Explornapo Lodge, Rain Forest Canopy Walk, Medicine Man, and Squirrel Monkeys

September 6 – Friday

Accommodations: CEIBA TOPS LODGE

This morning we ate breakfast at 6 am and by 6:30 we were in a covered boat to take a two hour journey through the Amazon to visit the Explornapo Lodge in the heart of the jungle. We got stuck on a sandbar at one point because the river is so low this time of year, but our driver was able to navigate us off the sandbar and back to cruising along. We finally left the main river and went down the Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon and arrived at Explornapo. We had to climb up many wooden steps and ramps from the river bank to finally arrive at the lodge. Exolornapo provides access to the pristine forest of Explorama’s Sucusari Reserve, as well as access to the adjoining Amazon Canopy walkway which is one of the longest treetop walkways in the world.

The lodge offers the opportunity to live in authentic Amazon River style with palm-thatched houses in the rainforest. The toilets are a hole in the ground and the showers are very primitive. Scientists come here from all over to study the rainforest.

Our group came here specifically to walk the canopy walk, but because of my fear of height, there was no way I would be able to do it. The canopy walkway, with many aerial platforms and cableways, is more than 1,500 feet long and 115 feet off the ground. That’s 12 stories high!!!!

As the group left for their walk, Allan and I enjoyed sitting in the restaurant area, having a glass of wine, and watching the squirrel monkeys jumping from tree to tree. The monkeys would jump down to where the staff hung huge stalks of bananas for the monkeys and the monkeys would pluck them off to eat them.

There were probably 50 or more monkeys running up and down the trees and taking the bananas with them to the treetops. Then as they peeled the bananas to get to the sweet fruit, they would drop them from above, causing banana peels to rain from the sky. Too funny!

A squirrel monkey’s tail is not prehensile, that means they cannot use it to grab onto things. They use it for balance and nothing more. Squirrel monkeys are considered to be one of the cleverest monkeys due to having a large brain compared to the size of their body. They are highly vocal and have around 25-30 different types of calls. Caesar always can recognize their call.

We walked over to the hammock area for awhile and enjoyed listening to the chatter of the birds, insects, and monkeys. This lodge is very primitive, but it does have WiFi. And an interesting note, this is one of the lodges that Caesar’s father helped to build 40 years ago.

After about 3 hours, the group returned and we all sat down to a delicious lunch of dorado fish. Then we went to listen to a local practitioner as he told us all about the traditional remedies he uses to help the villagers, using only the plants from the rainforest to make his medicines. He uses wild garlic, Dragons blood, Cats claw, and many other plants. Each medicine has specific purposes – curing bronchitis and asthma, or arthritis and rheumatism, and even one that can cure cancer. Some medicines you drink while others are rubbed into the skin. It was fascinating.

We left the lodge and took a one hour boat ride to a little town, but I don’t remember the name. We had to get off the boat very carefully as it was about 15” off the ground. No way could I jump off so I just sat down and then slid off. Then we had to climb yet another set of wooden steps and ramps to get to where the mototaxis were waiting to take us to the town called Indiana, where we would board another boat for the short ride back to our lodge.

The taxis are pretty primitive but actually had good suspension, which was evident as we bumped along over potholes and rough roads. It was an adventure speeding past all the houses with kids outside playing and laundry hanging from the clothes lines.

We arrived back to the lodge and once again climbed the ramp and 27 steps to get ready for pre-dinner drinks and dinner.

Dinner was very good and Caesar told us what we need to know to get ready for our flight back to Lima tomorrow.