Adventure in the Amazon

We flew into the closest airport to the Peruvian Amazon, an island called Iquitos.

From there we were loaded into a swamp boat for a trip several hours up the Amazon River to get to our first lodge, Tahuayo, in the middle of the black waters.
We arrived to find it on stilts, and you have to climb up a ramp and stairs to get to the lodge.
We had a private guide, Nellie, with us for the entire adventure. Our fist day she
took us by canoe to a zipline in the middle of the rain forest. There was an option to hoist yourself up to the top of the first zipline using crampons on a rope, but they said if you start, you have to go all the way up because there’s no way of getting down. I had them lower me down to the water and I tried – but when I got up to the first platform I realized I wouldn’t make it to the top on my own steam, so I took the easy ride up on a rope & pulley.

The first line started with spectacular views of the Amazon Blackwaters and the Rain Forest from the top of an old Ceibo tree, and we crossed four different platforms through the rainforest canopy before having to rappel down to the water at the end, where one of the guides had brought our canoes.

Rainbows were a common occurrence on our journey.

After lunch, they took us out in a swamp boat looking for the pink dolphins, only found in the Amazon River in South America. We spotted several pink ones, along with some grey females with their offspring, and then jumped in the water with the dolphins for a refreshing swim.

The following day we set off to look for poison dart frogs on “Tierra Firma”. On the way, we passed a bend in the river where they had one of the wooly monkeys that they had rescued several years earlier and released into the wild. Our guide Nellie, called into the forest: Cody, Cody,Cody…

and within a minute or two, we heard rustling noises and a monkey that looked like a miniature stuffed gorilla came down the tree overhanging our boat.

She gave me a banana to hand to him, and he hung upside down by his tail and reached eagerly for the banana and wolfed it down.
An hour later, we reached solid land (the first we had seen since we left) and started climbing through the jungle in search of the frogs. We found 3 of the 5 varieties that inhabit the area, and even though they were very brightly colored, they are hard to spot because they are so small – about a quarter the size of your fingertip.
Then we came to the infamous “Bat Cave”. It wasn’t actually a cave – it was a giant fallen tree with a hollow trunk, filled with three kinds of bats, including vampires. Nellie told me some brave tourists try walking through it, but she personally didn’t like it. My daughter-in-law Oksana decided she had no interest in attempting, and my son Max copped out by saying he was too tall.

Now those of you who know me, know I have a phobia about birds and especially flapping wings, which includes bats….

I decided to pass on that challenge, but Max asked me how I could teach my team to “Overcome their Fears”, when I was too scared to even try overcoming my own.

He had a good point ~ so there was no other option but to make an attempt:

I promise you :
~ The ONLY way to overcome your fears is to face them “head on”.
~ To admit and understand you are afraid and make the decision to be stronger than your fears, in life and in business
~ We are going to be working on getting you to overcome some fears in the Costa Rica Leadership Training – to push you to the next level
Nellie took us upriver a few hours to their “Research Center”, which was another compound on stilts in the water, but much more laid back. We spotted the elusive Giant River Otters, endemic to the Amazon, that measure up to 18 feet long ~ a lot bigger than our little dugout canoe we were paddling. We saw a dozen different species of monkeys and even saw an anteater in the swamp.
I like to pick up gifts for all of my Directors on my travels, so we stopped at one of the Indian villages to choose handmade baskets woven from palm leaves and seeds to bring them from Peru. I bought one from each of the families there, and Nellie told me the village made more money that day from me than they usually make in 3 months. They were all so happy and grateful to earn money to buy staples they need for their families.

It was definitely an Adventure every day in the Amazon ~ I am not a big fan of boats, so it really wasn’t my type of trip, but I’m glad I went to explore another little corner of this amazing world we’re all part of…