Tips for traveling in the Jungle

From this trip there are a few things we learned about the hard way with being in the rainforest:

Packing is challenging, especially in the wet season. I brought along lots of large ziploc freezer bags to keep my clothes dry. I heard from a friend who had been there previously that his clothes went moldy hanging in his closet just from the humidity alone. If your clothes get very humid and sweaty, you will most likely find grasshoppers and moths feeding on them.

If there is one bug-friendly item you bring its calamine lotion. The first few days of surviving in a biting insect paradise was fine, but the sand fly bites start to really itch after a few days, and we were calamine lotion-less.

I used a headlamp and it was my best friend at night, I wouldn't leave to go anywhere without it. Handheld flashlights are alright, but headlamps free up your hands. Just remember extra batteries.

Cold-water showers feel great after a hot day in the jungle, so do not be deterred if a place you are looking to stay at has only cold water showers.

We wore rubber boots the entire time. They had a supply at the station so we didn't even need to bring our own if we didn't want to or were limited for space. It rains a lot in the wet season, so they are the best thing for keeping your feet dry (unless you get stuck in a torrential downpour or are wading chest-deep in a swamp).

Watch out for peccaries. They are a jungle pig that travels in groups from 1o to over 100 individuals. They can be quite intimidating (or I thougth so anyways) and White-lipped Peccaries (the larger ones) are known to charge at people. I didn't want to find out what would happen if they caught up to you. Basically the only way to get away from them is to get above the ground about a metre. This is often difficult to do wearing rubber boots.

Regardless of whether you are birder or nature enthusiast or not, I suggest bringing binoculars. There are so many opportunities to see some great animals and plants, and you'll be kicking yourself if you don't bring any.

Watch out for caterpillars. I found a fluffy caterpillar in my room one day, so I moved it out to the main platform. The next day it was still there, and I accidentally stepped on it, which filled my big toe with hundreds of tiny stings that took a while to subside. Caterpillars are not your friends.

I'm sure there's more but I'm going to leave it at that for now. I will update again when I think of more! Hope this information is useful if you ever consider going to the amazon.

Puerto Maldonado: partying and final days

After returning back to town, we got settled in at a different hostel (not going back to Hostal El Solar). This hostel was better and much cheaper. Hostal Moderno is a low-grade, family-run facility but had a somewhat of a homey feel. The rooms had 3 beds each and a small table. Washrooms were shared and were minimal. Showers were basically just like standing under a garden hose. Despite that, I liked this place. It cost only 10 soles per person per night, so it was very reasonable. And it was right next to the main square in town.

That night we went back, with the group, to El Hornito Pizza Bar for drinks and pizza (obviously). We were hoping to watch some good spanish music videos in the bar but as soon as we got in there they started showing english music videos - go figure. I tried a Pisco Sour, which is Peru's national drink. It was good, despite the fact that it has egg whites in it, and cured my heat stroke pretty quickly. The most interesting pizza there was probably their supreme hawaiian pizza, which has ham, pineapple and peaches on it. Interesting.

From there we went to a karaoke bar on the other side of town. The locals probably hated us considering it was Valentine's Day and they take karaoke very seriously, and there was a contest going on at the same time to see who could sing the best love song. Then there was us Canadians, who do not take karaoke seriously, and took over the dance floor with the YMCA, Bohemian Rhapsody, Copa Cobana and a New Kids on the Block song. After a few pitchers of Cuba Libres, we were ready to move on, and the people in that bar were probably ecstatic to see us leave.

On the way to the next place, we went by a street that had a huge, unattended bonfire blazing in the middle. Oh the places you'll see.

Our next two stops were right across from each other, actually just around the corner from our hostel and where we started out. These discoteques were very popular and loud! but we had a lot of fun dancing with JJ and the guys. These clubs were full of 17 year old peruvians who wanted to dance with us. The one across the road was similar, not quite as crazy, but still a lot of fun. By 3 am we were ready to stumble back to the hostel and fall asleep.

