Special Feature - Amazon Tour

This is a special post about our tour into the Amazon Rainforest! 

Day 1:

We started out in the morning in a tour van, driving almost 3 hours towards the rainforest. 

After some lunch, we hopped on a motorised canoe for a 2-3 hour boat ride on the river to get to the lodge.

Once we got to the lodge, we had time to settle in and explore. The rooms and the cabins are super nice for being in the middle of the rainforest!

After it got dark, we went on a night walk to look for different types of bugs. It was kind of scary as our guide told us about all the dangerous creatures in the dark, but also really neat to see a lot of them up close. 

We also got to see a couple examples of zombie fungus which I had seen a few youtube videos on but seemed hard to believe. In short, the fungus takes over an insect's brain, causes it to climb up to a high point and then kills it, grows the new spores, and then uses the height to spread the spores to other insects. 

After making it back safely with no bites or stings, we had a late supper and headed to bed (after thoroughly inspecting the beds for bugs as well).

Day 2:

The second day started off early with a morning boat trip for bird watching! Unfortunately it started raining pretty hard so we had to turn back. 

After, we went on a hike through the jungle where we saw a bunch more insects, including a ton of ants. We got to see bullet ants, army ants, leaf cutter ants, and even try eating some lemon ants (which actually tasted like lemon).

Termites

Leaf cutter ants

We also learned about all sorts of different plants and their uses. We tried using a paste from this vine to clear our sinuses which was super strong. 

After lunch, we went out piranha fishing! We saw some howler monkeys on the way, but all the larger animals were too hard to take pictures of on my phone. 

Piranha fishing was kind of cool, they were super active and constantly taking the bait off the hook. The girl sitting behind me on the boat managed to catch one, but then flung it straight off the hook and onto my lap! It was pretty scary since I quickly brushed it off onto the boat but then it was just flopping around on the boat and no one knew what to do. 

We were then on the boat in the late afternoon again looking for animals, and saw lots of different birds and some river dolphins! Again, very hard to take pictures of. 

After catching the sunset, we went looking for nocturnal animals. Unfortunately, we didn't see any caimans which was what we were mainly looking for, but we saw a few sloths and some other neat creatures!

Day 3:

We started off early again to go bird watching and saw some kingfishers, swallows, toucans, and a bright red scarlet maccaw which was really beautiful. We also got to see a group of squirrel monkeys climbing around right by our boat which was super cool!

After breakfast, we had another walk where we learned about some more plants. We saw some red titi monkeys as well!

After lunch, we had another boat ride, followed by a night walk and a night boat ride for more wildlife spotting. All the pictures were starting to look the same, so I stopped taking them and started just enjoying the cool animals with my eyes! We got to see more monkeys, birds, and lots of insects. Finally, to cap it off, we got to see a caiman right at the end of our boat ride.

Day 4:

We had another early morning boat ride for bird watching, and then it was time to pack up and head back. I really enjoyed learning about all the different wildlife and being able to see them so close in their natural environment! At the same time, it was hot, humid, and there were lots of bugs, so I was also glad to be on the boat back to civilization after a long 4 days.

One of the guys on our tour named Sem (pronounced Sam) had an actual camera and took some pretty great photos of the animals we saw! You can see the photos here.