AlternateRoute

Being as we were spending two nights in the one place we thought we might get the chance to sleep in. It was not to be. We had been allocated to go on the “Lost Lake” (Cocha Perdida) tour which had a 0600 departure. (0500 wake up call and 0530 breakfast).
We took a boat down the river, were dropped off and walked 5km through varying grades of mud. Along the way we saw a tarantula, (seriously big spiders), possum monkeys, evidence of pigs and a snail the size of both my fists.

At the end of the 5km was a 700m boardwalk out to the Lost Lake. We had a paddle around the lake and saw turtles and another caiman. On the way back along the boardwalk, Sue slipped and fell into the water getting completely soaked and filthy at the same time.
Amongst the trees that Livio (our tour guide), pointed out was the Justice Tree.

This tree had a symbiotic relationship with a species of ants. The tree provides the ants with food and a home and the ants protect the tree from attack by other insects. Livio said in the old days men were tied to the tree(and thus bitten by ants) as punishment if they were caught shitting on their wives.

I thought it a bit strange, until I realised that this was his pronunciation of “cheating”.
Back from the lake we climbed the steps that wound around the observation tree, taking us up to a platform about 30m up, affording a wonderful view of the canopy.
After a quick snack, we walked 2km to a small creek running through wetlands and paddled 2km along there before a further 1km hike back to the river. A motorised canoe brought us home for lunch.
After a siesta, we rode a boat to visit a native family. They have a simple hut and make a living growing bananas and selling trinkets to tourists. We tried a native bow and arrow we were there and witnessed a giant tree come crashing down not 30 metres from where we stood.
Despite the comments by the guide about these people being lazy, I think it is just a different lifestyle.
They have a slow pace of life in a jungle paradise, all year round. We have fast pace of life, work hard and save money to have a week in a jungle paradise. It’s all relative.
Some of the people we met in the bar in Lima have arrived. We shall have another drink we them tonight.
This has been the first day of our holidays where we have not been on a plane.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 1209 and is filed under South America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.