Amazon Adventure: Day 1 - Plumbing, Pauraque, and Rats

Daytime at Tahuayo Lodge

We arrive after dark at Tahuayo Lodge, and are greeted with a welcome drink of purple corn juice. Delicious. Sweet and syrupy, it leaves a deep violet-colored mustache on LJ's upper lip.

Despite being immersed in the Amazon basin, there is electricity and plumbing here, but it's not quite plumbing as we know it in the U.S. Our introduction to the lodge includes a plumbing primer, which was most definitely eye-opening.

Our showers have only cold water, because, as stated on the lodge's website, "in the Amazon rainforest, (hot water) will become a soup of mycobacteria ... (which) can be be inhaled into the lungs and cause a serious, tubercular pulmonary infection."

Alrighty then. Cold showers it is!

Also, we are implored not to flush any toilet paper in the toilets because as the signs posted around the lodge warn us, "If you think it's difficult to get a plumber at home, just try doing it in the jungle."

Fair point.

We then head down one of the piers to our room - an elevated palm-leaf covered hut with four beds and a simple bathroom.

Dim, ceiling-mounted LEDs (one per hut) light our way as we unpack, and we get settled just before the drum bangs signaling that it's time for our first Peruvian meal.

Our dinner surpasses anything I could have imagined. We enjoy a feast of rice, vegetables, and meat, finishing our meal with a honey-flavored cake.

I'm beginning to think that my plan to lose a few pounds during this vacation may not materialize. 

*******

This bird didn't stand a chance.

Our first excursion is led by our guide, Nelly, who has worked for Amazonia Expeditions for three years. It's a pitch black, cloudy sky, and we head via motor boat in search of nocturnal creatures. Armed with only a headlamp and a machete, Nelly, who grew up in the the villages that pepper the jungle landscape, fearlessly leads us down the Tahuayo River. 

Everyone is silent as she signals to our boat driver to slow down and kill the engine. 

Nelly has her eye on a small bird that is sleeping amongst the brush along the riverbank. As our boat approaches the bank, she crouches on the bough of the boat, slowly reaches her arms to the bird, and then grabs it with both hands. 

Nelly's prisoner is a common pauraque, a nocturnal bird that's native to the tropics and sub-tropics. Right now, it just looks petrified.

After telling us a few fun facts about the bird, Nelly gingerly places the pauraque back where she found it, and we head off in search of more creatures.

Edible tree rat

Just up the river we come across a Peruvian tree rat. It's the stuff right out of nightmares as it's three times the size of any rat I've ever seen before.

Rat fact: Did you know that there are two different types of rats in the Amazon? The kind you can eat, and the kind you can't. Nelly explains that certain tree rats are poisonous to eat because they consume toxic flowers.

The one we have found, apparently, is edible.

I consider this for a moment as we head back to the lodge. 

I suppose it is best to know which is which if you are a connoisseur of rat.

In this case, I'll just take Nelly's word for it. 

No need for a taste test.