If you’re looking for a very unique and possibly magical experience in Colombia, we have just the thing you’re looking for! Pink dolphins, a monkey sanctuary, Anacondas, Pirarucu sighting and Piranha fishing. Night trekking, tarantula spotting and Cayman catching. If this sounds like something out of a movie, I assure you, normal people like us do it too! (If you consider us “normal”)
However, the disclaimer is, it’s not an easy trek. You’ll be traveling by boat in wet season or trekking a LONG way in the dry season. You’ll be contending with the humidity and heat, biting gnats, lots of crazy bugs and disease infested mosquitoes who carry Dengue fever, Yellow fever and Malaria along with many other types of diseases, less lethal. We are not above getting vaccinations. Especially if it’s going to cut our potential mortality rate in half. Yellow Fever has a death rate of just under 50%, meaning just under 50% of people who get yellow fever will die from it. So, knowing that we’d be heading to the Amazon at some point, that was one of the first things we did when we arrived in Cartagena. We went to a health center and got our Yellow Fever vaccination for free.
After spending 10 days in Bogotá, we left the big city of 7.5 million people and hopped on a plane destined for Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia. This special “town” encompasses 25 blocks and has 45,000 inhabitants on the Colombian side. This is a border town, so what could be so interesting about it? Well, at this confluence, the Amazon River is shared by three countries, Colombia, Peru and Brazil. You can take a short 10 minute walk and be in Brazil from Colombia or a 20 minute boat ride during rainy season and you’ll be in Peru. There is no border control, no passport control. This is the Amazonas, they don’t really identify themselves as belonging to one country or the other (unless you specifically ask which country in the Amazonas they’re from), they actually call themselves Amazonas.
We’ve traveled to many remote places and there are so many of them that you can explore on your own. The Amazon is NOT one of them. You NEED to have a guide. After spending a few days by boat out on the Amazon River, we’ve learned a few things about this living, thriving body of water. The first and most important thing is, the grass moves. I’m not kidding. Today you might take the waterway that’s clear and it looks like smooth sailing from here on out, but by the afternoon, that same path will be covered by foliage and it will leave you wondering if you’re going the right way. The pathways that the captains of these little passenger boats take, literally snake through the jungle of mangrove trees. There is a lot of “crashing” into trees as you navigate these narrow, winding waterways. There is also a lot of getting stuck in the foliage. Since it moves, the only way around these patches is literally through them, so you hope to get enough speed so when the motor gets to the foliage, the rest of the boat can just glide through when the engine gets cut. If not, the foliage wraps around the propeller and then the captain has to untangle the prop to continue.
When you first arrive at the airport, you’ll find plenty of tour guides that offer tour packages from a day trip to multi-day excursions. Our first order of business was to get to our hotel and explore a little of the town while finding a place to eat. However, when we left the airport, the taxi line was so long, with people waiting 45 minutes for the next cab and we didn’t want to wait. It was raining and humid and we didn’t want to be standing out in the rain waiting for a cab. We happened to run in to Nixon, a tour guide from Expeditions George of the Jungle. He was busy explaining all the different tour options, complete with an entire book of handwritten reviews in multiple languages. As we weren’t ready to commit to anything yet, we told him that we were looking for a tuk-tuk to take us to the hotel rather than wait for a taxi. Immediately, he said, “I have a guy!” That man was standing next to the taxi waiting area wearing a guide jacket from a different tour agency, Amazonas Extremas. Two guide companies and we haven’t even left the parking lot. Alexis, the tour guide from Amazonas Extremas offered to take us in his tuk-tuk to our hotel.
On the way to the hotel Alexis was explaining all of the different tour options that his company offered and even asked if we wanted to see pictures. Of course we want to see pictures! So he pulls over to the median in the middle of the road and starts showing us tons of pictures. They looked so awesome. They even have a 4-day tour where you get to see bioluminescent mushrooms! After showing the photos and explaining the tours, he dropped us off at our hotel and gave me his contact info just in case I wanted him to take us around town essentially being our private taxi and tour guide.
We ended up going to dinner and when we walked out of the restaurant, he just happened to be there waiting for a fare and we told him we were looking for dessert. He was so awesome, he took us to an artisanal Ice-cream parlor called Nai Chi that served Amazonian flavors to include Grubs, Ants, and coca leaf and you can sample every one of the ice-creams that they have that day as it changes daily. They even had a bowl of the grubs on display. They were alive and they were HUGE! They honestly could have been someone’s pet they were so big. I tried handling one and I couldn’t stomach it and literally dropped it back in the bowl, I’m sure that stunned it, but it continued squirming around in the bowl looking for his dozen friends that were in there with him. Bronson picked one up and nearly kissed it. Gross. I wanted to vomit.
We decided to return to the hotel and settle in for the evening. It had been raining all day, the streets were flooded, not to mention there was a ton of road construction being done, so there was debris everywhere. In trying to avoid the deepest puddles that you can’t see the bottom of, I ended up stepping in a huge pile of wet concrete instead. It was just up above my ankle and I lost my flip flop in it, so I had to go digging in sloppy, wet concrete to find it. This is definitely a place that tennis shoes and flip flops are not ideal. What you really need is Rain boots. This is the Amazon Rainforest and guess what? It rains. A lot. There isn’t very good drainage so every street floods. Pools spill over their banks and the river swells to 120 km wide. Where in dry season, there is an island in the middle of the river, during the wet season, the island completely disappears and the river gets to be 30m deep, almost 100 feet.
