Bolivia and the Amazon
Took my daughter Elizabeth to Peru and we also came here to the Amazon jungle near Bolivia. Very noisy!!
You will not sleep beyond 4am as the jungle wakes up then. The noise is insane.
All photographs are mine unless noted otherwise.
Here we set off up the Rio Madre de Dias. The Mother of God River. Heading to The Manu Cultural Zone.
We would pass indigenous tribes that live in the jungle but pan for gold---
After a full day on the river Madre De Dias and then up the Heath River we arrived at our lodge which which was surprisingly comfortable. This is at the Tambopata Macaw Project or Macaw Clay Lick.
This map shows the general area we were in on the Peru/Bolivia border.
Tambopata-Bolivia! We flew in to Puerto Maldonado from Cusco, Peru, and then travelled up the Madre De Dias River to the Heath River to the Lodge at the Macaw Clay Lick.
The place was very remote but very comfortable and YES!!!! THEY HAD BOOZE!!!!!
Elizabeth at the Lodge looking a little like "what the hell am doing here?"
This is the floating hideout where you go to at 4am to wait for the arrival of the macaws and various other parrots that will eat the clay off the cliff called a macaw clay lick! Or at least thats what we were told when we were there!
Our destination was the Macaw Clay Lick. This is where the macaw parrots come and lick the clay to neutralize the toxins in the Brazil nuts they eat. More recently though it has been reported by a gentleman called Donald Brightsmith that they eat the clay due to a sodium poor diet. He reports that parrots in other parts of the globe also eat tannins and toxins but not clay! He concluded that there is salt in the clay that the parrots eat to supplement the sodium lacking diet!
Beautiful in flight but NOISY!
Capybaras and yes they are massive.
A biter for sure!
Ant or Termite nest Amazon
Amazon Bird of Paradise
No shortage of extremely large trees here!