[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to two Travel Dads podcast. Here we share our favorite destinations, travel tips, stories from our adventures, and bring on awesome guests to share insights into their travelsome lives. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and check out our detailed show
[email protected]. Podcast Dash episodes hey there. Welcome back to another episode of two Travel Dads podcast. I'm Rob.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: I'm Chris.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: And today we are going to talk.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: About the Amazon rainforest.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yes, the Amazon rainforest and our time in the peruvian Amazon, not the brazilian Amazon.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: But they're kind of connected.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: We.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, they're kind of connected, but a lot of people think about Brazil when they are thinking about the Amazon. But we went to Peru for it and it was awesome. So, thinking about that, where do you want to start? What do you want? How do you want to talk about the rainforest? Do you want to.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Well, I think it's all grounded in where we stayed. Right. So I think that's, that's critical to talk about first.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Especially because the whole thing about going to the Amazon and staying in a treehouse was what got our entire Peru trip, basically the seed planted and started anyway. So why don't you take it away and tell us about what you found, where we stayed and what made it so awesome?
[00:01:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, thanks to Instagram, I found this really great, amazing place called the Treehouse Lodge in the Peruvian Amazon. And after doing some research and understanding more about this lodging, learned that it was an all inclusive place. That, of course, in addition to being in a treehouse, all of your meals were taken care of and excursions. And I think that was the best part. So to get there, it made it very simple because you just had to fly into a kidos and then they had a guide that you up drove you. It was about like a 45 minutes drive from the airport out.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: It was an hour and a half drive. Sure.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: An hour and a half. I felt it like it was maybe shorter, but a long drive to another town where then you get on a boat and then from the boat they put all of your baggage on the boat and then you're cruising down the river to go get to the treehouse lodge. So a really unique experience in that. One, you're staying in the treehouse. Two, you've got planes and boats taking you to where you need to be. And then again, meals all taken care of. But the most important part, and this is what we'll talk about, are the excursions, which so many options and so much flexibility.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: And. But I think we should talk about getting there a little bit more too, though. Cause really it was such a unique experience. So we, you know, you fly into Aquitus like he was saying, and then they picked us up, they had a sign with our name on it. And we went out there. We met Edgar, who was our guide for the week, and he was the one who got us at the airport.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: And so real quick, maybe just in case, people are like, oh, I'm so excited to listen to this because I've got like, my trip in like two weeks. Maybe you do, or not. Here's the thing. We got, we landed, got into the airport and we're like, where's our guy? We're looking for it. Like normal people would like a sign that says Taylor and, you know, they're trying to find us. That wasn't the case. We saw one of the guys inside for Stewart.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: That's true.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: And there's the Stewart family and they're like, okay, well, they got found and we're like, where is the guy for Taylor? Nobody's there. Bob gets on the phone, he's like, we're, you know, trying to like, WhatsApp on the WhatsApp. On the WhatsApp? Because that's critical. And they're like, no, your guide's there. Okay, well, he was outside, so he was just right outside the airport waiting for us.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: And literally the people who had their guide inside and then our guide who was outside, we were all traveling together.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: We were all on the same bus, same van. Like, I mean, it was just kind of ridiculous, but because we thought we would have seen a guy just like the Stewart family got. But Edgar was amazing, but he was just right outside. So just sharing that in case you go and you're like, my guy's not here, just go, step outside.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Like literally walk 15ft further.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: But no.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: So anyways, Edgar was there and he got us all loaded up with all of our luggage. And also because we did have a bigger other family who was traveling with us in the van to get to the boat, um, they actually put everybody's luggage up on top and then they covered it all just in case it started raining because, I mean, we're in the rainforest and you should expect rain. So they had all that already thought up. Um, and then the drive was interesting because it was, you know, long. It was long. It was.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: But they did stop at a grocery store, which is great, so that we could like, it's water, some snacks, a little journey.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: But it was on very nice peruvian paved highways. It was not what I was expecting for driving through the Amazon rainforest. It was actually like, nice blacktop.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Well, and once you get to Naota, it's like a huge city. They said there's like over 50,000 people.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: That live there, which is really surprising. But it did look like there was kind of like a cool downtown y area. And then you also see, you know, all the dirt streets with all the craziness and wild, like, everything happening everywhere. Yeah, but, yeah. So then we got to Naota, and then when we did get on the boat, it was a very. So it was quite the steep staircase from the place above the river down to water level. And I think if I did not have good knees, I would have been quite anxious about going down the stairs just because I didn't want to fall in the river.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the other people who had different, like, body shapes and sizes were able to make it just fine too, as well.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. They did make it. Nobody fell in the river. And then we got in our. I don't know what you want to call it, torpedo boat.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: A long, narrow metal boat with one seat on each side.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: It was like a fuselage.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: And it just took us rocketing up the Amazon until we got to our little tributary that was just off the Amazon for us to get to. Treehouse.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty great. It was awesome.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Once we actually got to the treehouse, it was pretty. I mean, we got there right before lunch. So we sat down with our guide and kind of got a little orientation.
