Saquena, Peru - Polarsteps

Welcome to the jungle, again! 😁 We spent two days in Iquitos, where we visited the local festival San Juan. We enjoyed it, but none of the locals seem to do: look at the video (added at the end + a picture of guess where the Guinea Pig goes-game) when the presenter tried to get some noise from the audience: 'silence'. 🤨 There was nothing really worthwhile to stay in the city any longer and we were eager to experience the jungle again!! This time for 5 days, 4 nights. 🖐️ Together with the South-African Michaela and our guide with the original name Frank ánd boatman Frank, we formed team Frank's! 🎉 The basic lodge served as our base camp. Our initial plan was to stay there two nights and two nights in the jungle. However, we made the wise decision to diminish the time camping in the deep jungle to one night! 🌳 The first two days we saw soo much wildlife! The guides were great spotters and we finally saw sloths in the wild!! (too far away to get that on picture though, it's a black dot in the trees, just believe me). We saw many tropical birds, a capibara, an iguana, the snout of a caiman and we took a mud bath in the Amazone. The tarantulas🕷️ were less of a success, mainly because we got attacked by biting fire ants when we got too close. What a sweet protector. 😤 Our botanical hike was the highlight! Not because of the interesting trees with all their medical functions, but because of the three different types of monkeys we spotted! This time we weren't under attack by the wooly monkeys. No, they even descended and mama-monkey grabbed a banana from Liselot's hand😻 (the bananas someone else left there). There is also a vague picture of a guinea pig-looking creature, this is actually an opossum; so cute!! 🤗 On the third day we got ready to dive deeper into the jungle! It took us 3 hours by boat to reach our campsite. After the fire was just lit, we got hit by a tropical rainstorm. Great shower we can say. No time for lunch yet... This time we had to catch our own meal! It took a while (and one escape), but Liselot's first ever fish catch is a fact! Look how big it is!! So proud! 🤩 After lunch the jungle Frank's made us a trail deeper into the jungle🔪. Really great to experience, however no animals to be seen. When we got knee-high in the swamp, they suddenly smelled something... A snake! O shit, thanks for bringing us here! Oh, they can be poisonous? Fortunately, we survived. Unfortunately, no snake was spotted! ❌🐍 When the evening came, so did the swarms of mosquitos. Although we were pretty sure that smoke should've deterred them, these mosquitos somehow appeared to be attracted by it. Mosquitospray also didn't help at ALL. So the ladies fled into the tents, leaving it to the Franks to prepare dinner (we had tent-service!🤩). Words can't describe how itchy the mosquito bites were [Frank got at least 100 on his shoulders and Liselot's bum was assaulted fiercely🍑]. We were so happy to get back to the relative safety of our lodge the next day. We all agreed that mosquitos for sure are the most dangerous animals in the jungle! Not only because of diseases, but also because they make you totally go crazy. 🤣 The last day we visited the giant lily pads and got ready for our first flight of this entire trip! Off to the.... 🐢🏝️

Country Guides:

Peru