Peru, Day 10 - Puerto Maldonado to Refugios Amazonas

Back in Cusco, I have what has been a pretty typical breakfast so far on the trip: scrambled eggs, fruit, tomatoes & cheese, bread with aguaymantos marmalade, yogurt, juice, and of course, coca tea. Today we travel into the Amazon.

Our plane lands in Puerto Maldonado.

From here we have a bus ride to the Tambopata River where we will take a boat to our jungle lodge.

There are some very serious photographers traveling with us.

Here we go! It's a 3 hour trip upstream.

On the boat we have some Peruvian style Chinese fried rice, served in bijao leaves. You might think they are banana leaves, but they aren't. Biajo.

Our first stop is at the Tambopata National Reserve to sign in. We also get our passports stamped with touristy stamps here.

There is a large "iron tree" out front.

When we continue up the river we see some capybaras on the shore. This is the largest rodent in the world. It is often accompanied by cowbirds, which eat the parasites on the capybara.

This capybara decides to go for a swim.

We continue up the river as evening approaches.

Once we land, we have a short hike before reaching the lodge.

The lodge emerges from the darkness.

Walkways lead from the lobby to the rooms.

We relax with some pisco sours and get settled.

The bar in the lounge supplies us with alcohol at night:

Photo courtesy of Christopher Chergi

There's no electricity in our rooms, only candlelight. The lobby has electricity during certain times of the day, but it's turned off in the lobby, and walkway lanterns are extinguished at 9:20 pm. Lights out!

Photo courtesy of Stephen Waugh