Trying to think about my mind was kind of a blur because I was really tired.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: No. So we got there and what was really great is like, you go to the main lodge area in this one spot. So if you're planning, highly, recommend the treehouse lodge. Anyways, we go to the main lodge space, which is the main dining hall up top. There's a whole space where you can lounge, like hammocks and stuff up there. They do have wi fi, these types of things. But get to the main lodge area and they've got a nice welcome beverage for us. Some great local kamukamu juice, freshly made, super delicious. And then Edgar is walking us through all of the different.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: That's what it is.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Well, the history of the lodge and the activities that are available. And basically then we define our schedule. So it's like, oh, here's all the activities, here's the schedule. Best part is, yes, we defined our schedule, but so much flexibility. We changed it completely.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: And without question or issue or any pushback.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Each treehouse or each family that goes has their own dedicated guide for the entire time you're there. So you're just coordinating with them, and then they'll make sure that, you know, you have a boat at your beck and call or that if. If you want to do, like, a craft project or go fishing or something, that you've got the right gear for it. So that's really cool that they take.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Complete care of you.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: And you've got one person who literally is dedicated to two, actually.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: You have Edgar.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Edgar and Roger.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Our driver, too.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: But they are your concierge. They are your tour guide. They are your safety guide out in the jungle.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: They are your subject matter expert for.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: All things on everything. So.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Gosh.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: So what do we actually. How do we start? We started with just doing general exploration.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Well, no, so if you remember. So we did this.
We. After we got. Because you were.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: I was.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: I was so tired.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: And if you remember, this is the last part of our trip, the earlier part. We were all sick. Blah, blah, blah. Lots of travel, lots of, uh, not sleeping. Um, anyway, uh, we get there, we drink our kamukamu juice, we fill out our activity list, and then, uh, it's time to go. We want to go check out our space. So we went out and we checked out our tree house, which was super cool. And then, uh, we were able to go do our first activity.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Actually, our first activity was Elliot and I taking naps.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Was it okay, there you go. And then. Oh, no, that's right, because then we had lunch. Yeah, no, no, no. Before lunch. That's right, because we got to do the Amazon river, uh, the river dolphins. Pink river dolphin, like, little trip.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: We got back out on the boat. No, just right out there. Just from the lodge. We got on the boat. Yes, because this was before lunch. Got on the boat, and then we went and we saw, just right off the dock, all of the pink river dolphins that were just right there. We didn't take a long adventure. And then we came back, and all of that was super cool. Had lunch, and then. Or maybe. No, it was after lunch. That's right, after lunch. Because then we had dinner, and then after dinners, when we did the caiman. That's right.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: So just to clarify, nap time. And then we went out on a little river explorer, saw a pink river dolphins, saw our first monkeys, all that. It was a short one because we were tired. Came back, had some dinner, went back out on the boat to look for caimans, which are this cool crocodilian that lives in the Amazon. And then. And we saw the bats too. There was lots of bats.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: So. Lots of bats. But what's most critical for people planning a trip to the Amazon is that, yes, there are mistakes. So I knew this and I wanted to prep and plan as much as I could for mosquito prevention. And I.
