Amboro National Park: 19/09 - 21/09

We took off up the same road I`d been on the two previous days into the hills, then veered off deeper into the valley. We passed 3 locked gates - Earvin assured us he was one of only a few with keys - and arrived at the start of the trail. There a German guy was camping in wait for some French companions to go on a bit of a guide-free mission into the park - Earvin was not impressed, but me, I really liked his balls.

We soon took off through dry forest on a brief ascent before reaching the rainforest proper - this section was completely trashed, like a full-force cyclone had hit it. As such we hopped and carefully stepped over downed trees and branches for a few hours, traversing and slowly descending down into the park proper. The day past very pleasantly indeed - at one point we stopped at a grassy knoll which provided a grand lookout over the whole valley including striking red cliffs. Unfortunately the smoke haze of the season prevented perfect views but it was impressive nonetheless. Arys ate a march fly.

We dropped into lush jungle to camp that evening next to a small river. In the process of macheteying us a pampa upon which to camp Earvin machetied his own toe quite effectively. Nice work, Mr E. All good, though, a bit of First Aid and she`ll be right, mate. Set camp, cook our basic dinner and exchange stories and laments of loves lost and the ocean of romance upon which we all float like coconuts.

The next day we set out downriver without our packs, following the footprints of (but never seeing) a menagerie of large forest mammals like jaguar, puma, peccary, tapir and spectacled bear. It kind of reminded me of Gemaine from Flight of the Conchords, saying `I have talked about getting with a lot of hot women` Bret: `Yeah, and you didn`t just talk about getting with hot women, you talked about getting with really, really hot women.` But the tracks were very fresh and for me this was incredible to see evidence of such a big variety of large mammals in one place.

There were many birds. It was very nice walking through the cool water though all the others, particularly Bert, struggled with foot/leg injuries of varying kinds. We had a leisurely lunch under a tree next to the water, then returned upriver to pack camp and push on for our next night`s campsite. I had of course lost my sunnies the day before on the trail somewhere and a half-hour jaunt back uptrail found nothing.

We again walked in the water - it was very pretty but we all were exhausted for some reason. Loros (very much like rainbow lorikeets) passed overhead in their 1000`s on their daily dusk/dawn excursions. We saw some spider monkeys and a bright green snake crossing the water. Eventually we arrived at an established pampa with a shelter to set camp for more yummy camp food and high-quality Tres Pluma spirits. Arys again brought the noiyse with his Ipood speaker and then I drifted off into a pleasant MSG-drenched dreamstate.

After a casual breakfast I committed myself to a full-blown coca-chewing addiction and we smashed it back uphill towards the ridgeline. There was lots of vegetation covering the path in one section and we continued to be pestered by insects and then we had to clamber again through the trashed forest but... with coca, everything was super-cool. We had a lot of discussion about languages; Earvin explained a lot about the plants and animals and the sounds of the night birds. The fungii and lichen and moss were very cool, as were the people I was with and the 1000`s of tadpoles in the creeks! But undoubtedly the highlight was removing a voracious tick from Arys` arse.

We arrived back at the Jeep to find the German dude still there - Earvin drove off with only a perfunctory wave and we returned to Samaipata, Arys and I discussing the craziness of life, specifically with regard to quantum physics, time, space and all of that as it relates to our human being.