The next day we were suppose to fly back to Lima, so we got our gear together and headed to the airport. Security was very lax and actually their screening machines were not working, so the security staff, who spoke some english, just eyeballed our bags and that was it. We were sitting in the departure lounge, waiting for our plane which was already late, and a staff member comes on the speaker and says something really long in spanish. Then everyone sitting in the lounge got up and left. The security guy saw that we were a little confused and came over to tell us that our flight was cancelled. That was the only flight back to Lima for the day. We headed back into town and went back to the hostel. The afternoon was low-key, and we explored around town a bit to get some photos. We also needed to go to the LAN office in town to get put on the next flight. The office opened up at 3:30 (after siesta) and by then there was a long line up, luckily we were one of the first people in line and had no problems getting on the flight the next day.

Our last day started out the same way as the day before, we got packed up and went back to the airport. We dropped off our luggage and had some time to spare, so we visited the 'serpentario' just beside the airport. This place is a little reptile zoo that houses some native reptile species. After negotiating a price, we got a private tour of their facilities and got to see some animals up close. It was a great way to pass the time before heading back to Lima.

The guys got off at our stopover in Cusco, and we carried on to Lima, where we spent the rest of the day in the Lima Airport waiting for our flight, which departed from Lima at 2:30 am. Back to Toronto, hope to return to Peru again sometime soon.

Highlights from Piedras Biodiversity Station

Our 2 weeks at Piedras Biodiversity Station brought about a lot of new experiences. The station was absolutely beautiful; it had a main area, a kitchen, 2 sets of 5 double bedrooms, and a washroom building. The areas of the main lodge are connected by boardwalks. The lodge is surrounded by gardens with tropical plants and ground cover plants instead of grass. There is a trail system through the forest. Closer to the river there is a farm where they grow pineapple, limes, papaya, sugar cane, and other tropical plants. The boat drivers have a hut at the farm.

Our main role at PBS was to help with 2 ongoing biodiversity studies on the site. The first one was observing the macaws feeding on the nearby colpa (clay lick) along the river. Macaws feed at these licks for numerous reasons: they uptake minerals and nutrients from the clay itself, the clay neutralizes toxins they pick up in their diet, and they feed clay to the young in the breeding season. We were observing the effects of boat traffic along the river on the feeding macaws. We recorded the weather conditions and the number of birds feeding at the colpa every 5 minutes. We also recorded the amount of birds that flushed from the colpa when a boat went by, as well as other details such as species of macaws (scarlet or red-and-green) and boat details including type of motor used and direction traveled. This data collection required us to take a boat to the other side of the river and hike a trail to our lookout point. We set up a bug net tent and watched the macaws for 3 hour intervals in the mornings. It was very relaxing actually, the macaws take a long time to approach the colpa so we were able to keep an eye out for other wildlife (particularly saddle-backed tamarins, brown capuchins and dusky titi monkeys).

The second study we were helping with was collecting data on how well mammal populations in the area are doing since selective logging had been stopped recently. This required us to slowly walk 4-km long transects through the rainforest and record information on any mammal or group of mammal we saw. We collected data on species, age (if possible), group size, activity, and location. Transects were walked from the 0 metre mark to the 4000 metre mark on some mornings, and from the 4000 metre mark to the 0 metre mark on other mornings. Two transects were being used at the time (a 3rd one was not being used for this study while we were there). The transects were started at sunrise, usually around 5:30 am. This means that when starting at the 0 metre mark, we had to leave the station around 5:15 to reach the start. When we needed to start at the 4000 metre mark, we had to leave the station at 4 am, hike through the dark jungle at a fast pace to reach the end of the transect by the time the sun was coming up. Mammals we saw while on these hikes included Southern Amazonian Red Squirrel, Green Acouchy, Brown Agouti, Saddle-backed Tamarin, Brown Capuchin Monkey, Dusky Titi Monkey, Red Howler Monkey, Saki Monkey, Squirrel Monkey, Black Spider Monkey, Collared Peccary and White-lipped Peccary. We were also recording sightings of 4 species of birds on these transects: Blue-throated Piping-Guan, Spix's Guan, Razor-billed Currasow, and Pale-winged Trumpeter.