When this was our first day that we got there, nobody was dressed properly, although I was because I had all of my long sleeve and socks and yet was hot. But I knew that there were going to be mosquitoes. But we were doing a night time on a pond to go see Caiman and we didn't even spray down with mosquito repellent. So all this to say, make sure you do have, especially at night, your mosquito repellent, your mosquito gear. We've got Bob can put some links to it.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: These really great pullover hoodies that are basically like mosquito nets. Super helpful.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: They cover your entire face.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And you look hilarious. But, you know, important because the mosquitoes are no joke.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And it literally is just sunset, nighttime. Like that's. Yeah, that's the only time where it's a problem. Like daytime. It's.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah, awesome. We didn't have a big issue in the daytime, but it was really nighttime. And I mean, we live in Florida and we've been to mosquito lagoon, which is a place where they had invented deet tons of mosquitoes so much more in the Amazon. I mean, it was like a blanket. You're just trying to shove them away.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: But again, this is nighttime, not daytime, when you're doing most of your activities and.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Sorry, just real quick, I. Mosquito. I am a mosquito person. I hate them. I'm always watching out for them at the end of the day, after the whole entire trip, even that night, I think I maybe had like eight bites.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: So not bad. Mosquito prevention is important.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: But eight bites overall, mosquitoes don't necessarily love me. I think I had four.
Yeah, they love me.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: So eight's not bad.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: But, um. Yeah. So that was, that was, that was day one in the Amazon, the cayman.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: I mean, that was super cool because we were like, oh, let's get back. Like, these mosquitoes are absolutely insane.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: But Edgar was insane.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Out of here. But he had to find the game. And he did. He found it.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: He found a cute baby, probably 2ft long. And he was able to gently grab him from this kind of floating island and hand him to us and got to hold him and pet him and.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, floating island being so you're in what they call, like, Oxbell lake. And there's just basically a ton of plant matter in the lake, on top of the lake. So it's this. If you didn't know, you could. You think you could just walk right out onto it, you would fall into the walk into the water, but which made it challenging, getting in and out, like, I mean, the boat skills of our guide, you know, Roger, were impressive in terms of how he gets in and out of these places.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it was pretty cool. And then I have to say, and this is how I've described it to everybody I've talked to about this, our first night sleeping in the treehouse in the Amazon rainforest, it was the best and happiest sleep of my entire life because it started dumping rain in the middle of the night.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: It was torrential.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: There's nothing quite like sleeping in the rainforest while rain is just, like, ricocheting off of all the pom fronds and all the birds kind of get quiet and then the bugs get loud.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Everybody's looking for that soundtrack already. And, like, we didn't even have to put it on repeat or fade or, you know, gapless. I mean, it was just an amazing live soundtrack.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: And then you wake up and you're moist. No, I was just gonna say you're in the rainforest and happy, but I guess.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: You're a little bit more. The air is moist.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah, you're moist. I mean, and here's the thing. In the beds, the beds were super comfortable. But it's funny, you only get a sheet, which is all you need. Yeah, it's just a sheet, which is.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Perfect because it's the end.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: More.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: And then breakfast each day was just this lovely, nice, like, fresh breakfast spread before you go out to do, but.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Before that, I want to take a shower.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Okay, tell us about taking a shower.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: It's not heated.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Oh, I see what you're saying. I see where you're going with this.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, this place was awesome, right? And, yeah, you get a take. You've got your whole bathroom in your tree house, and there's a beautiful, like, shower. And we saw this stuff over instagram. It looked amazing. Like, oh, people's taking a shower and they're looking out, they're seeing sloth and toucans and all these great, like, all this great wildlife. Nowhere does it say it's not heated, it's just air temperature or, you know.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Which is fine because it's totally fine.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: It's super refreshing. So. But just.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: And you're toasty warm. And when you. It's kind of like when you dip into like a refreshing pool that isn't cold but it's not hot and it's just you. You get used to it and.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: No, it's nice. I mean this place also just runs off mostly solar. And then you turn on a generator and stuff at night. So it's all about conserving energy and.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: So not heated water. You can't like turn it on and like where's hot.
