Sweaty Monkeys

We got to the Kuru Pukari river at 6am and watched the bus and the rest of the passengers get the little ferry across the river and continue on with their journey. We were told we’d be met by someone who would take us to our next stop. We didn’t know who this person would be or if they even knew to expect us and I was a bit worried we would be left stranded in the jungle next to a piranha and caiman infested river. Luckily we noticed a small boat coming towards us down river. We were saved!

It took 5 minutes to get to Iwokrama, a lovely little field station with 5 guest chalets. We had breakfast and Sarah went for a nap. I was eager to see the forest and went exploring with a guide. We saw lots of toucans and heard the screaming piha bird, and the caracara bird. Once the caracara had seen us, the guide said that we would not see any other birds or animals because the caracara is the intruder alarm for the forest. I did see some Hiowa trees, which have aromatic smelling gum. When I returned to the camp, we had an introductory talk and explanation about Iwokrama and their work. We were disappointed to hear that the Canopy Walkway was closed, but had an excellent lunch.

Shortly after we took a boat ride to the base of Turtle Mountain to make the climb. It was a 25 minute boat ride there. We went down the Essequibo river which is really beautiful and wide and just at the end of the journey we could see the rain down the river. It looked a long way away, but it got to us very quickly and we didn’t have time to get out rain jackets on. We got absolutely drenched. We walked to the base camp and left our jackets to dry as the rain had stopped and then made the hour and a half climb to the top of the mountain. It was very hot and humid and the drenching from the rain was replaced by sweat. We were exhausted. Gary, our guide, managed the climb effortlessly and carried water for us! The view at the peak was spectacular and well worth the effort. We looked out over rainforest for as far as we could see in every direction. We saw red howler monkeys, macaws and lots of steam rising from the warming forest as the rains passed. On the walk back down we heard lots of monkeys, particularly capuchins, and birds.

We got back to the camp in time for dinner at 6pm. It was another delicious meal – beef, rice, potato, pumpkin and pak choi. Afterwards we had another boat trip out, this time by torch light to look for caiman, bats and snakes. There were easy to spot because the torch light reflected in their eyes. We saw a caiman after only a few minutes and didn’t like the way it came towards us instead of being scared by us. We also saw ghost bats, fish and boas constrictors in the branches of trees over hanging the river. After our adventurous, sweaty day we showered and huddled under our mosquito net in bed. As we were drifting off to sleep we heard 2 or 3 shots fired. We forgot to ask about the shots when we got up in the morning.