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sloth hunting across the amazon

we came to south america for one reason and one reason only and i can tell you all that dream has been fulfilled. i actually hugged a sloth!!

we decided to go on our second jungle tour of our journey here in iquitos, the city is vast but if you travel down river you are right into the heart of the amazon.

our first day started off with getting a bus down stream then getting the typical boat called a "pika pika" to our base camp. we was treated to a great view of pink river dolphin once we reached the mouth of the river and was promised more was yet to come.

suddenly our jungle guide george started pointing into the distance shouting "peris oso peris oso" so we looked and i saw my first ever sloth ! he was a bit far away but you could see him lounging without a care in the world in the v of a tree, it was love at first sight.

when we reached our basecamp we was very plesently surprised at how beautiful it looked and that they had a very lovly compost loo. after food we went to the village to meet the shamen because some people in our group wanted to do the local iowaska ceromony (this involves taking a drug that makes you see your future) the village was all on stilts just jutting up out of the amazon.after this we went back for more typical food (meat and rice) and then went on a camen hunt.......... our jungle guide is like ray mears, and steve irwin rolled into a ball with yer man off police academy that can make all the noises.........so off we went into the night armed only with a flashlight, and after much shhhhh and splashing he caught one for us to hold he may have been small but he was mighty.

the second day we went on a jungle walk to find medicines of the jungle (there is a cure for everything out here ) by this time i was just looing for a cure for my mosquito bites. on the way we managed to disturb a troop of squirel monkeys they was really curious and hung about for some pictures. we also saw a vampire bat resting on a tree but it flew off before we could wip out the camera. when night fell we was to go toad hunting and we managed to catch a whopper but got attacked by vicious ants at the same time it was like being stung by 12 bees at once.

on the 3rd day we went out in the canoe for the whole day and by this time i was giving up hope of ever finding a sloth then suddenly i spotted this furry green spooted thing in the tree "SLOTH" i was so excited i almost scared the damn thing out of the tree,we suddenly realised there was another one in the tree, and i can tell you first hand that those sloths can really move it when they want to. george decided he would capture one of them for us to see he assured us that the sloth wouldnt mind and we promised to be gentle (i was going to touch a sloth!!!) after climbing the tree and almost taking the tree with it we finally got the sloth down only to find that she was hiding a little baby sloth on her belly, a whole family of sloths. i almost cried it was the cutest thing ever. we got to hold the sloth and feel how heavy it was (about 5kgs) and that the fur was quite corse. i was in heaven. after being torn away from the sloths we went to our lunch site spotting horny screamers on the way and more monkeys.

on the 4th day we joined another group and went to the village to buy souvenirs that the locals have made, for lunch we went to basecamp and then fishing, unfortunatly we had no luck with the fishing but our comrades did catch 3 catfish (i was hoping for pirannah) we was travelling back and decided to go swimming in the river and we found we was swimming with the grey dolphins they are not as friendly as most dolphins and kept a distance but it was cool all the same.

the final day we didnt do much but we went to a massive tree and had a good old swing on a vine (see the videos )

the whole trip was just amasing and i would have got bitten by everything in the jungle just to have the chance to hold that sloth and her baby.

oh before we went into the jungle keith decided to try out a local delicacy "aligator steak" he says its just like fishy chicken.

when we got back we had a day to spare so we went to see the venice of the amazon, its the floating town attached to iquitos called belen, its strange way of life and people go door to door by canoe and the streets are water, for some part of the year though the water goes down and they can start playing football again.

on our way to lima now taking our first flight since we got here (fingers crossed its friday the 13th)

our jungle tour operator is called jungle wolf for all those wanting a great time in the jungle.

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