[00:15:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: So that's what I wanted to mention.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Although it's still really pleasant and it's.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Really lovely taking a shower in the rainforest and just being in the jungle.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: And seeing it touching.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: It's magical. Anyways though. So I was gonna just say breakfast is wonderful every morning with a nice big fresh spread of lots of different fruit and eggs and all that good stuff. And then every day. So how it kind of works with your schedule. You got an opportunity to do something at sunrise, something right after breakfast, something after lunch and then like an evening sort of thing. So you've got potentially like four excursions or activities every day. And some of these take you know an hour and a half. Sometimes you're out there for 3 hours. So it kind of. It kind of depends on what's going on. So.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: They do it all around the meals which are seven seven one.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: We're 731 o'clock and 730.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah that's right. 731 o'clock and 730.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: So. So everybody is on the same sort of like meal schedule. But you're not necessarily dining with other people. But you're all in the dining room at the same time. And you can chat with people or not. It's as. It's as involved as you want it to be. Which is great because I don't necessarily want to get involved with other people.
So it's nice to just be able to see familiar faces and then say goodbye. And then you get to go and do your own excursions without everybody that you're seeing at your meals. But I'm sure you could think if you made friends you could probably arrange for that. But we didn't.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: No, the whole entire family. But it was just amazing super personal personalized experiences.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: But then I think our first big highlight of an activity was fishing for piranhas. That was what Elliot was looking forward to so much since like way before we ever got there was going fishing for piranhas. So we made sure that was our very first morning activity. And poor dude all the rest of us caught piranhas, and Elliot didn't land a single one.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Oh, he tried so hard.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: He tried.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: I mean, it's not. It's not hard either. All you do is you put a little bit of meat on a hook, and these, this is a line attached to, like, a piece of bamboo. You swish the bamboo in the water because I guess piranhas really like noise. So you switch it, swish it, make a lot of noise, and then, boom, piranha hits the line. But.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: And you literally land them sometimes within.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Like, we caught, like. And Elliot caught in total, and Elliot didn't catch one.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: So we went back on our second full day to do it again, and he got. He got his piranha. But it was kind of funny.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Well, here's the thing, though, too, is like, okay, yeah, we. We did the same activity twice, but it's. You don't just go fishing for piranha as you're going to go fish for. For piranha. You're in your boat and you're stopping at all the same wildlife that you'll see whether or not it be like macaws, toucans, woolly monkeys, mikasaki monkeys, or tarantulas or bats, whatever's along the way, you still stop, but then you spend your time fishing, and then you do the same thing on the way back.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And I think on that very first day, we saw three types of monkeys. We saw four sloths. We saw. We never saw wild scarlet macaws, but we saw the blue and yellow macaws.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: We saw all kinds of other cool birds.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: I did see, though, a wild scarlet macaw because they. Another guide found an injured one and they brought him back so they could, you know, so he was kind of.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: In the little rehab hospital at the treehouse waiting to get released.
One of my other favorite activities that we did. So we did a lot of just boat exploring, going out. You start with seeing river dolphins, no matter where you are, and then you.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Either go, by the way, so different than a regular dolphin.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they're weird, and they're difficult to spot initially because they don't have a big old dorsal fin, like a bottlenose.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Dolphin shaped differently, different sounds.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: And when they break the surface, it's more like when a whale breaks the surface, it's kind of gentle and then just breaks, and then they kind of go.
And then they go back down. And it's rare that you actually see their full pinkness. It's weird, but super cool.
What was I gonna say? Oh, I was gonna say one of my other favorite activities. So each time that you go out, you're kind of navigating the different rivers, whether you go all the way out to the Amazon or you're doing the little side tributaries. We were there during rainy season, so the water level was way high, which meant that we could go absolutely everywhere on boat instead of having to go on hikes through the jungle. Our driver was like, he was so adept at navigating through, you know, banyan trees, through strangler, how we didn't get lost, how we didn't get lost and how we didn't die in the jungle, I don't know.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: But because our guide, he helped people navigate who weren't, like, you know, naked and afraid.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: So that's true.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Edgar was a Amazon survivalist.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: So he has that sort of Hollywood experience. And then he took us out.
But, no. So anyways, so we had this really cool evening activity where we went out looking for a prehistoric bird that was just.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: The weirdest, most wild thing. And it was funny because initially I didn't really understand just what it was that we were looking for.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: But Edgar's like, no, we're gonna go see the prehistoric bird, what we're doing.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: And he said it, like, multiple times. And I was like, what are you talking about, dude?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Hudson.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: So it's the h o a t z I n huatson bird and its closest relative. You know, they've been able to, like, trace it back. And its closest relative is the archaeopteryx, like, an actual, like, winged pterosaur. And this bird has, when it, when it hatches, it has claws on its wings. Yeah, like a dinosaur.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: It's the only bird while it's young. Right. A juvenile that can actually scale a tree, like, climb up a tree with its wings. Like, no other bird can do that. It's crazy.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: But this bird has, like, this wild looking reptilian face and spiky feather hair and all kinds of colors and the creepiest eyes and this weird dino beak.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: The size of, like, a pheasant.
