Second Amazon Stop - Monkeys and Birds!
Trip Start
Jun 21, 2006
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20
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Trip End
Aug 15, 2006
So we left San Miguel and hopped into a more luxurious 12-person motorized canoe to head toward our next destination, Chalalan Ecolodge. This ride was one of the highlights of the Amazon trip - 5 hours of beautiful skies, completely untouched rain forest, amazing birds, and wacky animals. The river was low, and a couple of us had to hop out and help push the boat at times, but it was worth it. Chalalan is also a lodge run entirely by a small communuty of indigenous people that saw an opportunity to help their village and educate others at the same time. Their community is a bit bigger by Amazonian standards - 500 people. They opened the lodge 8 years ago, and they have a pretty amazing resort now. The five of us had our own guide that was completely dedicated to us for our 2 days there, and he took us on 3 hikes through the rain forest. We saw about 50 macaws, a trio of parakeets, a grey hawk, about 6 tucans, a million weird bugs, and the bast part - about 100 monkeys. He seemed to always know where to go to find the traveling monkey herds, and we trailed them three different times. The staff, allmembers of the community that rotate through the lodge, were incredible. The food was fairly traditional food for them, and the last night they hosted a traditional Amazonian party for us. We all chewed coca leaves (legal here, different that processed cocaine - they even put it in tea in restaurants), drank some strange drink called ¨baby puma milk¨, and danced their traditional dances. I got to dance with some hot tribal chicks, and all the guys were after Cassie as well. We were very sorry to leave our new friends at Chalalan, but more adventure awaited us...