The next day we decided to use George of the Jungle as our tour operator and booked a 3-day 2-night tour of the Amazon Jungle. They provide boots for you and you can store your belongings that you don’t want to take into the jungle at their location. They told us that we needed long pants and long sleeve shirts. As we were in short supply of both, we went to the local clothing stores looking for loose fitting pants and shirts. We purchased a small wardrobe for the three of us and packed our tiny little backpacks and set out on our trip. The first day we headed out on a 2.5 hour super rainy boat ride. The boat was covered, but it didn’t help enough. I had to break out the umbrellas to shield everyone in the front of the boat. We arrived at our base camp and had lunch while watching the rain pour down. In the early afternoon, the rain cleared up and left us with a beautiful slightly overcast afternoon where we went bird watching. We saw King Fishers, tons of other pretty birds that I can’t remember the names of, Blue Macaws and the Scarlett Macaws too. There were birds that have horns on their heads and wings, condors, cranes and Amazonian Seagulls. The array of different species of birds was incredible, and we only saw a few.
After bird watching, we headed back to basecamp for dinner where they served a delicious meal made from fresh local ingredients and some pasta. We were told after dinner we would be heading back out on the boat to do some Cayman spotting. Not only did we spot the Caymans, our tour guide, Miguel, caught them and let us hold them. Kaden was a little freaked out by the thought, so he opted out of holding them. They were young, one was 6 months and the other just over a year and a half, judging by their sizes. They were actually very docile, calm even. They didn’t try to squirm, they didn’t try to bite or escape. They just kind of hung out and let us hold them, which was pretty cool. After we all had a chance to hold them, we released them back into the water and headed back to basecamp for the night.
The following day we traveled a distance up the river to find the illusive pink dolphin. These species are only found here in the Amazon, it’s thought that they’re pink due to the nutrients of the food in their environment. They also have an oddly shaped dorsal fin. It’s not pointy like a normal dolphin. They definitely don’t look like any dolphin I’ve ever seen. After finding the pink dolphins, we jumped in the river and swam with some of them to cool off before venturing into the mangroves to go fishing for Piranha. Kaden happened to be the only one who caught one, while I caught a tiny little catfish.
After a full day, we retired to our base-camp, ate dinner and everyone fell asleep really early.
The next day we went on a nature hike. This hike was a trek through the jungle, wading through knee high water. Unless you were me. I was wading through the water just fine, until I fell into a gaping hole under the water that you couldn’t see… It was chest deep. I wasn’t the only one though. On the way back out of the jungle, our guide fell in the same hole. The boots didn’t really help on this particular trek. Everyone had to stop at some point and empty their boots. We learned some survival skills like how to use the trees to call for help, which trees we can drink and harvest food from and others that we can’t. We saw tons of wildlife. Then, on our way back, I found the teeniest-tiniest frog I’ve ever seen in my life, hitching a ride on a jacket. He let me hold him for a really long time.
The last day, we were taken to a wildlife refuge in the middle of the Amazon. A man had taken in a bunch of monkeys, anacondas, river fish and even toucans. He was rehabbing the ones that can be, and for the rest of them, they will be free to stay on his land and live out the rest of their days. This was probably a favorite of mine because I’ve always wanted to pet and play with monkeys. They seem so cute and cuddly… When we arrived, before we had even docked, we were greeted by an entire monkey welcome team! Granted they wanted to go through all of our bags to steal whatever food or goods they could get their grubby little paws on! They were so cute…
After spending the day playing with monkeys, it was time to head back to Leticia. We made the 1 hour boat ride back to basecamp, collected our belongings and headed out for the 2 hour boat ride back to Leticia. We had such an amazing experience, one that we’ll never forget. Kaden LOVED the monkeys! If you ever think of making a trip to the Amazon, there are tons of places to do it, and if you’re in Colombia, make the trip to Leticia. A roundtrip ticket will run you about $70-$120 USD per person and the tour, depending on length and season will run you anywhere from $100-$300 USD. This one cost us about $140 per person, and was 3 days 2 nights. We weren’t sure how long we were going to be able to deal with the heat and other elements without having all of our gear with us, so we played it safe. Looking back on it, I gladly would have extended one more day to catch the bio-luminescent mushrooms, I just would have to remember to get more Nopikex. I’m not above using 99% Deet if I need to keep those damn mosquitoes at bay. I hate those things! Cancer or Malaria, Dengue fever, Yellow fever…. I guess it’s a toss up… I’ve already had cancer once, not deet related and I only live once. But I digress…
On the way back to Leticia, we saw a most unusual sight… This kid was playing with his pet, and I thought at first that it was a stuffed animal… It was not. That is a real sloth and he carries it around like a teddy bear. I’m telling you, it is amazing out here. Maybe that’s where the word Amazing comes from? Amazon = Amazing…. Google knows, I’m sure, but I’ll leave you to ponder that. 