Peru: Puerto Maldonado, day 2

As I said, a 5.00am wake up was on the cards, but I actually got up at 4.50! The animals and birds were just too loud to sleep once they got going, including birds which sounded like they were drowning, and some sort of wheezing thing that sounded like it was dying outside my window! As I was cleaning my teeth a deer just walked past the window!

Breakfast was a buffet, and pretty good, but we didn't have too long before we had to set off. A 5 minute boat ride took us to the start of our 9km jungle walk. It was cool to start off with, but there were *tons* of Mosquitos! My anti mosquito band which served me so well in Indonesia didn't phase these guys, and somehow they even got through my trousers, and I have about 15 bites on each leg.

As we walked we saw some tarantulas in holes, and our guide Alex coaxed them out for us, a terrestrial turtle that was just eating some berries, a blue butterfly with wings as big as my hand, and some truly massive trees. We also saw a tree whose wood, when shed from the tree, becomes as hard as steel. Alex gave a fallen branch a full on whack with his machete, and it barely scratched it!

We walked about 5km, before reaching a 30m tall canopy tower. Right next to the tower was an old campfire, with butterflies swarming all around it, after the salts, which was really beautiful. The view from the tower was good, but it wasn't so much taller than some of the trees, so you couldn't see forever.

We back tracked a bit, then walked along a wooden walkway for nearly 1km, to the 'lost lagoon'. We then had a bit of a boat trip around the lagoon, and saw some turtles, some pirañas leaping, and one small black caiman. Unfortunately the giant river otters weren't interested in coming out.

We went back to the observation tower for a little rest, by which time it had heated up to 30 something, and we could hear the calls of a howler monkey, the loudest land animal. It sounded very wired, but was super intimidating; I sure wouldn't want to meet what was making that sound if I didn't know it was a monkey! We also found a golden orb spider on a web, which was huge, pretty, and poisonous apparently.

We walked a little further, then reached a swamp with a longboat, where we all took turns to paddle. On the boat ride we saw macaws, and some big turkey like bird which could fly and swim, and some people saw a snake, but I did not, as I was paddling most of the time. The scenery was lovely though, even if the sun was baking us!

From the end of the boat ride we had one more kilometre to walk, but that was uneventful, and we got the boat for our ride back to the lodge.

There was an optional tour to the botanical gardens in the afternoon, but what with the 5am start, and 8 hour trip we'd already done I was too tired to go, so had a nap in preparation for 44 hours of travel tomorrow, after a swim to cool down in the swimming pool. Katie went on the walk though, and filled me in. There was a huge tarantula just sitting about, a pet bird (the turkey type one) which followed the group around and begged to be petter, and a tame monkey, as well as lots of fruit and medicinal plants. It sounded pretty cool, and I'm a little sad I didn't go, but I needed a rest too.

We had tea, and then chilled out together for a couple of hours after, as it was our last night together :(

Hard wood