Today, Monday May 15th we woke up at 8 for some breakfast at the lodge, and Skip and Rick told us to get ready for a river hike, whatever that means. They told us to wear our boots and prepare to get wet. We all boarded some trucks and drove down the road to the river in a forest. We got out on the side of the road at what seemed to be a random point, and then the two Iyarini workers with us just started cutting a path with machetes.
We followed them for about 10 minutes until we got to a small creek. We started wading through it, trying to avoid letting the water into our boots. Eventually the water got really deep and we had no choice but to submerge, filling our boots with water. They’re great at keeping water out, meaning they also keep it in. The entire time we were sloshing around carrying an extra few pounds on our feet with soaked socks. The boots kept almost slipping off, especially when we had to swim. Olivia lost her boot in a 10ft deep pool, and miraculously found another boot from the same lodge, same foot and size. I’m sure hers will turn up for another group that lost one.
The views from our hike were awesome. We were truly in the depths of the rainforest, with trees hanging overhead and sunlight peeking through. It was exactly how I imagined the Amazon. There were awesome waterfalls and we got to climb one, large deep pools that we could swim in, and some small cliffs that we could jump off of. The entire time I was amazed by what I was seeing, it felt like it was out of a movie.
Just as mysteriously as we entered the forest, one of the workers just walked into the trees to the side and started cutting a path. We followed him for about another 10 minutes and ended up on a random road. We were anticipating the pickup trucks picking us up, but they weren’t there yet so we decided we might as well start walking in the direction of the lodge. They never ended up coming, so we just trekked the entire way back for about a half hour. We kept getting the weirdest looks from the locals, understandably since we were just a group of dirty wet Americans sloshing down the street in muddy rain boots and bathing suits. We still had lots of fun though.