Claus (our guide) told us to meet for breakfast at 6:30am which wasn't hard cause we all went to bed early.
The breakfast was the best breakfast I've had in South America: scrambled eggs, sausage, plantains, papaya, watermelon, bread and jam, etc. It was awesome!
We then went down to the river to take a boat ride 15 minutes upriver to go for a hike through the jungle. It was a relatively non-strenuous hike but on it we learned all about the cool trees and animals in the jungle. We walked to a small lake that had piranhas and eels and took a paddle boat across to get to the other side.
There, we saw huge trees that were actually hollow in the inside. It's a kind of tree that grows around a dead tree I think. We also saw trees with non circular trunks, they were more flat and organic looking.
Man, it was hot. And they recommend that you wear long sleeves and long pants because of the mosquitoes. I wore my yoga pants with a sports bra and my jean shirt with the sleeves rolled up and I was sweating so much. The mosquitoes weren't as bad as I expected them to be so I kind of regret my jean shirt, I wish I had something more airy but still long sleeve. Oh well, wasn't exactly thinking about the Amazon rainforest when I was packing for BA.
When we pattled back over the lake, Claus gave us crackers and passion fruit to snack on. The passion fruit was so weird, we had to break the skin then slurp out the seeds inside. We threw most of the crackers in the lake to watch the piranhas come up and eat them. Apparently, piranhas aren't dangerous to humans unless it's in a very small body of water so I put my hand in to wash of the sticky juice from the passion fruit.
We were just about back to the river finishing our hike when Claus heard monkeys. At first we couldn't see them, then only one high in the canopy.
Then we turned back to our trail and there were about 5 or 6 of them running along the branches so close to us! They are called lion monkeys because their face coloring looks like the mane of a lion.
We probably stayed there for 15 minutes watching the monkeys interact and taking pictures. They were so close I didn't believe it.
After that we took the boat back to the lodge and we got into our swim suits and headed down to the swimming hole. The water felt so good! It was a sandy floor with medium clear water. It also wasn't very deep, the part we stayed mostly was only up to our thighs max.
It's funny, that's one thing I yid my mom I wouldn't do: go swimming in an Amazon river... Oops. I didn't have any open cuts though do I should be good :)
It was a nice cool down in the Amazon river... but hopefully I don't get a parasite or an infection of some sort.
We went back to our bungalows and all took much needed naps after our lunch in the dining room. We had more yuka! This was the time of the day when it got really hot. Trying to take a nap was horrible and it didn't help with no AC or fans... Damn eco lodge.
There is no electricity in our bungalows and there's only electricity in the main lodge noon to 1 then 6 to 10. It's kind of nice not having wifi for a few days though, I can focus on myself and the wonderful people I'm around.
Then we had to meet again at 3:30 to go to a fruit farm 10 minutes upstream. We tried so many kinds of fruit and saw tons of beautiful, tropical birds. Some of the fruit was delicious! The pineapples are a bit paler and sweeter than in the USA and the star fruit was also very yummy.
However, Claus let us smell one of the fruits and it literally smelled like dirty socks. Then he cut us all off a piece... It was disgusting, similar to old, moldy cheese, but apparently good for a stomach ache which Sam had. He also gave us the cashew fruit which wasn't very good. Here they just eat the fruit and throw the cashew away... Americans spend so much money on cashews but Peruvians throw them out... That makes sense.
When we first got to the farm, Claus asked if anyone liked spice and most of us said yes since there is actually zero spicy food in Argentina.
So he picked small red berries from a bush to have us try. Holy shit that berry was so spicy my mouth and lips were on fire for a few minutes.
Good one, Claus.
We toured the farm which didn't look like a farm but more like the regular jungle. It had banana, plantain, pineapple, avocado, papaya and tons if other fruit trees and bushes.
After that we went back to the lodge, watched a soccer game that the locals played, ate salted plantain chips, and had dinner. Tonight was a kind of beef, last night was pork.
Great day, can't wait to hike more tomorrow!
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