We did data collection every morning, and the afternoons were spent lounging around the station, taking siestas, reading, playing games and whatever else we could figure out to do. We could venture into the jungle for a hike, head out to the mammal colpa (2.5 km into the forest), visit a viewing platform off one of the trails, swimming in the river, fishing for piranha, playing badminton on the farm, and birdwatching.

On one of our days off from data collection we, as a group, got strapped up and belayed up 27 metres to a platform in the top of a canopy tree. Being afraid of heights it was a little intimidating, but I made it up there anyways. In fact I enjoyed the trip up and down, and felt safe. From the platform you could see the top of the canopy for miles. As soon as I made it up there a pair of macaws landed in the same tree. We could see a spider monkey sitting in a canopy tree in the distance. It was gorgeous. The most dangerous part of getting up the tree was the Bullet Ants that tend to hang out on that particular tree. Bullet ants are huge; they have massive jaws and their bite is not only extremely painful but is also capable of killing humans. We had to keep an eye out for them. We had a massive thunderstorm just as we were finishing at the tree, and ended up running back to the station, completely soaked by the time we got there.

We had a few fun night excursions as well. The first was a tromp through the swamp near the station (chest deep in the swamp) to look for clown treefrogs. It was hilarious, we didn't know what to expect and we just kind of went with it. Saw lots of frogs, turtles and there was even a caiman in the swamp at the same time. I don't think I've laughed so hard in my entire life. One night we went for a hike to look for night creatures, but didn't see many because we had also had a few drinks before going out and were a little drunk. One night we went looking for caimans and other river creatures with a large spotlight. We took out the smaller canoe, pulled it upstream with the bigger boat and coasted it back to the station. We had a great experience that night with a couple capybara as well, nice close looks, one of them barked then jumped into the water and swam under our boat.

We took turns helping with lunches and dinners. Considering we had no electricity, our meals were great. It was mainly vegetarian since we had no refrigeration abilities, but that was quite alright. We ate a lot of rice, lentils and other grains, pasta, squash, papaya, cabbage salads (cabbage lasts longer than regular lettuce), pancakes, donuts (homemade) and other meals. We even made pizza one night (which a possum ended up getting to in the end). The only meat we had was piranha after we caught it in the river. It was delicious, ask any of us.

Wildlife viewing was important to Michelle and myself, coming from an animal/biology background. We saw some great mammals, birds and insects while at the station. Our highlight, however, was probably taking care of Lulu, a young (probably about 5 months old) orphaned Giant Anteater. She was hilarious - she would visit a few times a day, receive her feeding, and often stick around for a nap in the hammock. She would also follow us down to the farm to play badminton, and try to crawl into our beds for a nap. Occasionally she would unleash quite a temper which was amusing as well.

On the last day we left the station early and headed down the river back to town. This river trip was also relaxing, as we slept in the boat a majority of the way. I think I had a bit of heat stroke so sleeping was the best way to relieve it. The only important thing I learned from the boat trip home was that if you stop on a beach to go to the bathroom, be careful where you squat, I encountered a plant that actually stung me, similar to stinging nettle, ouch.

Our stay at PBS was awesome. I have a new respect for volunteer tourism and completely fell in love with the area. I would recommend it to anyone, providing you can stand the heat and bugs.

On the River

There was definitely an adventure sense to this experience. We flew across the country of Peru to a town where nobody speaks english, met up with a group of people we had never met before, and willingly got into a boat heading to ??. We knew we were heading to Piedras Biodiversity Station, and that it was about a 1o-hour boat ride up the river, away from civilization. Apart from that, that's all we knew. We didn't know how far up the river 10 hours is, or what to expect at all. Sure we had seen pictures online, but that did not do it justice.

The boat ride was long, yes, but enjoyable. After being cooped up in Ontario all winter, getting out on a warm river in the tropical jungle was heaven. We headed west on Rio Madre de Dios from Puerto Maldonado, then headed north on Rio las Piedras into the vast rainforest. We started out around 9 am, and ended up getting to the station around 7 pm. It rained at for at least half of the trip on the river. Raining means pouring in the rainforest. There is no such thing as a light rain, from our experiences anyways. We wore our rain ponchos pretty much the entire trip to the station. Well worth the cheap investment. It was the rainy season when we were traveling (in February), but we lucked out and had mostly sunny days during our 2 week period at the station. From what we've heard, that is very rare.

