All Life is Precious

Sorry this post is delayed. I wrote (most of it) a couple days ago so hopefully that doesn’t confuse people. (We are presently in Machu Picchu!)

We essentially had two full days of travel-planes and transfers to get to the Amazon which is why I haven’t blogged in a few days. Our flight was delayed coming out here so we missed our first excursion upon arrival. They were kind enough to offer it again to us the following day. 

We stayed at Inkaterra which is only accessible by boat. The huts were nice and electricity was only available during certain times of the day. 

Full day in the Amazon:

We woke up at 5am to get ready, have breakfast, and head out on our first excursion: Sandoval Lake. We had a semi long trek through the mud to get there and  the whole time I was thinking, “I’m in the Amazon freakin’ Rainforest!!”  I’m not one to get excited about celebrities or popular culture, but I DO excited about such iconic places!!!!

It was a long walk followed by canoe ride in which we saw otters, monkeys, birds, caiman (like a crocodile) ... and insects! We saw many bullet ants which are more poisonous than scorpions! And we also saw my personal favorite the leaf cutter ants! 

 

We didn't get an up close photo of the ants (though I do have a video)... so I stole this image off of google so you could see the busy ants! :)

                                 

The title of this blog post, in case you’re wondering, refers to these leaf cutter ants. We were walking through the trail when our guide cautioned us not to step on the ants because they’re hard at work. Scores of ants carried leaves and sticks at a rapid pace for the Queen ant... it was fun to watch them rush back and forth in a constant flow.  Normally I would not care for ants, but that happened to be an unusual occurrence. 

We returned to our lodge and took a break for lunch followed by some swinging on the hammocks. :)

The next excursion was the canopy tour. It wasn’t as much walking, but we had to climb a bit to get to the top! We then crossed 7 swinging/rope bridges and got some nice pictures.

Our last excursion of the day was a night walk. It was mainly looking for insects. (Ew!) We saw a couple of tarantulas and various other bugs. (Again, ew!!)  The cool thing about this walk though was when our guide had our group turn off our flashlights and stand in silence for a few minutes. It was pitch black and you could see nothing in front of you... you could just hear the sounds of the Rainforest.