Arriving at the Eco Amazonia Resort

Sunday May 5

We found later that our jungle hotel had only one temperature of water, neither hot nor cold. It was too cold for a morning shower.  We should always appreciate how wonderful a hot shower feels in the morning. When I get home I am going to remember that.

During the night it started to pour. We had a good breakfast and then put on rain gear. We were still in the mountains. We had not seen a piece of straight highway in a week. The roads were still great but with the curves and the rain visibility was bad so we took it easy.

Then the rain increased… and increased. It was like the worst of a summer monsoon. There was thunder and lightening. Many times we had a mountain on one side and a river on the other with the water running across the road. The curves continued for about 100 miles. Then it started to clear, we came out of the hills and the roads straightened out.

We were now at less than 1000 feet elevation and in real jungle with thick foliage, ferns and trees with huge leaves. The road was straight as could be. It looked like we were crossing Louisiana.

There were again people everywhere but different than before. The towns were really bad with trash everywhere. The people dressed in traditional clothes with the pretty hats were gone as were the old ladies walking down the road and children watching. We  still had a lot of dogs and there were motorcycles everywhere. They were from 50cc to 175cc and they out numbered cars at least 10 to 1. Many of them were scooters and motorcycles with small taxi or pickup bodies on them.

The speed limit is 60KPH (about 36 MPH) but no one pays any attention and we rolled along at 75MPH. When little towns came up they put huge speed bumps across the road that slowed us almost to stop.

We stopped at one town that was built with the houses on the edge of both sides of the road. All of them were on stilts over the river. They were all right next to each other. It was crowded with people walking along and across the road and motorcycles going both directions. It was filthy with trash everywhere. We found out later that they are there to illegally mine gold. You wonder how people can live like that. This part of the county is definitely a different kind of Peru.

We continued on into Puerto Maldonado. It is a large busy port city crowded again with people, scooter taxis and motorcycles. There is trash everywhere. We found our way to the dock on the Rio Madre de Dios River. (Mother of God) It is one of the longest tributaries of the Amazon. We were only at an elevation of 600 feet yet this water has a 6000 mile journey to the Atlantic Ocean.

We all got on a long canoe type boat that was motorized and held about 30 people. We headed down stream at about 30 knots. After an hour or so we arrived at our jungle resort. It is a beautiful place and they served us juice as we arrived.

At 4 o’clock we got back on a smaller canoe and crossed the river to Monkey Island. They had given us all heavy Wellington boots. We walked on the very wet and muddy island for an hour looking at 3 different types of wild monkeys.

We returned to our cabin and then went to dinner. It was delicious. We returned to the room to find that we again have no hot water. We are taking cold showers. We are going to be here three nights. The power is only on from 5:30 to 10:00pm.