Peru Trip Report Part 1/3

These are my trip reports that I posted on Tripadvisor.com:

We flew into Lima late at night and had planned on sleeping at the airport, since we left the next morning for Puerto Maldonado. We slept in the food court area, but if you can avoid this, I would. It felt safe, but the lights are on, the cleaning crew is vacuuming, there are tons of people wandering around at all hours of the night, and if you can sleep through all of that, you must be able to sleep through anything. However, the airport hotel cost $400. We checked. So as budget travelers, we were happy to have a place to sleep for free.

Next day, we flew to Puerto Maldonado. We had arranged a 3-night/4-day jungle lodge stay at Posadas Amazonas. They pick you up and take you to their headquarters about 5 minutes away, where you try to leave anything you won’t need for the next 4 days. Then they give you a really yummy snack of local food… actually, all the food Posadas Amazonas provided was really tasty. You take a bus for about an hour (very bumpy) which is the least enjoyable part of the trip. Then you get on boats that motor down the river for about 45 minutes… we saw a caiman on the way!

Posadas Amazonas gets very high reviews from me. The lodge, while basic (no electricity at night, cold showers), is very clean and comfortable. The food is good and fresh fruit juices abound. Every activity they had planned was wonderful. We saw river otters, monkeys, macaws, parrots, lots of spiders on the night walk… and we fished for piranhas (and caught two in our group!). You visit a medicine man which we really enjoyed, as well as a local farmer. One thing about this place… you won’t be staying up late or sleeping in. Lights are out at 9pm, and then even with your headlamp (a must have), it’s pitch black. We were in bed around 9pm every night. Then with various groups getting up at 4am to go to the Oxbow Lake, we were generally up between 4-5am in the morning. Don’t think of this as a bad thing though… we were some of the only people to make it down to the macaw clay lick and another morning to the canopy tower for sunrise, both of which were amazing. Our guide Willian was really knowledgeable (and the assistant guide Ivan was also great). The rooms have mosquito netting and an open wall, so there are many sounds, but most of the sounds are from the jungle, which was nice to fall asleep to.

The one negative, and I’m not sure whether this can even be blamed on Posadas Amazonas, but they tell you all their water is boiled and safe. However, about 12 hours after leaving this lodge, I got pretty sick… I had to go to the doctor and it turns out I had salmonella and giardia!!! (my sister as well). I hate to think it came from this lodge because we really had an awesome stay. It’s possible I ingested something bad at the airport or in Cusco. At any rate, I would be extremely careful with using any water at the lodge (purify even water used for toothbrushing) and throughout Peru. Also, be very careful what you eat. I would tell people to avoid all seafood including fish, most fruits and veggies that you haven’t peeled yourself (including juices and salad), and even some meat. We met many people, and every single one of them had gotten sick at some point during their trip (a few from altitude sickness, but most of them from food illnesses). I think a lot of people focus on altitude sickness and aren’t as careful about food, and this is a huge mistake. Diamox worked very effectively for us for the altitude sickness, but we should have been much more careful about what food and water we had.