Date of Entry:  October 19th 2015

Place of Writing: Hotel Avenida Uyuni Bolivia

We wake up early all over again, tried but excited for what our third day in the Amazon Holds.  Today is a day largely focused around adventure,  birds and human birds alike.  But it starts, like most days in the amazon with a boat rise and a stunning sunrise.

We motor on past the town and under the golden Gate look a like on our way to the early morning attraction, something called a clay lick.  Strange name don’t you think?  It’s called that because it’s pretty much a wall of clay that tropical birds come to lick, sucking up salt and minerals from the clay.  This is a small one licked mostly by parrots and parakeets, but in Manu National Park theres one which supposedly houses hundreds of macaws every morning.

We pull up closer to the shore and drift for a while listening to distant calls of Parakeets trying to find where they’ve chosen to concentrate themselves this time.  It doesn’t take too long as there’s hundreds of them, all chatting up a storm of the clay lick is also their social gathering for the day.

We spend a good long chunk of time watching this chaotic scenes and I’m oddly reminded of Sea lions on a dock outside of Valparaiso.  IT’s crazy, sometimes violent, very crowded and very loud but beautiful too. Using the wonderful zoom on my camera I manage to capture on of the few macaws visiting this clay lick, and while the pictures aren’t great, keep in mind this macaw was a great distance away.

Eventually the sun now high in the sky, the heat becoming oppressive remarkably quickly.  Soon though we’re back for breakfast, which today is the full buffet, including stunningly delicious banana pancakes.  It marks only the second time in south America that I’ve been impressed with pancakes outside of my own concoctions, the other being down at the southern edge of the world in Punta Arenas Chile.

Breakfast done we get a little hammock and reading time before heading towards our next stop for the day, the Yakari lodge canopy adventure centre, which is across the river and includes two zip lines and some crazy bridges high up in the jungle.  They are also in the process of building a second adventure centre in behind the main lodge.

We pull up and climb back up onto the shore, a large group of us there including a friendly family from Arequipa who is there for just one full day.  As we finish the short walk into the canopy stopping in a small clearing under a truly massive tree, our guides start to tell us how all this is going to work, but as often happens, some bright colours distract me.  At first I assume it’s a fungus on the tree, but as I get closer I realize the whole thing is moving.  Caterpillars…. our guide notices me looking and instantly comes over to warn everyone… highly poisonous caterpillars.  Not touching them is made easy, since they look like the devil himself.

As if the caterpillars weren’t terrifying enough, what comes next is zip lining, an activity i have fastidiously avoided all my life, but this time, Sara somehow manages to shame me into giving it a try.  But I’m not in the first group since there’s 15 or so of us and only 6 harnesses.  Instead I take up my job as photographer, doing the best I can to capture Javier gliding through the canopy at decently impressive speeds.

Next comes our turn, climbing up the wooden tower moored loosely to the tree, climbing higher and higher into the canopy, the platforms shaking more and more with each step.  Why on earth am I doing this?  That’s the only thing running through my mind as I get up stop and they start to fit me with a harness, it takes three to find one that fits over my ample thighs, what a great confidence booster.

After snapping the above few photos of the bridge and other braver souls than I, it’s time to climb up to the last platform which feels even more precarious.  I go last, a stupid move looking back but fine, and much to my frustration I find my go pro has somehow drained itself of battery so we’re left with Javier’s photos of me and Sara as seen here.

Zip-lining for me is a mixed experience, the adrenalin is certainly palpable and soaring above the trees, feeling like your flying is an amazing feeling that I loved more than I thought I would, but at the same time the amount of fear and anxiety that goes into the build up, it’s not something I’ll be rushing out to do again, unless it’s included in a package, or over a particularly impressive waterfall.  Still, surprisingly it wasn’t even the scariest part, as between the two zip lines you have to cross a truly ludicrous bridge, only a single two by four wide, suspended with wires much like the zip line. Creaky and uneven walking the hundred meters or so felt like running a marathon.  Sadly since my go pro was out of batteries I have no pictures.

That said, once Sara and I finish our zip lining we do get to explore the slightly more reasonable bridge hung high between two massive and impressive trees.  It offers unparalleled views of the thick amazon jungle all around us, and we get precious little time before being called back down to ground level to head back to the boat.

‘We head back to the lodge for a tasty lunch and mid afternoon chill session before sara and I decide to go our separate ways for the afternoon activity.  We’re scheduled to go fishing, but I’m the worst kind of meat eating hypocrite and don’t like killing animals myself so I choose to join the Peruvians on their trip to monkey island, while Sara and Javier see what they can pull out of the river.

I meanwhile decide I’m too tired out to want to kayak to monkey island and so I chill in the boat with the guides falling into Brandon Sanderson’s mastery of the fantasy genre,  while the locals have a lot more trouble mastering the kayaks than we did, they make it most of the way eventually, before being welcomed back onto the boat for the last little bit of the journey.

We climb up onto the beach and head up into the forest as I did on my first day here.  This time the group is bigger, and with kids involved we certainly make more noise as we trudge through towards the centre of the island.

As we reach the clearing where we saw the monkeys last time, were sad to see there’s none to be seen at first, but our guide is not one to give up quickly, imitating the capuchin’s call relentlessly, eventually getting a distant answer.  The first monkey to arrive leaps through the trees with a noticeable limp, and as he retrieves a Granadilla fruit from our guide, we’re told this used to be the leader of the pack, up until a few weeks ago when a new male challenged him to a fight and won, leaving him with the noticeable limp and at least temporarily shunned from the group.

H watches us for several moments but he’s not alone for long, the rest of the groups slowly melting into our sight lines from the thick canopy leaving our limping friend spooked and climbing up to higher ground, watching the rest of the group hesitantly.  The other male is here you see, and he doesn’t look best pleased to see the outcast eating.

We appease him and his comrades with more fruit to keep there from being a scuffle.  The monkeys are quickly distracted and turn to playing with eachother and fighting over the plentiful fruit playfully as the first of a few squirrel moneys come to join the party, too timid to take fruit from us.

We’re getting told it’s time to leave but I manage to capture a short little video of them playing, since photos never really do manage to capture the movement and magical ease of monkeys in the trees.

We head back to the boat and even though there’s still at least an hour of sunlight left we see the moon shining bright in the sky, white against blue, as a flock of tropical birds flies by in the distance above.

The ride back to the lodge passes quickly and pleasantly and we have the rest of the evening free to relax, chat with each other, and of course watch another episode of Firefly before bed.