Wake up time is 530 or so. This is not the earliest wake up time we have. Before breakfast at 730 we take a short walk laterally and then about 130 steps up to a canopy tower. There our guide Pedro explains the layers of the jungle and we find out that we are in fact in the amazon. (We were debating whether or not we were simply amazon adjacent.) We then picked up a Brazilian nut fruit and got to crack it open and eat it fresh!!!
We board the boat after breakfast down to the Tambopata Research center, our home for the next few days. It is in a state protected reserve and is the only real building allowed in the area (it was grandfathered in). It began as a research center for macaws and pretty soon fueled it's research with money from tourists.
We stop at a check point which is good because I'm about ready to burst. Since I got so sick in cusco I've been really trying to stick to the 3 liters of water a day. But that also means like 5 trips to the bathroom a day (and one or two at night). The check point accounts for all cargo and people going in and out of the protected area. However they never came down to verify? Perhaps Peruvians are much more trustworthy than other humans?
We then stop at a claylick, a place where macaws come to balance out their toxic diet with the sodium from the clay. We are treated to hundreds of scarlet and blue and gold macaws. Gorgeous birds. And our guide allow us to take pictures through his binoculars so we get some great pictures.
We get to the research center. Not nearly as grand as the lodge prior but also nearly a neutral influence on the environment. Like our room at the lodge we have a triple with a wide open space as a window.
We have lunch and then go on a 2 hour hike filled with seeing birds, insects, plants/trees and monkeys!! All wild!! All just out of reach!!
We have dinner and are briefed about our next day. 420am leaving time.
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