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Day EIGHT - Jungle hike to a lake and boating

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DAY EIGHT Our last full day at the lodge started out as yet another early morning for most. The night before we split into two groups; one group for the short hike and one group for the longer one. The short hike started out on what the guides call “the grid”. It is a 20 by 20 grid that the researchers created to be abke to track the monkeys throughout the rain forest. The hike was about 2 hours long and consisted of more wild life, includeing centipedes and wolf spiders. We also spotted some towering mangroves and water vines that provided us with a nice drink. The long hike started with everyone crossing a narrow log through water to get to the trail. From their it was roughly a 2 mile hike to the lake which provided a wonderful view of all the wildlife. Similar to the short hike we also drank water from the vines while some even tried eating small bugs known as Grubs. We saw the rare preuvian bird known as the Watson, along with many other beautiful birds. In the end it was a ve...
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Day SEVEN - More fishing and canoeing on the mangrove

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DAY SEVEN After A LOT of waiting I was able to upload this awesome picture of our fearless soccer players who dared to play against the Peruvian team from the research center! To begin day seven off a group of about half of us went canoeing through the mangroves in search of caimans and snakes and other living creatures. It was 3 people to a canoe and there was 1 guide on each canoe. Sadly we didn’t see any creatures on the canoes but on the boat ride there we saw saki monkeys. The boat ride back was the cool part. One of the guides spotted a 3 toed sloth up in a tree and we moved the boat closer in to get a better view. Out of nowhere Lyla R spots a baby sloth curled up under a tree. The camera crew moves in to get good pictures and then we left. The other group went fishing like yesterday but we woke up early at 6:45 and then ate breakfast and got to the fishing grounds around 8:00 because we didn’t leave until around 7:30 and on the way there we saw a group of squirrel mo...
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Day SIX - Research Center

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DAY SIX :)  We began our day at the normal “wake up” time at 7:45, but our breakfast was rushed because we had to pack and move to the next location. It was a short boat ride compared to the others (only an hour.) When we arrived at the Research Center we were received with purple corn juice and it was surprisingly good (it was nasty- Callie and Kayleigh). After they gave us our room asignments we had a very intense game of soccer on the small field that the the Research Center has. We were then split into two groups, one group went fishing and the other canoeing (Lyla was in the fishing group and Kayleigh and Callie were in the canoeing group.) The fishing group caught 6 fish and Mr.Rembrandt caught a vampire fish!    The second group went canoeing in mangroves deep in the Tahuayo river while the other group was fishing. We saw a tamandua (type of anteater) and a group of squirrel monkeys . The water was very shallow and we got stuck multiple times. Kyle and Kaveh...
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Day FIVE - Zip Line and Canoeing

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DAY FIVE Today we split into three groups to explore two different activities in different parts of the jungle. The first group had to rise at the early hour of 6:30. They hiked a half mile to a zipline course in the canopy of the rainforest. While ziplining, they were able to see a three toed sloth, blue macaws, and three parrots. First, we were carried up to the top of a large tree by ropes attached to our harnesses. It was a long way up, reaching over 100 feet! The first thing we saw once we got to the top was a sloth sleeping on a tree closer than twenty feet away. Then, we flew across the treetops on three different ziplines to different platforms. After that we slid down a rope to get the bottom where we had a nice hike home for our next adventure. 0 The next activity (or the first one for the afternoon zipliners) was canoeing. First, a guide brought us and the canoes on a motorboat about a mile out on the river. Then we were put into groups of 3 and onto the canoes. We p...
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Day FOUR - Day at El Chino village

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DAY FOUR Today we started our fourth day in the Peruvian jungle with fists pounding on our door at 6:45 for our 7:00 before our action packed day. Right after breakfast we got ready for the day. Starting at 8:00  we left the docks with buckets of peach and red paint and tons of paint brushes. It was a short 10 minutes to El Chino Village where the highschool we were painting was located. As we arrived to the cute village we were greeted by chicks, ducks, and dogs. We walked across the newly built red bridge to the three-room highschool on stilts. We arrived at the school to many smiling kids waving and saying hello.           We got paired up with the students of El Chino and got to work on painting. The students were between the ages of 11-16 normally looking a little smaller than their actual age. They spoke very little english so we had to speak to them in the spanish that we knew which was very hard for some of us to do. We ended up making t...
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Day THREE - Hike in Frog Valley

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 What a great day we had today!  Here’s what Molly, Olivi, Ava and Elena have to say .... DAY THREE Today was day three (our first full day) in the Peruvian Jungle! We started it with a lovely breakfast provided by the wonderful staff of the Tahuayo lodge! Immediatley after, we traveled by boat to our hiking and lunch destination. The ride was two hours long, as we stopped to see: pink river dolphins, Titi mokeys, a three toed sloth, many exotic buttreflies, swimming snakes, gorgeous birds, Kevin and his evil twin Eduardo, and much more! At our final destination, we stopped for some snacking and nature squatting before our 2.5 hour hike. On this jungle adventure, we saw: several species of poison dart frogs, tropical beetles, termites, and leaf cutter ants. We also made rubber out of the sap of a rubber tree. Then, using flashlights, we daringly waddled through a hollowed out log where hundreds and hundreds of bats lived! When returning, we ate a delicous lunch filled wit...
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Day TWO - We made it!!!

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After 32 solid hours of travelling we finally made it to the Tahuayo lodge.  We were welcomed by the staff with delicious papaya juice and 30 minutes later an incredible lunch. It is SO refreshing to see the kids wading, swimming, chopping wood or playing cards rather than being glued to their phones.  It’s priceless!!! Unfortunately the Wifi is SO weak that we have not been able to upload any photos of today.   I’m hoping to have better luck tomorrow, but if we don’t, we’ll just be blogging without photos. I am thinking it would be nice to ask the kids volunteer to write the blog each day.  Stay tuned to see if I can get someone to begin with today! HERE’s ISAAC’S BLOG ABOUT OUR DAY TWO... Hola from peru. Today was our secound day (today and yesterday were travel days mostly). We   began our day resting in a very crouded terminal while awaiting our conection flight to Iquitos. When we arived in iquitos we we greeted by amazonian expeditions and they dro...
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