Garden of Eden, day 2 into the jungle

Day 2 started with an early breakfast and an awareness of a nest of giant biting ants nearby (exciting!), and the presence of "pet" birds in the area.  Lots of folks here adopt a baby exotic bird, keep it as a pet, and then let it loose -- the birds stay connected with their owners, and call their feathered friends over to hang.

At the top of a hill, we had an overlook to where we were going, a village on the lower part of the photo where we'd catch a boat downstream to our lodge. 

Along the way downhill, we stopped at the home of a native lady who'd started an animal sanctuary/rehab place. No cages, no enclosures. It was nice to see this all taking place, but it was especially interesting watching the animals, especially the monkey, wild peccary and coati, actually playing with each other, mostly chase, but nuzzling, too.  Probably doesn't happen in nature, but they were quite engaged, and engaging.

Wild peccary. 

Coati. 

Spider monkey. 

 

Field out back, where the capybara had to be located to show us.

Notice the end of the monkey's tail, the prehensile part, has no fur on it, making it especially useful for holding on.  Capybara on the right. 

Capybara with some fresh shoots.  Sweet kitten.

 

A macaw.

They cleaned their box turtle for us. 

We arrived in town.   It's now a big banana port.  Our guide Freddy had grown up in this town, when there were a total of five families living there, one room schoolhouse, no electricity, a walk of 9km to his middle school.  Things changed in 2002 when electricity arrived.

Bananas awaiting the truck.

Freddy, our guide, had played in this same stream when he was little, but he said it was better then -- he played with wooden cars and boats, not plastic ones. 

BTW, we're off for MachuPicchu tomorrow, gone for three days.  Forgive this entry, if it's weird.  Blogger's got some interesting stuff going on today, and it resembles a video game in its editing interactions.  Argh.