Selva day 3

On Saturday we woke up and took a boat ride to another lodge area after breakfast. We started on our way with a packed lunch, a paddle, and 4 homemade fishing poles. The normal "25 minute walk" (according to Leon) took over 2 hours! The water was really high and flooding a lot of places so we kept having to cross these "bridges" of rotting/rolling logs, sometimes with a log hand railing (that of course didn't continue the whole way) with sporadic rusty nails sticking out. We ended up getting wet up until about mid-thigh, depending on if you fell in or not. Some of the "bridges" were really slippery and difficult and I kept feeling like I was on a game show or something. We eventually made it to this big lake in the middle of the jungle where there was finally an open area almost free of mosquitoes. I took my boots off for just a bit to ring out my socks and check on all of my bug bites. Leon laid out four "plates" - big palm leaves that we had picked up along the way, and dished out the lunch he had brought with in his backpack. Rice, plantain, and duck! The duck was actually good... I had never tried it before.

On the way to the long hike

This tree looks like something from a Dr. Suess book

Snail eggs on a tree

Bromeliads!

About to cross a "bridge"

Struggling but still having fun!

Don't step on this one.

A "walking palm"

Me in front of a Ceiba

palm leaf plates

Leon serving lunch

Yum!

We didn't even bring utensils

We had walked all the way to that lake/lagoon through the swamps and swarms of mosquitoes to go on a canoe and go fishing, but there was no canoe there! It was fine, though - after resting and eating lunch with our fingers off of the leaves we journeyed back to the original lodge we got dropped off at. This time the walk only took around 50 minutes! David fell into one of lagoons with his camera... we haven't tried to turn it on yet but I hope it still works. I was SO relieved to finally take my boots and socks off for good. 

After re-applying bug spray for the 100th time we realized we had a good half hour before a boat would come to pick us up so we went fishing. I don't think I've been fishing since I was like 8 - it was fun to do it again and especially to fish in the Amazon! I caught a tiny fish but kind of freaked out and ended up throwing it into the boat. It flopped underneath the slats of wood (where there's a bit of water) and I couldn't find it again. Oh well. Leon said it was a baby pirana but we'll never know for sure. I tried again and after a while got another fish - a little Mojara that I threw back in after taking a few pictures. 

Fishing 

Quite a catch...

After getting back to our lodge and changing our of our wet clothes we fished a little more then hung out in the hammocks until dinner. Keeley and I walked down to the edge of the walkway of the lodge and watched monkeys play for a while in the trees. We also found a tarantula underneath the walkway that we had to take a picture of! 

Coming back into our lodge

Tarantula (underneath my bare foot)

Lizard we found on the curtains in our room