After leaving Cusco we headed into the jungle in the south east of Peru. I was expecting it to be more rainforest-like, but it wasn't. The land is not as fertile as that in the Amazon area further north, and it's not as tropical either. However, this was a blessing in disguise as the weather was perfect. Mid-20s and sunny without any humidity. The nights were cold, but blankets dealt with that, and it meant that it wasn't too hot to sleep (as there was no electricity for fans or air conditioning).

Photos for the jungle are stored here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=2cqjy4v.1aao2hqn&Uy=kf0wd8&Ux=0

We stayed at Explorer's Inn, beside the Tambopata river, for 6 nights. This was longer than the standard 2-4 nights, but it gave us a chance to rest at the end without having to rush about, and also meant we could catch up on things we hadn't been able to do during the standard trip. While we were there we met a group of Americans from the west (California, Washington and Oregon), whose trip overlapped almost completely with ours. We had a lot of fun with Gerry, Sandy and everyone else - it was nice to share the experience with such a lovely group of people, especially as they had also been along the Inka trail (the full four-day excursion) and to Machi Picchu so there was lots to chat about.

Highlights of the trip included seeing monkeys, taking an early morning trip to a local lake to see giant otters fishing, having an overnight camping excursion to see a large clay lick where parrots and macaws congregate and feed on the clay (for vitamins and minerals), and visiting a local clay lick, where we had a much closer view of the parrots. We also saw Caiman, a tarantula and coped with the cold showers and early morning wake up calls from the howler monkeys.

It was an enjoyable experience, but we were ready to leave by the end as well… :)