4th November - Jungle Tour Day 1

We had breakfast in the hotel. 6 Nuevos Soles (about a quid) gets you bread, jam, coffee and juice. Met the tour guide, Paul. He is Peruvian but speaks excellent English. Took a flight from Lima to Cusco - Puerto Maldonado (the main port for entry to the jungle). The flight had some tasty turbulence. I was trying to remember what caused turbulence - is it when cold air (Andes) meets hot air (jungle)? Our stop in Cusco gave us a taster of what to expect on the Inca Trail. But that is next week!

Getting of the plane at Puerto Maldonado was like stepping into Bangkok - hot, humid and looked like it would pour at any moment. We took a bus to the jetty for our motorised canoe that would take us to the lodge. We stopped off to but waterproof ponchos and water for the next 3 days.

The canoe took about 90 mins to get to the lodge. The river was brown just like all the geography books and documentaries and you felt if you dangled your hand over the side you'd probably lose it to a piranha. The trip was fairly dull apart from when we had to navigate through a sea of trees that had been uprooted by the day before's rain.

We arrived at the lodge which comprises about 20 different cabins with running water (cold) and twin beds. The windows have mosquito-proof netting. Our cabin (called Sachavaca, which means river cow, ie a tapir) is about 50M from the river bank and has a restaurant, bar, pool and acres of trees, flowers and some very strange-looking birds and animals.

We had lunch straight away and it was a good opportunity to meet the other travellers. There are 8 of us. Me, Bryce Major, a couple from England (Peter and Jane - nice), a couple from Canada (Ted and Jean - boring) and 2 newly-weds from Galway (Brigeene and Willy - great fun). Lunch was chicken, rice, grapes and olives served in a banana leaf. Dry but better than the airplane food.

At 4 we went on a short boat ride across the river to "La isla de monos" ("Monkey Island") with a huge bag of bananas. In less than 5 mins we were surrounded by black spider monkeys, brown and white chested Capuccine monkeys. They were so clever these buggers could even catch and peel the bananas we threw to them. One peed on Jean's head and one climbed up on to my shoulders. I'd like to think they we tree-like but I think I might be kidding myself. We even saw a mother and her baby which was quite uncommon and was made even more special by the dad looking on trying to peel a mandarin with limited success.

Dinner was at 7 but had time for a few cold ones and a game of pool with Bryce Major. Dinner was soup, stir-fried beef (I hope) and rice with fruit to follow. At 8pm we went caiman-spotting. Slightly surreal but amazing start to the trip - we left the river bank and then cut the motor and floated down the river in total darkness listening to the sounds of the jungle. Cicadas, birds, frogs were all calling into the night. We only saw 2 tiny caiman before returning to the lodge. My photos are rubbish. Early night for me - it was really muggy so went to bed in pants and an entire covering of DEET.