What Can You Do in the Jungle?

There are few places on Earth that hold the mythology that the Amazon does, and this title is very rightfully held. Not only is this region amazingly vast covering almost the total size of the continental United States, but it is also the world’s largest rainforest housing at least 10% of the world’s known biodiversity. This may not sound so impressive on paper, but what this means is that nearly every square inch of this massive area is positively brimming with life. You feel it in the air, you hear the cackles and calls of mysterious fauna in the trees, and you see the lakes and streams literally bubbling from all the creatures below (and sometimes above) the murky water. So, naturally, nearly every activity or excursion is focused on experiencing this wildlife.

Of these experiences, the most common is to trek through the jungle with your guides, discovering the many flora and fauna that call this place home. The treks are not usually very strenuous, although sometimes a longer one can be arranged if everyone in your group would like to get a bit deeper into nature. Nico and I ended up doing one that was nearly 5 hours long, complete with a log crossing over a stream filled with God knows what, mating coral snakes (that we eventually had to pass within inches of), countless bugs of gigantic proportions, trees that are nearly 1,000 years old and lessons on various trees and plants that have long been used by the local communities to both treat and prevent a plethora of illnesses and ailments.

Our guides were Danny and his uncle, who are both from communities that are mere minutes away from the lodge. While Danny was fluent in multiple languages, his uncle (who was our naturalist guide) only spoke Quichua and Spanish, which is pretty common among the older generations. While Danny was still a relatively young guy in his early 30’s, his uncle was quite a bit older having worked as a guide in the region as long as Danny had been alive. Needless to say, both had a seemingly bottomless wealth of knowledge as it pertained to the rainforest. Nearly everything we saw was thanks to their expertise, as they pointed out frogs that looked like leaves, snakes in streams, critters that blended right in with their surroundings and helped identify the constant cacophony of jungle sounds. It did not take long to learn that the jungle has everything you could ever need to live long and healthy lives, as long as you know about the many things that can kill you as well!

Speaking of dangerous creatures, one of the activities that you can do without a guide is swimming from the dock during your free time. I absolutely love water, so as soon as I heard it was safe, we decided that we had to jump in. However, it came with a somewhat ominous warning to only swim from 12pm – 4pm, when the many critters that live in the lake are not actively eating. 



This is really the best time for a dip, as this is when the Amazon fully lives up to its reputation, delivering sweltering heat and humidity (almost never below 80%!). The water also is surprisingly cool compared to the outside temperatures, giving you instant relief after jumping in. But, it also is some of the murkiest water that I have ever been in, meaning that I could barely see my arms while treading water, and there were no hints of my legs at all. This coupled with the fact that I knew there might be monsters ending up with this being one of the shortest swims of my life, scrambling to get back on the dock almost as soon as I got in with a serious case of the willies. But, still, the guides insisted that it was perfectly safe, as long as you’re not swimming during feeding time (are piranhas related to Gremlins?). Oh, and don’t even think about peeing in these waters! 

 
A less intimidating way to explore the lake was via kayak, which was one of our favorite things to do independently. We really liked the chance to get out by ourselves, and try our hand at spotting wildlife without the help of our guides. While we need not see any “prized” game such as sloths and anacondas, we did see a lot of birds, most of which I had never even heard of before. No matter what we saw, I always loved the chance to be immersed in the jungle, with no other sounds than the (surprisingly) loud calls of birds and bugs and the slap of a jumping piranha hitting the water.