Thursday 26 August, Puerto Maldonado
Up early again at 6.30am, actually that is the normal time here. Its first light then and goes dark at 6pm, to make most of daylight and cooler start and end of days. We loaded the large 12m long motor canoe with all the gear. It was very full with food for 5 days for 7 people all the kit for field trip too! 2 huge barrels of fuel, wheel barrow, scaffold viewing tower, food, tents, bags and loo roll, smaller 2nd engine for the shallow river etc etc.
We joined the main Rio Madre de Dio which is 200-1000m wide it as 2 hrs on this Rio to Rio Heath which is the Peru/Bolivian border. I was in the company of Rob (guy who runs the projects in Peru) and also other staff and volunteers: Julio, Juan Carlos, Antony, Eddy and Theo. Juan Carlos made lunch aboard the boat. Rob asked me to record the wetland bird species seen on Rio heath.
We had to stop at the Peru passport control before we headed down Rio Heath. The river is only 20-50m wide and there has been a drought so the water levels where low. Within 5 mins we had to get out and drag the boat to deeper bits. This was a regular bit of exercise. The canoe only needs 1 ft to float, but some bits were less than ankle deep. We carried on up stream and make camp on a river beach at dusk, while trying not to be bitten by mozzies!! The tent I was given had a broken pole so 2 of the lads shared a tent and gave be one of theirs, so I had somewhere to sleep! Juan made supper of pasta and sauce, which he had prepared on board on way up stream. Oh yeah the beach was in Bolivia, on their river bank. It was the nearest we could get to before dark!
