Welcome to the Jungle! ...exploring the Amazon!

We are on our last South American adventure exploring the Amazon!!! We flew into Leticia in the three country corner where Peru, Brazil and Colombia touch and went on a 4 day jungle trek with our guide Miguel, a little motorised canoo and its driver - lovely Lopez! After going up one of the tributaries, the Yavari - we got to an area called Zacambu, bang in the middle of the jungle! We spent four days exploring the area, swimming in the river (the fish enjoy biting nipples!!!), fishing Piranhas and other delicious fish for dinner, catching crocodile babies in the night (not us ourselves rest assured!) and watching countless birds making lots of noise. It was great fun and the abundance of wildlife near the water is very impressive. Even the moskitos stay away from the water which makes it even more enjoyable!

At this time of year the water levels are very low which means the river is packed with fish! So many that they jump out of the water all the time and it only takes minutes to catch some! On our first day an enormous fish jumped into our boat. It was about half a meter long and really fat! We did not manage to eat all of it at night between the four of us! We stayed with a family in a little community of about 50 people. The ladies cooked for us in the evening and the men caught fish and drank lots of Cachaca. What a peaceful life they have! It feels like every day is a lazy Sunday - very relaxing.

On one of the beaches we spotted not only pink dolphins but also a baby tarantula! How nice! This picture does not convey how much screaming and panicing was going on before I agreed to get this close! Apparently, the baby ones do not have poison yet, they only bite but it will not kill you..

And this is how we slept in the jungle - two nights in the house of the family we stayed with where you could hear the endless scurrying of animals on the wooden floor and in the roof all night! I had to put earplugs in to stop worrying!!

On Craig´s massive insistance we also spent one night sleeping in the jungle with our hammocks hanging between trees!! I was so not impressed!!! But in the end I surrendered and although I barely slept it was yet another unforgettable experience. A few times in the night a little twig fell off the tree above onto my moskito net and I was sure it is a giant spider or snake coming to eat me and almost had a heart attack with panic but it was nothing. Only in my mind! I heard millions of birds scream as well as the grass hoppers and the monkeys howling in the distance but that was about it. Only little spiders and gazillion of ants. Phew!

On the last day we walked through the jungle heat for a few hours to visit the community San Mattheo. We visited the home of a Shaman and his family which was really interesting. We learned lots about his medicinal powers and little miracles, amazing if only half of it is true. The Shaman told us he has 80 brothers and sisters (from the same mother he insisted) but he himself only wanted 8. They all live in the vicinity with their families and must be the happiest and most balanced people we have ever met. They made us feel really welcome and immediately shared what little they have to give. They life in a small house, about ten people in one small room, sleeping huddled together on the floor, a few chickes running around under the house, a dog, a cat, a parrot and the MotherAmazon looking after them. They own next to nothing but they are all smiling and giggling and running around screaming and laughing all the time. It makes you happy just to observe them. The little kids run around naked chasing the chickens, the slightly older kids go to a tiny little school the government has financed and the ladies weave baskets and fish with sticks while the men work in the forest. They have to work hard to get some vegetables from the land, they boil river water over a real wood fire in the kitchen shed at the back of the house for drinking, they bathe and wash in the river which feeds them and have never been outside their community. We really enjoyed staying with them and would love to go back there for longer one day. The kids would certainly be pleased to see and touch my hilarious GRINGOHAIR again!!!

Tomorrow we are getting on a boat which will hopefully take us all the 1500 km up to Manaus. From there we will then fly to Sao Paulo for one giant last real Argentinian steak before catching our flight back to Germany.

We are both torn between being really sad that our big adventure dream is almost over and feeling relieved to get back to the life we know with family and friends. It will be great to catch up with everybody, stay in a home and enjoy Mum´s cooking!

And after all we have some more little holidays planned in Europe over the last summer months and then the next big adventure of our move to OZ is coming closer, one exitement after another! I think I will have to start a new blog or that one... maybe "Teeeensha downunder"?