It's cold. Neither of us brought sufficient warm clothes for the three days here, our guides had said to only pack enough items for the lodge and our large suitcases were left back in the office in Peurto Maldonado. And since the temperature was supposed to be around 30 dropping to 20 at night, we thought packing a fleece would be un-necessary. We are on the tail end of some unseasonably cold weather. Today warmed up nicely to about 26 but it cooled down considerably when the sun went down.
This morning we walk down to the river by dawn and board our motorized boat to go about 10 minutes up river to get to our destination, Oxbow Lake. The river is unlike any that I've ever see--it's an orange colour from all the sediment it's carrying. Here's a picture I took from the plane from yesterday when we flew in (you can see the shadow of the plane on the water).
The boats are these long narrow wooden vessels powered by a 75 horsepower motor. The front of the boat is open and you get on from the bow and step down a couple of steps into the seating area.
The destination this morning was Oxbow Lake. We headed for a set of stairs at the river's edge about 10 minutes away. The docking area had a slip carved into the clay shore in the exact same shape of the bow of our ship. The boat wedged perfectly into the slip and it was easy to climb in and out of the boat because it was held fast and the shore was now at the same level as the boat deck.
We then walk about 20 minutes though the jungle to Oxbow Lake. The water is murky but not red like the Rio Tambopata which is full of silt of the red clay. The boat for the lake expedition is double hulled like a catamaran. I think they just built a platform over two of the Rio Tambopata type boats. It's powered by a single oar out the back which is moved in a side to side motion to propel the boat. A few of us tried our hand at steering the boat, but we were all unsuccessful.
We see lots of birds, but no giant otters or anacondas. Luis, our guide says he saw an anaconda about 5 months ago; they're a rare sighting. When they capture and ingest their prey they just lay there until it's digested -- apparently it's a slow process which can take many many months. They're rarely on the hunt, so they're rarely seen.
After seeing our first bird I regret not having my 35x zoom camera. I didn't bring it because of the bulk, but clearly, my 5x point and shoot is not cut out for wildlife photography. There were all sorts of birds and I know a birder out there that would have liked some pictures but the ones in my collection didn't end up being worthwhile.
We stopped for a while at a bank of water plant and Luis pulls out a small bag of beef. We're fishing for piraña! The beef is cut into small pieces and place on the end of a barbed hook which is attached by fishing line to a stick pole. The piraña is attracted by the noise of something falling into the water, so were instructed to whip the bait into the water a couple of times and on the third whip, to let the bait drift downinto the water. I had several bites, but wasn't able to bring any piraña up at the end of my line. There were three piraña caught and we got so see them up close and personal. Their bite is legendary. One of the guides place a leaf in the piraña's mouth to show the bite and it took a clean deep semi circle bite out of the leaf.
We got blown onto a reedy section when the wind came up. The crew tried a couple of times before they were able to free us off the reeds. We gave them a big cheer. Back to the lodge and a short rest. We met again to walk to the observation tower to have a view over the rainforest canopy. A lot of steps. I'm glad I'm not a crane operator.
Lunch was great. Best meal so far. And we had a time to fit in a siesta. I decided to nap in the hammock -- a great idea until I woke up with a kink in my neck. Our next excursion was down river to learn about traditional medicine. On the way there we see capybaras, the largest rodents on the planet.
Our lodge (posada) is located on the land of the Ese'eja tribe and they make medicine for the community. We learn about some of the plants and their use. Some of the medicines require alcohol to extract the medicine contained in the plants--I'm not sure whether it's the plant providing the treatment or just providing the flavour to the alcohol which is then administered for medicinal purposes...
Some of the clearly plants did provide healing powers. We were all given a small stick of a corooncillo plant and when we bit down on it, our tongues became numb, just like novocaine would do. The sensation lasted about 5 minutes. This plant is used to treat toothaches.
Back to the lodge for dinner and we followed that up with a night walk around the lodge to look for insects. Luis indicated there weren't many out and seemed to think they got cleared out by the rain they had 4 nights ago. But we saw some interesting insects and a big mouth frog.
Then back to our rooms to prepare for 6:00 am start.
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