The river is surrounded by forest, and there are beaches along side the river periodically. Usually this is a day and a half boat ride to the station with the use of a peke-peke motor, which is typically used for river travel. These are basically small lawn mower engines with a long pole and a propeller on the end. It takes twice as long to get up the river with a peke-peke motor. If we had traveled to the station with that motor, we would have had to camp overnight on one of the beaches (an experience I'd like to try next time). Luckily, since they had a lot of gear and people (including their 2 year old son Joseph), they decided to use an 60-horsepower outboard motor for this trip.

Our river trip consisted of mainly wildlife viewing, which was mainly birds, caiman and a capybara. They provided us lunch on the boat (sandwiches and chips) as well as snacks (mini-bananas). We could also ask Emma and JJ whatever questions we had regarding the habitat, the station, what we would be doing and anything else that came to mind.

The sun went down around 5:30, so the last part of our trip was in the dark. We pulled out the head lamps and all was good. Once we arrived at the site, we had to lug all of our gear up their crooked, uneven staircase in the dark to reach the station. We got settled in, claimed rooms, had a spaghetti dinner and went to bed. Highlights from the two weeks at the station will be outlined in the next posts.

Getting to the Jungle: Puerto Maldonado

After a good night sleep at the hostel in Lima, we got up early and went to the airport to head to Puerto Maldonado, Peru. The flight was great - we flew on a well-known, established airline (LAN) from Lima to Puerto Maldonado, with a stopover in Cusco. The flight was just under 3 hours long (including the stopover) and was again a bit of a cultural experience. We did get a snack and a drink on the flight. We tried Inka Cola, a popular soft drink that glows bright yellow and tastes like bubble gum - I little too sweet for my liking but it seems to be a favourite over there. Had to try it. Landing and taking off in Cusco was like no other airplane experience I have ever had. Since the town sits in the Andes at such a high altitude, the entire plane, including wall panels in the cabin, shakes in landing and take-off. I mean, really shakes. It was somewhat intimidating, but once we got up in the air all was good again.

Flying over the Andes is beautiful. It is incredibly vast. Peru is extremely diverse with respect to the land: the country contains the world's driest desert (along the coast around Lima), one of the longest and tallest mountain ranges on the planet, and tropical lowland rainforest (among many others). As we passed over the range, the habitat changes to cloud forest and as we got closer to Puerto Maldonado we were flying over lowland humid rainforest.



Padre Aldamiz International Airport in Puerto Maldonado was an eye-opener too. After being use to traveling through airports like Pearson in Toronto and other large city airports, this one was comparably tiny. We got off the plane on the runway (it was even hotter here than in Lima) and got a nice gust of tropical humid air. We proceeded into the arrivals lounge, which was an empty room with one baggage carousel and a souvenirs cart in the corner. We grabbed our bags and headed out the door where we were hoarded with Peruvian mototaxi drivers waiting for us to choose one to take us into town.


Here we had probably our scariest (minimal) experience of the trip. A peruvian woman came up to us and, speaking in spanish, we think she was trying to get us to go on a trip with a 'private guide' she was recruiting for. She was very persistent, pulling out photos and log books from the 'adventure' she could provide for us. We kept telling her (in english) no thanks and that we had travel plans but she was still not letting down. After a few minutes she eventually backed off and we got in our mototaxi and headed into town.



The cost to take a mototaxi into town was S/. 8.00, or the equivalent of about $2 canadian. It was a fun, breezy ride in a 3 seater motobike with a plastic or vinyl covering which we sat under. Our luggage was tied with bungee cables to a rack on the back. This is the main mode of transportation in Puerto Maldonado, and I think it is something that everyone should experience.








