Saturday, May 7, 2011

April 25-30: Deep in the Amazon




¨You had to be there!¨

It´s one thing to see the world´s deadliest insect on Animal Planet.  It´s a whole different world when it´a foot away from your face.

Tarantulas.  Tarantula-eating wasps.  Ants the size of small mammals.  The world´s most painful insect stings.  The world´s most poisonous spider (which happens to be the size of a tarantula and is ¨extremely aggresive¨)

It is all there, and it´s not even hard to find.  6 nights in the jungle was a crazy experience.

Welcome to the jungle.


Hello Wandering Spider - the size of your hand and extremely, extremely poisonous.   
The Brazilian wandering spiders appear in Guinness World Records 2010 as the world's most venomous spider.


Going to step away from the Don for a few days.  It´s not conspicuous here.  At all.

Getting ready to hop on a boat for the cruise upriver.

Cruising through the jungle.  It´s like the Venice of rainforests.

Supply boat heading upriver.

View off the bow.

This guy is writing a book on the Tambopata Natural Reserve, our destination.  His camera gear was cooler than mine, by a big margin.

Water and jungle.

The kitchen at a ranger checkpoint.

Ranger checkpoint... 

Accomodations - make sure the mosquito net is tight!  Insects and bats own the place.

Electricity is sporadic (solar panels and a generator provide power from 530 - 9), so kerosene lamps do the rest at night.

Sunrise over the Amazon.


So humid your clothes actually get wetter overnight... and forget about drying anything unless its out in the sunshine.


Ranger life.

Heading further upriver... sediment gives the river that dark orange hue.

The jungle is trying to own this shack.  It will win.


How the locals get around.

More sunrise... its brief this close to the equator.  No more 3 hour sunsets like I had down in Patagonia.



The jungle is just everywhere.  It is kind of spooky, and really easy to get lost.  Very happy to have a guide.

Cruising a small lake in the jungle.

Our leader.

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