This morning we have decided to take a boat ride to Long Lansat which is a long house just down the river about 45 mins. The plan was to visit the long house and maybe meet with an elder medicine man who would be able to tell us all about what he and the local people use from the forest for different ailments, then we were supposed to go further down river and off on a little tributary to an area where we could walk a little and then have a swim. I asked the guides at the park just as we were boarding our little boat, if there were any crocodiles in the river, to which they replied ‘only friendly ones’!! Well that’s ok then, what are we waiting for? lets go!!
Longhouse life
I’m not sure if there was a communication problem between us and our boat driver or whether he just wasn’t up for the whole expedition, who knows but unfortunately it wasn’t quite the experience I was hoping for. We did visit the long house but it was a real fleeting visit and certainly there was no elder there for us to chat with. There were some local women at the long house going about their daily business and lots of children around but to be honest they didn’t really seem that keen to have us there and it was all a bit awkward but we bought a couple of little things and headed off on the rest of our trip.
Next on the agenda was where we were supposed to carry on further up the river and get out for a short walk and some swimming. We did go further up the river but getting out just didn’t seem to be an option unfortunately and before we knew it we were heading back to park HQ again.
The tributary
The whole trip was undertaken in a boat even smaller than the one I had been on when I was on the jungle trip, so do I need to say quite how this part of the experience was for me. Apart from the continuous adrenalin rush from the boat experience, all in all I was a little disappointed with the trip, it was supposed to be 3 to 4 hours and we were back in 2, oh well these things happen sometimes huh?
Next on our itinerary was a visit to the Puka Waterfall, around a 1.5km walk from the park, although I think actually it might be a 1.5km walk from HQ to the turn off to the waterfall. From there it was a further 45 mins or so going right into the middle of the jungle! I was wearing my trusty Tevas and Keith was wearing his ‘indestructible’ Havaianas, a Brazilian made ‘trendy’ flip flop! As we were right in the forest I was a little concerned about leeches especially as it had been raining here and of course I had left my leech socks back in the room at park HQ!
Jungle plant life
All was going good until we came across some rather soggy muddy parts of the track, this is when the first signs of the indestructible flip flops first started to show their destructible side, however, my Tevas were still going strong. Another 20 mins later and we reached the waterfalls, and although it had been raining it was still the dry season here and the waterfalls which were supposed to be three in number were actually only one right now. Keith decided he was going to go in for a swim and me being me, unless I had a snorkel or a scuba tank attached, decided that swimming just wasn’t an option, so instead I sat on the side and took the photos.
One step into the river and his indestructible flip flops were all of a sudden very much destructible and destructed quite definitely! They did what I’ve seen soooo many others do on so many other people during my trip, the centre thong came out of the base! Throughout though my Tevas were still going strong. :-)
Puka Waterfall
Pretty much as soon as Keith came out of the river and we started to tuck into our lunch the heavens opened and we got to see quite why the rainforest is so named.
We decided to make a hasty retreat just in case the rain carried on all afternoon but of course we still had an hour or so walk back in rainforest that apparently when it rained tended to rain leeches! It was a tense hours walk back (because of leeches) but after close inspection found we had escaped all blood sucking creatures, we did find 1 little critter on the walk back that I though resembled a leech but after taking its picture several times and showing it to one of the guides it turned out it was a harmless huge worm!
In the evening after a bite to eat Keith and I decided to head out on our own ‘rainforest at night’ trek! Fortunately the torch I had, had sufficient battery life whereas the torch Keith had is still in Brighton! Even with these obstacles (:-)) and with my keen eyes we managed to spot a super cute lizard, a huge stick insect, a spider of some description and a praying mantis, not bad for the novice spotter I thought.
The wildlife out on our night trek
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