Tag archives for Amazon
Dewey in the Rain Forest
Posted by 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.
Read the whole post »
Sharon, Teacher Winner
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.
Read the whole post »
Lijah Goes Piranha Fishing
Our trip was spectacular–the nature and ancient ruins were beyond belief!
We dirtied our boots hiking to the Oxbow Lake while hunting with our
cameras for the giant river otter. To our dismay we did not see this
rare creature. However, birds, fish, and mysterious bubbles floating to
the surface from deep within the water set the perfect mood for our
exploration.
pulled our boat close along the Oxbow’s banks. What made me jump was
when, to my surprise, our tour guide pulled out fishing poles–made of
simple sticks–and said, “Piranha fishing!”
Laura Beth in the 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.
Read the whole post »
Pete in the Rain Forest
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.
Read the whole post »
Lucy: The Rain Forest
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.
Rachel in the Rain Forest
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.
