Marcus served a two year church mission in Peru, so for years he has wanted to go back. We started off spending a few days in the jungle. Marcus couldn’t go up the river by boat as a missionary, so this time we found a place to stay that was two hours up the Amazon. We didn’t know what we were in for when we pulled up to the boat dock but we were so surprised! Mostly, because we had air conditioning in our room. Ha! We felt pretty spoiled by this when at home it’s something we just take for granted.
The next morning we came to a small town where people travel by moro-taxis. Similar to a tuktuk in Asia. Well, our grouped was whizzing around these small paths and we felt like we were in a video game of MarioKart or something! We were laughing so hard with our guide shoved between the two of us! We then went on a canopy tour of the jungle 100 ft up with bridges that connected one tree to the next. Some were even 60 ft in length! We had one of those “moments” when we were at the highest platform and two macaw birds went flying overhead. The jungle goes out for as far as you can see and it reminded me of being over the top of a bunch of broccoli stems. I think I said “This is sooo pretty” about a million times.
One of our favorite things was riding the boat up and down the river. Nobody uses cars and they have to access everything by boat or mototaxi. Having the chance to stop at a few villages and see their everyday life was an eye opening experience. I was gravitated to the groups of small children and they just wanted to see everything I had, my sunglasses, my necklace, my fan made from a leaf-Ha! They loved looking at themselves on my camera from the pictures I took. But it made me miss my own babies who were at home!
One night we went on a “jungle hike” and our guide, Segundo, had been our fearless leader through the jungle for a few days, so at this point I was feeling pretty confident I’d follow him anywhere! But that night when we went into the jungle every little noise had me on edge. With nothing but a flashlight we were looking for crocodiles, tarantulas, and seeing the biggest bugs I’d ever seen in my life! I nearly had a panic attack when a spider fell down from a tree riiiiiight between me and our guide. But looking up and seeing the stars was like non other! It was incredible.
Our last day we went fishing for piranhas and I couldn’t believe it when I caught one! We had it for dinner that night, and it was surprisingly really good. Leaving the jungle I got super sad and emotional. It was just everything and more that I expected, and I honestly didn’t know how the rest of the trip could compete with my newfound love for the jungle.
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