Iquitos to Nauta to La Perla, Amazon River Day 8 Peru Jungle Experiences
Monday, December 17
Iquitos to Nauta to La Perla
We're up around 5 am to shower and get ready for our van to Nauta. The hotel night clerk said he'd try to reach the cook to see if they could open the restaurant for us around 6:15 (they usually open at 6:30 but our van is arriving at 6:30-I know we'll need coffee and tea!)
We load up our gear into the van and the guide from Jungle Experiences-LaPerla tells us there aren't any shops in this area of town but we can stop in the center and grab food.
He brings us to The Yellow Rose of Texas-coffee, tea and sandwiches to go, that works.
We travel about one hour to the town of Nauta and meet our boat tour director/organizer-Wendy from Jungle Experiences-LaPerla. We get a 20-25 minute ride on the Amazon to our home for the next week-the La Perla.
Holy cow, we're on the Amazon River!
Our room is #5 on the Main Deck and we have a great view out our bedroom window.
We settle in and have a lovely lunch (fish and rice, chicken roll, deep fried cauliflower, lentils and banana tart for dessert!)
After a siesta we meet our naturalists for the week-Hulber and Neal and our skiff captain, Roger. We are named the Jaguars (there are two skiffs for the two groups of people onboard.) It's rainy season and there are storm clouds on the horizon. Will we get caught in the rain? Time will tell.
We take the skiff up one of the many tributaries that feed the BIG river. And we immediately encounter a group of (wooly) monkeys. They are very happy to take some bananas from us.
We also get to see a coatimundi (the racoon of the jungle), he's very curious about us and the boat but just can't make the leap into the skiff-thankfully.
Next pass a small village where one of the men has caught a poisonous snake. A Bothrops asper- a fer-de-lance
We taste some berries that pack a wallop of Vitamin C. The birds we see are gorgeous-Great Blue Herons, Macaws, parrots, weaver birds... We travel back to the boat watching for birds and monkeys.
It's Italian night for dinner but first we are entertained by the Chunky Monkey Band!
Videos on my playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKa6O-DUsAoClmn4VU14XHFo1lpbcgnKb
At 8:30 pm we get back into the skiff for a night ride on the Amazon. We saw some glow worms and a night hawk and the frog symphony was amazing. In the sky we saw the moon, orion and the Southern Cross.
Next up: A full day on the Amazon River-it starts early with a sunrise bird watching adventure.