Tambopata - A bit of a Clusterduck

The misadventure continues in Tambopata and Puerto Maldonado. Up at 7, we grabbed breakfast at our inadvertent lodge which consisted of a delicious ensalada de frutas, dry bun and... spicy beef and onions. Neither my sister nor I can eat red meat, a restriction we flagged at least three times but does not seem to have made it to the kitchen as evident by the beef pasta served for dinner. Oh well... 

We dragged our giant stupid wheely bags back down the wood stairs and onto the long motorized canoe. On the way back to port we saw two capybaras! Capybara are the largest rodents in the world and have pig-like stumpers, pudgy furry bodies, and faces kind of like a hound dog. I wasn't quick enough to snap a photo though so I hope to have another capybara sighting soon.

Back at the Puerto Maldonado harbour we returned to the town square. We have to get to the G Adventures office to join our real amazon lodge trip. So we hopped in a taxi, address in hand and confirmed only to find no office existed there... our poor taxi driver took us all around the address and intersection to no avail. With no other options, Erin made what's sure to be a very expensive series of long distance calls. Turns out the G Adventures office had moved.

Armed with the new address, the helpful and patient driver took us down mud roads and alleys to a nondescript building. Which fortunately turned out to be to the correct office and not where we were myrdered. Hooray! The staff were confused about why we weren't at the airport and where we were coming from and how we arrived at the old office. And honestly, so were we. 

Now we have a few hours of power and wifi as we await the rest of the group to arrive from the airport. Then it's 45 minutes by bus, 2 hours by boat, a small walk and we are at the lodge. The intentional amazon lodge. 

Hooray internet!

Our guide was super nice and offered to show us around town for a bit while we wait for the other tour members to arrive. We started in the town square and checked out the big Golden Gate style bridge. It connects Puerto Maldonado with Cusco and with Brazil. It used to be a 10-day bus ride to Cusco - with the bridge and highway, it's now 10 hours. 

We grabbed ice cream in town, trying local flavours like Brazil nut and a bunch of fruit I had never heard of before. So we then went to the market to see the raw ingredients. Before heading back to the office to internet and wait.