Amazing Amazon
Finally got round to going to the Amazon. Took the easy way, flew in a little turboprop plane and bounced and weaved over the mountainous Cordillera Real. Better than any roller coaster! Great views of snow capped 6500m peaks. On landing we skidded dramatically sideways on a wet grassy landing strip cut into the jungle.
Great to be warm again. Stayed in a small trading post on the banks of the river Beni. Little shops selling rope, spades, oil lamps and the like. Very relaxed and easy going, watch the morning mist rise from the tree tops. Got lucky and joined an english speaking group leaving the same day. No real road, just a flat rutted muddy expanse that overloaded trucks weaved where they choose. Our Landcruisers broken windscreen had to be held to stop it falling in. Formed a human chain to load the wooden canoe and meandered up a Willie Wonka chocolate river. Trees hanging over the river, turtle laden branches rise from the surface. So much wildlife, vultures, eagles, blue & green kingfishers with russet undersides, toucans, too may others to remember. Swam with pink river dolphins, watched crocodiles line the bank, their eyes glowing orange at night, hand fed monkeys and went fishing for piranhas. Spent a day hiking through the swamp armed with forked sticks trying to catch anacondas. Got eaten my mossies, started counting bites on my right leg from my foot up I got to 100 before I reached my knee. They attack even in the shower I have some on my backside!
Great fun, lots and lots of insects of all shapes, masses of saucer sized butterflies. Glow flies dance at night with flashing yellow and green neon LED eyes. Sat quietly watching two tiny yellow flies performing a little dance on my knee, so cute, with comic wings, when a black fly swooped down and killed one, then promptly jumped on the other before flying off with it. I was dismayed and it cheekily returned to carry off the other one. On another occasion I was closely viewing a big spider in its web, maybe 10cm from my nose when a blue bottle in front my face slammed straight into the spider. The spider just devoured there and then. I was too surprised to react.
Saw herds of the largest member of the rat family grazing on the river bank, the capybara. Bigger than sheep!
I stayed in a little wooden hut on stilts, watched a tropical storm come in and paint the sky with lightning and become deafened by the roar of the rain. The sun returned with a vengence, 38 C degree heat and 100% humidity. In direct sunshine it was like having your head in a vice. You did not so much as sweat but leak. Water just flowed out of you. It was hard to see for sweat pouring into your eyes.
Took a stroll in the forest by myself to sit and listen to the jungle sounds, mozis buzzing, croak of frogs, the occasional snap of a crocodile, unseen birds arguing in the treetops. Saw a herd of wild pigs march through the swamp, black like bores their teeth clacking in alarm. A cuddly cute looking anteater hung in a tree. That animal should never ever go hungry. There are trails of ants everywhere, on the path, in trees carrying little green leaves, nasty orange fire ants, giant black ones that could cut chunks out of you for fun.
Our camp guide showed us how to make necklaces from seeds and nuts he had gathered. All over too soon, Spent a morning waiting for the plane to turn up. Its a bit like catching bus, sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't, a little hut next to the strip, check in and they pile your bags on the grass, no seat numbers sit where you like.
Glad to return to the cool of La Paz. Typical crazy Latin capitol. Can eat well, drank real beer in pints! its been a long time. Seems perfectly normal now to see women wearing boller hats, children slung on their backs in stripy purple blankets. Beggars in rags with nut brown walnut faces, hand outstreched for pennies. Sharp suited gents sitting having their shoes polished by blackened handed six year olds. The shoe shine kids wear ski masks here, always carrying a blue rough hewn box containing bottles of shoe polish. Overcrowded microbuses forcing their way through the stationary traffic, always shouting out for more passengers. Its all part of the mix. Life is easy here, anything is possible. Not a day goes past without something taking me aback; green jacketted police night sticks raining on a mans knees, pretty indiginous girl long black pigtails, dark eyes, cobbled street corner on her knees, hands rakeing through the market refuse.
Great to be warm again. Stayed in a small trading post on the banks of the river Beni. Little shops selling rope, spades, oil lamps and the like. Very relaxed and easy going, watch the morning mist rise from the tree tops. Got lucky and joined an english speaking group leaving the same day. No real road, just a flat rutted muddy expanse that overloaded trucks weaved where they choose. Our Landcruisers broken windscreen had to be held to stop it falling in. Formed a human chain to load the wooden canoe and meandered up a Willie Wonka chocolate river. Trees hanging over the river, turtle laden branches rise from the surface. So much wildlife, vultures, eagles, blue & green kingfishers with russet undersides, toucans, too may others to remember. Swam with pink river dolphins, watched crocodiles line the bank, their eyes glowing orange at night, hand fed monkeys and went fishing for piranhas. Spent a day hiking through the swamp armed with forked sticks trying to catch anacondas. Got eaten my mossies, started counting bites on my right leg from my foot up I got to 100 before I reached my knee. They attack even in the shower I have some on my backside!
Great fun, lots and lots of insects of all shapes, masses of saucer sized butterflies. Glow flies dance at night with flashing yellow and green neon LED eyes. Sat quietly watching two tiny yellow flies performing a little dance on my knee, so cute, with comic wings, when a black fly swooped down and killed one, then promptly jumped on the other before flying off with it. I was dismayed and it cheekily returned to carry off the other one. On another occasion I was closely viewing a big spider in its web, maybe 10cm from my nose when a blue bottle in front my face slammed straight into the spider. The spider just devoured there and then. I was too surprised to react.
Saw herds of the largest member of the rat family grazing on the river bank, the capybara. Bigger than sheep!
I stayed in a little wooden hut on stilts, watched a tropical storm come in and paint the sky with lightning and become deafened by the roar of the rain. The sun returned with a vengence, 38 C degree heat and 100% humidity. In direct sunshine it was like having your head in a vice. You did not so much as sweat but leak. Water just flowed out of you. It was hard to see for sweat pouring into your eyes.
Took a stroll in the forest by myself to sit and listen to the jungle sounds, mozis buzzing, croak of frogs, the occasional snap of a crocodile, unseen birds arguing in the treetops. Saw a herd of wild pigs march through the swamp, black like bores their teeth clacking in alarm. A cuddly cute looking anteater hung in a tree. That animal should never ever go hungry. There are trails of ants everywhere, on the path, in trees carrying little green leaves, nasty orange fire ants, giant black ones that could cut chunks out of you for fun.
Our camp guide showed us how to make necklaces from seeds and nuts he had gathered. All over too soon, Spent a morning waiting for the plane to turn up. Its a bit like catching bus, sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't, a little hut next to the strip, check in and they pile your bags on the grass, no seat numbers sit where you like.
Glad to return to the cool of La Paz. Typical crazy Latin capitol. Can eat well, drank real beer in pints! its been a long time. Seems perfectly normal now to see women wearing boller hats, children slung on their backs in stripy purple blankets. Beggars in rags with nut brown walnut faces, hand outstreched for pennies. Sharp suited gents sitting having their shoes polished by blackened handed six year olds. The shoe shine kids wear ski masks here, always carrying a blue rough hewn box containing bottles of shoe polish. Overcrowded microbuses forcing their way through the stationary traffic, always shouting out for more passengers. Its all part of the mix. Life is easy here, anything is possible. Not a day goes past without something taking me aback; green jacketted police night sticks raining on a mans knees, pretty indiginous girl long black pigtails, dark eyes, cobbled street corner on her knees, hands rakeing through the market refuse.
posted by Richard at
7:36 pm
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