2017-02-09
Exhausted we returned home and slept like stones. The next day we loaded into a very full boat for another tour. First we went to a place to see colorful parrots who seems to love to pose with people. Their size made them a little intimidating, but they were quite tame. 

Next we looked at some gigantic Lilly pads. Our guide floated Kim’s camera on it just to show us how solid it was. I thought why doesn’t he use his cell phone, but said nothing. 

Off we went to our next location where they let us pose with all kinds of small animals. My favorite was the three toed sloth, which hugged us like a baby, but the boa was a close second. 

Again we were off to the the Island of Micos. An island filled with small monkeys who just loved to jump on all of the tourists. What a delight. They seemed to get a kick out of jumping from tourist to tourist. At times it got a little overwhelming, but everyone including the Micos monkeys seemed to have a good time. 

The trip home was less of a delight as I was squezed in by some very large over weight Colombian men. Nancy fed us a nice fish dinner, we looked at each other’s photos and then fell asleep with big smiles on our faces. 

2017-02-08Back at home I couldn’t imagine how it could get and better, but the next day began with our official tour. A tour boat arrived at 8 am to take us to Maharasha, an eco village in the jungle. 

Our boat pulled over to a flooded piece of land and we were to to get out and walk for about an hour. I was happy that Feliz had loaned us a pair of rubber boots. Kim was a little less happy as hers had a big hole in one. Slowly we sloshed along through the jungle in two foot high water as our guide Nikoli pointed out ant trails and spiders and fruits and medicine. 

Arriving at Maharasha we were told we had 4 hours to enjoy the place on our own. We kayaked, went fishing, spotted birds, swam in a pool filled with Amazon water and ate a typical meal. 

Probably the highlight was when a large caiman approached the walkway and they decided to feed him with what looked like a slab of ribs on a string. He quickly snapped it up. Later we found a family of pacas? They looked like giant rodents. We petted them and fed them bananas. Wow, it doesn’t get any better than this, or does it?

2017-02-07We left the small Amazon town of Leticia to start are adventure at our new hotel which is right on the Amazon River. It is actually a floating structure which rises and falls with the seasons. It floats on huge balsa wood tree trunks. 

After an down payment of 1,000,000 pecos we we directed to a small wooden boat for the short ride to Kurupira Cabanas Flotante, or Floating Cabins. We were greeted by the smiling faces of Nancy, the cook, and Feliz, the care taker. We immediately fell in love with the place. 

A few hours later we realized that there was absolutely no where to walk. Da!, it was truly a floating structure with no firm land. 

After we settled in and took the self guided tour (10 minutes later) Feli came over and offered to take us on a boat tour. Shyly he said we would have to pay 20,000 pesos. About $7 US. I said that that sounded too little, he smiled and we were soon off. 
What an incredible tour is was. He knew every type of tree and what fruit it had or medicine it contained. Then we spotted pink dolphins, fished for awhile. Even though we didn’t catch anything with our lines a fish just jumped in our boat. We screamed like little girls as we thought it to be a piraña. It wasn’t! Then we spotted a double rainbow which filled the sky. Later, as it was getting dark, we watched as thousand of noisy birds came home to rest for the night. 

And this was just our first day living in the Amazon jungle.

My plan was to wake up early and make my way down to the Amazon River just to see what’s happening I town, and maybe get some early morning shots. I set my iPhone to wake me up at 6 am. When it rang something didn’t look right. That was because it was really 5 am. My phone reset itself in the middle of the night to the Brazil time zone which is literally 4 blocks from here. 

So needless to say I was just a little early for sunrise. No problem the port city soon sprang into action. 

People arrived and left with fruits and fish and all manners of things to sell and buy. 

Later, after the sun was up, I went back to the room for Kim and we walked back to where the people actually lived with their houses built on stilts high above the Amazon flood plain.  

What a great great day!