Our main goal once we got into town was to find a place to stay. We did not book anything in advance, since I don't think it was possible (no internet booking and we were not confident enough to call in advance - nobody speaks english in this town). We chose the name of a hotel listed in our pre-departure package, called Hostal El Solar. We got there, got checked into a fairly expensive room (S/. 40.00 for a room with 2 double beds and a washroom). As we started to unpack (we had been in there maybe 5 minutes), there was a knock at the door. I opened it up and it was the same woman who was harrassing us at the airport! She had followed us into town and to our hotel. She tried again to get us to agree to take her experience she was offering, and not to be rude, the only way I could get her to leave was to shut the door. Luckily, that was the last time we saw her.


Hostal El Solar was probably the worst accommodation experience I've ever had. The room had a bathroom, which had no toilet seat, no shower curtain, no toilet paper (this is normal though, everyone provides their own) and no light bulb! There was little to no ventilation so it was hotter than hell in there, and the walls are paper thin so you hear everything else in the hotel including its immediate surroundings (dogs barking, chickens in the street, traffic outside). Luckily we had sleeping bags... I did not have a mere sheet on my bed (just a mattress).


That afternoon, after a nap, we explored around town, fired off emails to friends and family at an internet cafe, and called our connection to the biodiversity station and arranged on a meeting place. Everything closes down in the afternoon in town: its siesta time. Good luck trying to find a place to eat during the hours of 1- 4pm. The only guaranteed places that stay open during siesta in this town is internet cafes and cell phone depots. We managed to find a convenience store that was open as well. It was a good opportunity to walk around and see the 'downtown'. Just like Lima, there is a main park (called Plaza de Armas) which is a great place to sit on a bench with an ice cream and watch the busy town. That evening we also had a great tropical thunderstorm, quite expected since it was the wet season.


We met our station manager from Piedras Biodiversity Station, Emma, at a great pizza place called El Hornito on the west side of the main park plaza. It does not open until 7pm but its worth the wait for dinner. The menu is huge and the pizzas are cooked in a clay fire oven. Delicious! When we first walked in, we saw 4 American-looking guys sitting at a table. They asked us if we were looking for Emma as well (who had not arrived yet). We sat down with the others who we'd be volunteering with for the next 2 weeks and started to talk about where we were all from. Through narrowing it down (Canada, Ontario, Toronto, Guelph) we realized that these guys were from basically the same place on earth as we were. It was the biggest small-world experience I've ever had. They were also the same age as us. Emma showed up about 20 minutes later, briefed us on the plan for the next day and after dinner, she left and the 6 of us headed to the market to pick up some supplies for the jungle.


The market (or mercado) is a great place to get just about anything you needed for a general stay in the town (or the jungle surrounding the area). We picked up rain ponchos for the guys who needed them, sunglasses, toilet paper, and alcohol (very cheap, too). Apparently the market is where you can get cooked guinea pig to eat.


After the market we headed back to our hotel and settled in for a horrible night sleep, filled with dogs barking outside, roosters crowing at 1 am and a television blaring in the lobby all night long. We were glad to leave that place the next morning, and even more excited to head out to the station. We got ourselves prepared for the next part of the trip - a 10-hour boat trip on Rio las Piedras (river of stone) to Piedras Biodiversity Station.

Kicking off the Adventure: Lima, Peru

In December 2006, my friend Michelle found a website of a biodiversity station located in the Amazonian jungle of southeastern Peru. After a short discussion, we decided to go for a 2 week volunteer placement at Piedras Biodiversity Station. In the next month, we went through all the typical travel preparations: getting shots, travel insurance, gear, making connections to places to stay and booking flights to head down to this diverse country at the end of January 2007.


I have done some traveling in the past, mostly with family, but this trip was very different than anything I had ever done before. The way we went about it was different as well. I had never been to Peru, let alone South America or any destination south of Cancun. We had a great pre-departure package from the station, which luckily told us everything we needed to know (for the most part). But once we got down there, things unfolded as we went. We knew we were meeting with the station manager in a small town called Puerto Maldonado on January 31, 2007, and that we were going to be at the station for 2 weeks, from Feb 1-14, and that's pretty much all we knew about that.

