Results tagged “Rain Forest”

The rain forest was AMAZING!! We saw sooooo many different types of animals and bugs!!!! I would love to talk about it all, but I am going to focus this blog entry on our journey to the canopy tower at the Posada Amazonas lodge. After an early wake-up to go to the parrot clay lick (unfortunately we didn't see any parrots due to the weather) we decided to go to the canopy tower to view the rain forest in a new perspective.

We had a 15-20 minute walk down the muddy trails of the rain forest until we finally made it to the tower. It was a 120-foot metal tower. I looked up and couldn't even see the top (that's how tall it was). We went up single file on the narrow steps to the top. It was very neat to see the trees in different ways every step we took. Once arriving to the second to last step we got to crawl through a little trap door onto the platform on the top of this structure.

Hola, everyone! My name is Sharon Andrews, and I am one of the teachers who went on the National Geographic Hands-On Explorer trip to Peru. Wow! What a fantastic trip it was! All of our days and evenings were filled with new sights, sounds, flavors, and adventures! The Peruvians were very happy that we were visiting and were anxious to show us their country. We had so many exciting adventures on our trip that I could write volumes, but I will summarize the trip according to Peru's three geographic areas: the dry coast, the highlands, and rain forest.

Hey! This is Laura Beth again! I just wanted to write about what we did the last few days of the expedition, since we didn't have Internet access where we are staying and couldn't blog every day.

On Saturday we flew out to a tiny airport at Puerto Maldonado, which is in the rain forest area. I wish all airports were like that! Everything there was so calm and there was no possible way to get lost. There was one thing I was not prepared for, however, once I stepped out of the plane: the humidity. The air was so thick that at first it was kind of hard to breathe! I soon got used to it though, and started to appreciate the beauty of the area.

We drove for about an hour in a bus down a muddy road, and then took a boat for an hour and a half down one of the Amazon river tributaries. Once we got to our new home for the next few days, a few of us were very surprised. I guess the lodge can kind of be described as sleeping on a porch in a bed covered in mosquito netting. We didn't have electricity or hot water, and there were no doors or locks to separate the rooms--just curtains! I don't know about anyone else, but I loved it! We could all hear monkeys and birds at night, and the rain falling, and the first night I found a three-inch-long grasshopper (well, at least it looked like a grasshopper) in my bed! Everything was beautiful, even the cockroaches! My mom and I took pictures of the roaches we found in our bags because they were the prettiest roaches we'd ever seen--with red and brown bodies.

Staying in the jungle for three days was like going to the best summer camp in the world. One side of our room was open to the trees, and it had a hammock in it! My favorite thing at the lodge in Puerto Maldonado, however, was the canopy tower. Standing 120 feet tall, it towered above the trees.

I thought that instead of writing my blog about the rain forest overall and the awesome activities we participated in, I would write about the lodge itself and the little details about our stay there. I want to give you a sneak peek into what it was truly like to spend three nights amidst the wild, free spirit of the Amazon rain forest surrounded by exotic animals and plants, the thick undergrowth of the jungle, and the overlying blanketing canopy above. It truly was spectacular...and a very interesting experience.

THE LODGE
We finally landed ashore on muddy, steep banks after riding for more than an hour down the Tambopata River. We trekked through deep, sticky mud down a narrow, twining path cut in the edge of the rain forest. It eventually led to the lodge that we stayed in for three nights and two full days, the Posada Amazonas.

At first glance, the lodge looked almost like a vast tree house or wooden hut, built with countless planks and boards of dark, water-soaked wood. The path led to the lodge's unique lobby that was literally completely outdoors. There were no walls at all! The lobby was separated from the thick surrounding undergrowth of the jungle merely by a few, sturdy wooden rails, and a fragile straw roof.

On the last few days of our expedition, we had an awesome time in the Amazon Basin. We explored the Tambopata Natural Reserve. Although the weather was not great while we were there, we saw some amazing things. We woke up at 7 a.m. to look for the resident family of giant otters. We took a fifteen-minute boat ride up the river and then went on a half-hour hike through the rain forest. When we finally arrived it was raining, but that didn't take away from the great scenery of the lake.

Hi, it's Elliot again. I'm on the way home but I wanted to write one last blog about the trip.

The whole Amazon forest has been the most amazing thing I have ever experienced in my life. One thing that really thrilled me though was the canopy tower. After a muddy hike through the jungle, we reached a rickety (well, it looked rickety) metal tower that seemed to stretch on forever and ever up into the sky.

Around and around we went up the winding metal stairs. Only after I was convinced the metal structure never ended, we were at the top. For a moment, I didn't dare breathe. Stretching out below me was an endless expanse of wonderful trees.

In the final days of the expedition we started our journey to the rain forest. From Cusco we took a plane to a small airport where we boarded a bus to our lodge. Instead of traveling on roads to get to our lodge we took a motorboat up a tributary of the Amazon River. We saw a caiman and two capybaras on the way there. After about an hour-long boat ride we reached the edge of the river near the lodge. From there we had to hike for about ten minutes through the forest. The calls of many exotic birds surrounded us. I could only wonder what they could be.

Hi everybody, this is Rachel! Today was our first full day in the Amazon rain forest. Our group was split up into 6 different groups to do different activities at different times. Our morning team activity was to go to Oxbow Lake to search for giant river otters, which can be 2-3 meters (6-9 feet) long. To get to the lake, we went by boat ride on the river and then hiked on a very muddy trail for about 20 minutes. We never saw any otters but we saw bats clinging to the side of a tree, several birds, and we fished for piranhas! Grace K. and Dewey both caught piranhas. It was very cool. We did put them back in the lake after we looked at them.

Hi, this is Savanna:)
Today was packed full of exciting adventures--much like every day here in Australia. Not only did we get to experience the sights of the Barron Gorge National Parks's wet tropical rain forest from the world's longest Skyrail, cuddle with koala bears, and hand-feed little wallabies.

At the end of our midday excursion we got a chance to walk around in Australia's largest butterfly sanctuary...

 

Video courtesy Tourism Australia

Hi, I'm Benjamin. As soon as we all got up this morning, we boarded a bus to go to breakfast. We went to the Rainforest Habitat wildlife park, where we got to hold some pretty cool rain forest animals, like the carpet python, tree frog, parakeet, and crocodile. We learned a little bit about each of the animals too. For example we learned that the python could grow to be several feet long. The one I held was about four feet long.


Afterward we ate breakfast with the birds. The birds were flying around, swiping our food and drinking our juice, and sitting on our heads and shoulders. One even peed on my shoulder! It was all great--even the pee.