After stumbling to breakfast the following morning, we hopped on the river boat and traveled up river for half an hour, trekked through the forest for another half an hour, and finally made it to the lake where a catamaran awaited us. Oh, also almost forgot to mention that the walk entailed running across a tarantula nest and Silverio had the chutzpah to take a stick and literally pull the darn thing out of its hole (actually appeared the tarantula actually enjoyed it and played along).
The catamaran was pretty nifty as it was operated by a local native who used a long oar to waft the boat silently down the lake. We were on the quest to find the giant river otters, caymens, piranhas, various birds, and hopefully an anaconda! and jaguars! Oh my! We managed to luck out and actually see a family of otters that were in the midst of feeding. This was really excellent but we could only get so close without interfering, but the real treat came when Silverio whipped out a raw chicken bone. This was then followed by some old sticks with lures that we used to go fishing for pirañas! The little buggers are wicked difficult to catch as their teeth are so sharp they just rip off the chicken, but we were fortunate that one of the others hauled in two fine beauties. Alas, no anacondas or jaguars were to be found, but waking up at 4:00 I guess was worth the visit to the lake.
Upon returning back to the lodge, we had high hopes for some snooze time. Those hopes were quickly trounced as Silverio had other plans in mind for us. One thing about Silverio is that he has a ridiculous passion, or well obsession, for birds. I will say though that it was quite admirable how in love with the wildlife and nature he was. When we told him about the macaw fiesta we witnessed the other day, his eyes lit up and couldn't stop smiling and asking us questions. The guides, the lodge, and the community all really take it to heart and have such a huge commitment and passion to keeping the amazon as sustainable as can be. Sans nap, we tossed back on our Wellies and ventured back off into the forest to the same clay lick from the other day to see if we could get up close to the macaws. Unfortunately they were not feeling social this particular day but on our return trek we ran across some red howler monkeys frolicking around in the canopy. I also soon came to find out that, well in fact quite similar to Silverios love affair with birds, Emma shares a similar feeling towards monkeys. We finally found a few macaws perched up in adjacent trees to the monkeys, and it was like a sibling tug of war between which animal the telescope would be focused on, Silverio's birds or Emma's monkeys.....Emma's monkeys ultimately won. After an hour of watching monkeys eat - we finally got our two hour siesta. A much needed siesta indeed as along with a sudden bout of stomach pains from whatever Incan revenge was inflicted on me, an allergic reaction to the bug spray we had led me to pop a couple Benadryl pills that Kristina, the nurse from Chicago, had supplied me, informed me that this Benadryl was the drowsy kind right as I popped them into my mouth...
After our siesta and lunch, we hopped back onto the river boat and traveled downstream for just a few minutes to the local Shaman lodge. Having watched the Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations: Peru where he stayed with a Shaman and "watched" the psychedelic mind altering Ayuaschsa ceremony, we weren't terribly sure what to expect. Don't worry, no Ayuaschsa was ingested during this trip, but a tour around the gardens was quite interesting as we saw the Ayuaschsa plant along with a number of other plants that supposedly cured certain diseases. These ranged from kidney cures, treating cancer, woman's pains, a Viagra type root, and a pheromone type love potion - all of which were boiled down in water and generally added to alcohol. Whether or not these potions actually worked was heavily debated, but it just seemed to be an excuse to drink. They ended up passing around several of the potions to sample and two days later still haven't experienced anything as promised. Emma's highlights included getting a purple tattoo of an arrow drawn on her arm by the guide, supposedly similar to henna, but immediately washed off and just looked like a hideous bruise. The more pleasant experience in my mind was that she got to play around with a wild parrot for quite some time that jollied around her shoulders.
Having woken up wicked early, one would expect to have the luxury of passing out right after dinner; but alas, Silverio mushed us back out into the jungle for a lovely night walk. When walking through the jungle during the day, of course you can tell its the amazon but you start feeling after a while it's just any ole wooden area, well when your walking at night in the pitch black with only a couple headlights that Silverio frequently tells you to turn off and you're unable to even see your hand if its touching your nose, you never forget you're in the amazon. We also soon learned Silverio either has no fears, isn't totally there in the head, or a death wish. We caught a flicker of eyes not far away in a shallow area of water which Silverio informed us belonged to a baby cayman. Quickly informing us to stand still, he charged forth with only his two hands and his Wellies, while we stood gasping and realizing well if there is a baby cayman, the mama cayman shouldn't be too far away. We also had no clue what to do if Silverio was tag teamed by a few cayman, concluding it would probably be best not to try and assist. Fortunately the cayman were nowhere to be found and Silverio came back to us unscazed. The night walk did yield a couple nocturnal monkeys for Emma, that were quite visible in the trees. Emma clearly won this round, as we heard a screech owl and Silverio proceeded to pull out his iPod and speakers to play some owl calling noises for over 40min, sans flashlights, in the pitch black woods, thus making it feel like over 2hrs of waiting for an owl that never came. Finally Silverio admitted defeat and we trekked on back and then to bed.
Finally a morning to sorta sleep in until 7:00 when we grabbed breakfast with the group and then hopped on the river boat one last time back to the headquarters and then to the airport. We bid our warm hearted farewells to our group, shared some tears with Silverio, and boarded the plane off to Cusco where we were to finally make it to the long awaited Machu Pichu.
You sure lucked out with Silverio!
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