Estancia Bello Horizonte Puerto Maldonado

... river joins the Amazon.Our lodge is about 30 minutes upriver from Puerto Maldonado.
In my mind, lodge, implies a certain level of luxury. But this is the jungle, and while I´m sure there are a lot more base options around, our place was certainly pretty rustic and open to the elements. A relatively small area of the jungle had been cleared for the lodges(huts).They were in keeping with their surroundings, made of wood with thatched roofs. They had running water ...

Nach 14 Stunden Busfahrt von Cusco nach Puerto Maldonado tuckerten wir 1 Tag Flussaufwärts, wo wir am Rio Pariamanu unsere Zelte aufschlugen. Unterwegs sahen wir entlang des Ufers immer wieder einsame Bauernhöfe und zahlreiche Goldwäscher. Letztere schossen in den letzten 2 Jahren wie Pilze aus dem Boden. Nuggets sind keine zu holen, aber im Sand&Boden lagert viel Goldstaub, von dem es sich gut leben lässt. Ebenso waren ...

... might be. The great downside of these operations is that they use mercury in the process and, we are told, 4 tons of it gets dumped in the Tambopata every year. People no longer eat the fish. By the time we reach our destination, Refugio Amazonias, it is late in the afternoon with a couple of hours of daylight left.

The Lodge is a 10 minute walk from the river into the primary rainforest and is a very impressive building made from (sustainable) wood but pretty much has only a ...

... br>We then floated down the river without the noisy engine. It was a stunningly clear evening and we listened to the beautiful music of the jungle. That night, we slept better than we have in a while with the sounds of all the creatures in the jungle. Our bungalow was built on stilts and instead of glass windows, there was netting around the bungalow, so you could hear every single noise even from the bungalow next door.

The next day ...

... a bit, visited my friends Francisco and Karina, and chilled for the rest of the day. It was fun hanging with them all. I had this real sense of fortune being surrounded by such good people in my life. It was also cool watching Karina and Mae trying to communicate with eachother. They finally settled on speak German to eachother. It was quite a treat to experience. I ended up getting a guide to take us out to the jungle of Tambopata for a good ...

... did little to provide a signifcant amount of comfort to my pitiful situation. My body was going in and out of a painful fever spiking rollar coaster for awhile there. For a couple days, I did not know if I was about to get hit upside the head with a nasty disease or what was going on with me. I still dont know what was going on. It took me about a week to get close to a conciousness where I felt confident that I was awake and in control, not in some dream state. The ...

... a muddy trail stopping for short info sessions about the plants and animals. We finally arrived at the lake. We were given some snacks, which I gladly fed to the schools of piranha hidden beneath the murky waters of the lake. We took boats out onto the water only to learn that we would not be seeing the otters. How silly of us to think we would see otters. The otters are on the protected side of the lake and we are not allowed to venture over to ...

... this to enjoy their diet of mineral salts and eat clay to cleanse
their digestive systems. We have a breakfast picnic on the shore of the
river and after many pics we return to the lodge. I spent the remainder
of the day lounging around and reading in the hammock.

The next
day we say goodbye to this beautiful country as we return to our
homeland. I will never forget all the fun adventures we had and how
much culture we took