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: And it's weird, but you have to, like, know where to find them. And where you've happened to find them is in the stands of these horrifying palm trees that are absolutely covered in.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Spikes, crazy thorns and spikes. Like, you can't get in there. Like, the spikes are awful.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: But our guides were awesome at knowing where to go, and we were just, we sat there silently, and then once our eyes could adjust. We saw the birds, and I'll make sure there's pictures of the birds in the show notes because it's so wild and crazy. But that was one of my favorite.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Things I could think of is a cassowary.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: It has the same colors.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Huge, right? I mean, that thing's, like, monstrous. It's like the size of a pheasant.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: But, yeah, the same colors as the cassowary. But this is like a weird other thing.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: But of course, the weirdest part is that they're young, have claws on their wings.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
Ooh. I was just trying to think about what other boat adventures I really enjoyed, and one of them was the day that we went, and we were just kind of going through all of the stuff that is, was flooded, and it took us past the, we saw some sloths and stuff. And then he's like, hey, I saw a tarantula earlier. And they brought us back through the jungle on a boat to a spot. Yeah. Where they had, like, where we had driven past a tarantula an hour before, and they found us a tarantula in the jungle. And then we kept going. And then there was this whole family or thing, flock, I don't know, a group of bats that were sleeping on the underside of a tree.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: They looked like dragon scales on the trees.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Camouflage of these bats were impressive, but.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Our guides saw them, and it was awesome. And then, of course, there were sloths everywhere and lots of different monkeys and.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Parakeets and toucans and all the woodpeckers.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: And the black collared hawks that were everywhere. And the laughing falcons.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Laughing falcons.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: I made a long list of all the things we saw on the Amazon.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: Red cardinal or something.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Lots of cool stuff.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: I feel like we could talk about this a long time. Anyways, though, what was your absolute favorite thing that we got to do when we were staying in the Amazon?
[00:23:27] Speaker C: Hmm.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: The favorite thing, like, I mean, of course, like, seeing all the wildlife was great. But the best part, because I felt like it was the most up close and personal wildlife, was when, again, we were on the boat and we wanted to see a woolly monkey because you had talked about it, and they're like, oh, you want to see? Okay, here's a woolly monkey. And so we just went off, like, basically, like, we, here's the treehouse lodge. We got, you know, on the boat off the dock, took a left for like three minutes. Like, oh, there's a woolly monkey.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: It wasn't even three minutes. It was less than two minutes.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: And anyways, they. They were there, and unlike a lot of the other monkeys and some of the wildlife that we've seen that are very shy, the woolly monkeys were not. I mean, they were not, which was cool because, you know, we. They were very curious about us. So they kept getting closer and closer, so much so, I mean, that.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: And Roger, like, revving up the boat to go backwards.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: You know, Roger's the other guy. He's the boat expert. But they kept going, pulling us back, forward, back, because they're like, we don't want that. We don't want the monkey in here because they probably would, you know, jump in the boat. But I think that was the coolest part because that was the most up close and personal for wildlife. Other than the other cool part was just what we saw at the lodge. The rainbow boa.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Just on, you know, one of the handrails. So be careful where you put your hands. And the tarantula just right there. The stick bug and the poison dart frog.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Toucan that I saw, I was like, after, you know, washing my hands, I'm like, oh, my gosh, is this.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, and then also the morning that we were leaving, there was that sloth right off the little. The suspension bridge.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Like, yeah, it all. This might sound really overwhelming, like, oh, gosh. Snakes and tarantulas. This is not my jam.
