Amazon Day 2

With the sun due to rise shortly after 5:30am, breakfast was at 5am.  I met with the specialist bird guide immediately after a quick breakfast and together we set off through the rain forest using head torches to see our way.  I quickly lost all sense of direction in the darkness, and it was therefore a little bit of a surprise when after about 15 minutes we emerged into a sort of more open area and I realised that the sun must have come up.  We didn’t stop however and plunged on down another narrow trail.  At one stage there was a 10m long narrow board perhaps as wide as 30cm (it seemed less), that bridged a swampy area.  My guide told me not to step off the board as a misplaced boot would take me in thigh deep.

After another 15 minutes or so we arrived at the base of a tower, one of 3 that comprised a canopy walk.  The towers were about 30m high and connected by rope and plank walkways.  Definitely not suitable for those who suffer from vertigo.

We spent about 3 hours before I needed to return.  Needed? Well yes, unfortunately I had woken up in the middle of the night with stomach cramps.  Immodium had stopped the immediate problem, but it was fair to say that the trip to the towers was probably ill advised, and I definitely wasn’t at my best at the top.  Still I made it back to my lodge without accidents and then spent the rest of the day no eating and generally trying to recover. For a small part of the day, I pottered around the immediate Lodge area where there was plenty to see, including the Giant Otters that live in the lake on which the Lodge is built, and the Hoatzin in the extra ( a. kind of turkey).  But for a large part of the day I was in bed and asleep.