudged back, damply, along the same route, stripped, showered (in lovely cold water) and changed, then sat down to eat our (now very damp with river water) lunches. The rest of the afternoon was spent in hammocks, playing cards, talking and laughing. We had barbecued chicken straight from the firepit for dinner, some beer and wine and a mini dance party.

Bedtime still came pretty soon though, as we had a 4:30 a.m. wakeup call.

Yesterday was a long day full of transportation. Four hours and breakfast in the boat, then nine hours with super-formula-one driver Americo in the bus. We made it back to Cusco just fine though. Everyone moved out to their hostels to shower and change and nap, and then we went out to celebrate the birthday of Mase, the one female Spaniard. We had a lovely dinner full of hysterical laughter about the trip, red wine, and email exchanges. The rest went off to get a drink after that but John and I peeled off to call his parents and go to bed.

We´d sacrificed a double bed for a good shower, but ended up both in one single halfway through the night, as the room was FREEZING. Today we´ll get some Inka massages and see a bit more of Cusco before heading to Arequipa on a night bus. We´ll spend one night there, then overnight again to Lima.

We start our journey home on the 28th, overnighting in New York (tired), and then hit Halifax around 3 on the 29th. I don´t know if we´ll be much up for company on the weekend, but John´s thinking about brunch on Sunday. We´ll let you know!