Organizing flights and places to stay was not too difficult. We flew Air Canada to Lima, Peru. This direct flight was approximately 8 hours long, and flights from Toronto to South America leave late in the afternoon and do not arrive at their destinations until the wee hours of the morning. Once we got there we realized that Lima does not sleep. The airport at 1:30 am looked like it Toronto Pearson at rush hour. Our main goal at this time was to find our ride, Carlos, to take us to our hostel.

In Lima we stayed in a pleasant hostel called Youth Hostel Malka http://www.youthhostelperu.com/, located in San Isidro, a quiet and somewhat safe suburb of Lima. This was our first hostel experience and we wanted it to be a good one. We chose this hostel for a few reasons: location (safety is extremely important in Lima), they have an airport transportation service (that operates 24 hours a day), and they had food on site, as well as some other fun things to do, including ping-pong and a rock-climbing wall, which hadn't seemed to be used for quite a while. This hostel has no curfew, no lockout, and 24-hour registration, which was important for us since we were arriving so late. Their rates were good, and they have lots of other services provided as well for extra costs. We were able to book both of our stays at this hostel on line, as well as arranging for the airport pick-up. Another bonus, as with many places in Lima, they accepted payment with American dollars.

The next day we did the basic tourist thing - we got in a cab to head downtown as we were suggested by the hostel to do. Catching a cab in Lima is not difficult, but it is a little different than in Canada. The taxis do not have meters, so price is negotiated before you get in the taxi with the driver. From our hostel to downtown Lima we paid 7 soles for the ride. And quite a ride it was. The freeway in Lima has lines on the road, but nobody goes by them. In a 4 lane highway, there was probably 6 or 7 'lanes' of traffic traveling on it at high speed. It was a little scary, but surprisingly, we did not see any accidents. Toronto drivers would not be able to handle it. At one point, I looked over at the spedometer and it was broken, sitting at 0 mph.




Lima has its typical tourist attractions: we went to the main Plaza de Mayor, which is surrounded by Lima Cathedral, an impressive structure that takes up a full city block. The Government Palace is also located in this area, and we watched the "Changing of the Guards" at noon. It was busy! For a Tuesday, the streets were pretty much closed with locals watching this event. Its not a short event either, we watched it for about 45 minutes before moving on, and it was still going at that point. They have a marching band that played at least 6 pieces, including the theme song to Star Wars.


We walked down side streets, passing by the impressive San Francisco Church, and walked along one of the many touristy areas near a small creek. One street over from the Plaza de Mayor is this walking street that heads towards the Plaza de St. Martin. The main take home message from this strip is: SHOES. In a 3 block stretch, we must have counted at least 10 shoe stores, including Bata and Payless Shoe Source, among others. We ate lunch down this stretch at a place called Norky's, similar to our... Kentucky Fried Chicken (maybe)?? A mid-sized meal consisted of a piece of fried chicken, salad, fries, a scoop of ice cream and a small cup of Coke, and costed us only S/. 5.40, or an equivalent of only a couple dollars canadian.


From downtown we took another taxi (yes, brave enough to get back in, but had no choice really) to the coast, an upscale district of Lima called Miraflores. We walked through a shopping centre called Larco Mar, and enjoyed seeing the Pacific Ocean. Despite it being HOT and humid (30 degrees celsius or more), swimming in the ocean in Lima is not recommended, since their sewage goes into the ocean, unfortunately. It was nice to see though, and despite the sewage thing, there were still a couple people taking a dip.

We walked from Miraflores to San Isidro, not quite sure what map we were following but we did eventually find our hostel. Since this was our only day in Lima, we wanted to make the most of it. Lima is huge - at a population of about 9 million people, there are 16 districts, and we just barely touched upon 3 of them. But we were happy with what we saw in Lima. If ever in Lima for just a day and want to do some city sightseeing, I recommend our route. There are other things slightly outside of Lima that if we had more time we would have done, but we were limited. By the end of the day we had dirty feet and were quite sunburned (to be expected coming from Ontario in January) but were ready for the next part of the trip: heading to the Amazon.