11am and we are on our way for the 3 or so hour ride down the Benni river to reach Serere Reserve, where we will spend the next 4 days. The Eco Reserve is owned and run by Rosa Maria, who was one of the founders of the Madidi National Park - the most ecologically diverse protected area in the world. In 2000, National Geographic did a story on the Madidi, with Rosa Maria being the main guide. During the expedition she took a photo of one of the photographers staking out a jaguar - and won the yearly photographic competition. With the prize money she bought the land that is now the Serere Reserve and runs Madidi Travel - where they built an Eco Lodge, All the money from the tours goes back into the reserve and the local community, many of whom run the reserve.
The boat trip was a nice cruise down the river, we scurry up the muddy river bank and walk about half an hour into the jungle to our huts...The lodge has a main dining/relaxing hut called "casa grande" and quite a few huts spread out about a 10 minute walk from the main hut. The huts are awesome, flysceen walls for an uniterrupted view of the dense jungle around us...the noise is amazing as we settle in to the lodge, howler monkeys howling in the distance, all sort of bugs making themselves heard and heaps of different birds calling and chirping...
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| These trees rootes are joined- a family of trees. |
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| Our cabin |
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| really, really, really big tree |
Back to the hut for dinner and an early night. A group of 4 Aussies were there amongst a few others, they were quite entertaining. Turns out a French couple saw a Giant Ant Eater ggggggrrrrrrrr.
Day two we set out for the whole day to walk, boat on pinkie lake, and walk....Breakfast is first, Steph and I thought Carlos was offering us a Cappachino, which thought was unusual but would be nice. Carlos led us out the back of the hut where a group of 'Capuhino' Monkeys were (Squirrel).
After a quick row across a lake ,we wandered along for a while and stumbled upon a couple of blue and yellow Macaws. They are pretty crazy looking birds, Carlos tells us that he hadn't seen them for a few months so the boss will be pleased they are still around.
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| This guy was a long way away |
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| Vermillion Fly Catcher |
We get to the lake and find a couple of really old decrepet looking boats. Carlos spends a couple of minutes bailing out the water, and we are off. We see plenty of birds, but the highlight was a Three Toed Sloth. We had been going for quite a while and were about to go back for lunch when Carlos got quite excited and stopped. We had no idea what was happening as Carlos was showing the interpreter were it was, I had to prompt the interpreter to speak as she was amazed at what she was seeing. The Sloth was at the top of a medium sized tree with no foilage so was quite easy to see.
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| Three Toed Sloth with baby (Oso Perezoso con bebe) |
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| Some loose relation of the Sloth (Oso ...) |
We stayed watching the Sloth for quite a long time, they move so rediculously slow....Turns out she had a baby, not so easy to see with the naked eye. This was another animal Carlos hadn't seen for a long time.
Not long after we spotted another member of the bear family that is quite rare to see (see photo above).
The next day was a morning walk, Hew headed back to our hut after breakfast before we went for a walk and on the way back to the main tent an unidentified little browny gray mammal ran across the path 20 or so meters in front of him - he thinks it was a little Peccory (wild pig) but is not sure.
During the walk we found some Coatis and Squirrels in some trees near a family of Monkeys. But they were way to quick to get a photo. A bit further on we found some blue and red Macaws.
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| Vampire Bats |
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| Lunch on a tree leaf |
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| Leaf frog |
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| A little wasp nest |
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| Scorpion on the door handle |
On the last day we walked along another track for a while before heading across Gringo lake. We saw some more blue and yellow Macaws nesting on the way to the lake.
We headed across the lake and were welcomed by a rather excited family of monkeys. Carlos warned us to watch our fingers as they might bite us and not to touch them. As soon as we got off the boat, the mother with baby on her back, leaped onto the back of one of the girls. We spent the next hour or so just hanging out with the family, playing with the baby and Steph getting a few cuddles from the mum.
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| The welcoming party |
We had a three and a half hour boat ride back to town. The river was crazy strong on the way back up stream, it took nearly an hour longer to get back. We stopped mid river to pick up a family who were trying to get to town in a really slow old school boat.
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| Vultures feasting on a dead Caiman on the way home |
Another awesome trip, we missed the Anaconda, Ant Eater, and Jaguar (are all really hard to see) but they are well and truely still on the list - maybe when we come back.