[00:25:10] Speaker C: This.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: None of this stuff. This was not in our treehouse. This was, like, on the walkways. Not, like, in a dangerous spot.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: You're in a jungle, so this wasn't. It's not like a nice paved path, paths for you to walk around. I mean, you're.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: You're in the jungle, but you're walking, like, between the. Between the main lodge and the boat dock and all the tree houses. You're on boardwalks or you are crossing suspension bridges that are nice and safe and maintained. So it's not like you're, like, wandering along the jungle floor.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: You have to be mindful.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: You do have to be mindful. But there's also lots of staff everywhere, which makes it cool. And there's people there to help you with whatever you need. And, like, when we saw the boa, you know, more staff came out to, like, check it and make sure that.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Moved all the way up and then went into, like, the eaves of.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just really cool to be so surrounded by wildlife and be safe.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I never felt unsafe.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: I never felt unsafe.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: The only time I was like, oh, my gosh, there's all these mosquitoes. That I think.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the one.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: I wasn't unsafe, but I was, like, super irritated, and I'm like, ah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: The last thing that I was going to say.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: But the food was the best. Sorry.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Oh, I love food.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: And, yeah, we ate in Lima. We ate in all these places. The food at this place for lunch, and, oh, my gosh, like, I had some of the, like, the best beef and, you know, red wine, butter. I mean, food was amazing. And with dessert every night, and they would, of course, custom make things if you needed it. So Elliot wasn't feeling good a couple days, and they made sure to make his meal simple. Same with Bob. So just the staff and the food was top notch.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
And the desserts, each time there was great dessert.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: So a coma. Coma flan.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah, everything was good.
I forgot what I was gonna say.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: I know it was something really important, though.
Oh, well. Oh, I wanted to just hit on real quick. One of the cool things that we got to do that we got to bring home was we got to make blow dart guns.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Which is kind of a random thing, but it was really cool because Roger is local, and so he brought, from his village, he brought the right type of wood. Yeah, the right type of wood for making the blood art guns and the actual darts. And we all kind of sat around, you know, carving and whittling and just chatting and stuff. And then they prepped him the rest of the way, and then Roger was able to do some wood burning and carve out some cool designs on them for the kids, and they assembled them. Then we got to practice blowing them, and I thought that was a really cool, unique sort of activity with probably the coolest souvenir we've brought home from any place we've been.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: I was gonna say the souvenir part. Definitely the best.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, um. It was awesome. This it. Our five days at the treehouse lodge in the peruvian Amazon were my favorite travel we've ever done anywhere. And we've done some really cool stuff. So that's my two completely agree. And cool thing is, is that we will be going back and bringing people with us. So there is information about that on the podcast page and on our website
[email protected] so check it out if you're interested. And feel free to ask us all, all the questions. Cause we could talk about it all day, clearly. Was there anything else you wanted to add about our time in the proving Amazon or.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: No, just try Kamukamu. And if you're up for it, you know, the guide may show you how to find maggots that are super delicious.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: How did we not talk about that?
[00:28:47] Speaker B: And so he talked about it on our, on the bus ride, you know, to Naota, before we even got on the boat to the Amazon. And he was so excited to actually find. Find them because they're in this, like, fruit that rots and falls down from a tree. And the maggots live in there for quite a bit, and they grow and develop, and then you chop it open and you could eat the most delicious, tasty, white, alive maggot. And I just.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Which he said tasted like butter.
We really let Edgar down. His face.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: That's, you know, his face.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: He. He was sad that we would not.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Try it, but he understood. I told him the other day, I was like, sorry, I couldn't eat the maggot. I was like, I remember the lady on the bus was like, what if you don't call him a maggot? Like, I'm sorry.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Oh, good times.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: But you know what?
[00:29:34] Speaker A: That's just one of those super unique Amazon experiences that we, we were adjacent to.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Ah, good times. All right. I think that that kind of does it for talking about the Amazon. For now, stay tuned, though, because we also have podcast episodes just about traveling in Peru in general, and then our time up in the Andes, as well as other cool places like Lima and down in Pracus and all kinds of cool stuff. So stay tuned and don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. Share us with your friends as well. So, yeah, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you later.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: All right. Hasta luego.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Asta luego. Two Travel Dads podcast is created by Rob and Chris Taylor in St. Augustine, Florida. We'd love to answer your questions here on the podcast, providing both our experience and stories. To share our own insights into whatever you're wondering about, visit twotraveldads.com podcast episodes to leave your questions and to check out past episodes and show notes. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and have an awesome day.
