Rainforest - Day 2

Monday 7th April
The 0400 wake-up was definitely worth it, as it was so cool at that time of the day (the temp has been 28-32 C, and 80-100% humidity). We jumped back in the motorised canoe to head up-river to an ox-bow lake called Tres Chimbas (an ox-bow lake is where the river has changed course and left a lake behind). He we climbed onto a catamaran with a platform and seats on top and then were paddled around the lake for about two hours, just watching birds and animals (and trying our hand at Piranha fishing!).

It was so peaceful and beautiful out there in the early morning (we arrived at about 0600), all you could hear was the sounds of the birds and the monkeys, and we got to see so much wildlife. And the really cool bit, is that there is a family of giant river otters that live in the lake (grow up to 2m long), and we got to see them swimming around and feeding, and we got to see a new baby for the first time - the guides were very excited by that, as there are only 250 left in the wild.

We were back at the lodge by about 1030, and then had free time until lunch at 1300, and then more relaxing time until our next activity at 1530, as it is just too hot to do anything but lie in a hammock in the middle of the day.

While we were lying in our hammock in our room, we heard rustling in the trees just over the balcony, and looked up and saw a whole family of Howler Monkeys staring out at us, eating, and playing around. So we spent 30 mins watching them from the balcony, running up and down and along the trees - very cool.

In the afternoon we went to an Indigenous Botanical Medical Facility, Garden and Research Centre, where we learnt all about the natural medicines that the Infierno community has been using for hundreds of years, and now western medicine is catching on too, and are studying many of the plants to develop into drugs to treat cancer, epilepsy etc.

I also discovered that I am allergic to something out here. My nose is constantly streaming, but I don´t feel sick, so I am guessing I´m having a hayfever like reaction to something.

After dinner we fell into bed, in our room which has one wall open to the jungle for our first long night´s sleep in a while (we didn´t have to be up until 0700!)