TravsPeaceCorps: Amboró National Park

Well I´m back after about a six-month blogger-negligence. And with a bang. These photos are only a few of the hundreds taken on a four-day backapacking trek in the jungle with my Dutch pal Tom. And seeing how most of them are on Tom´s camera, you´ll all have to wait until I get my hands on them. So until then, here´s a few. More to come!

Starting point of a 4-day trek into the jungle

Notice the size of the rocks in the riverbed, and compare that to what you see later.

Tom Van Diessen, my Dutch friend.

First night´s campsite.

iPod charger in the jungle.

Starting point of the second day.

Backpacking in the jungle is a bit different than in Idaho.

Any guesses as to what this might be? You´re right, it´s part of the shell of a fossilized, giant armadillo!!

Tiny little frog chillin´ on the armadillo shell.

Plenty of animal tracks in the mud, but not one sighting.

I suppose that´s kind of neat, eh?

Notice the hanging nests in the tree. They were everywhere!! We referred to them as hanging skulls, and never actually saw what kind of bird/creature inhabited them.

Doesn´t get much more beautiful than that.

For the first day, there was a decently defined trail to follow, but for the next two days, it followed the riverbed. That meant that we did a great deal of boulder-hopping with our packs. A new experience for me, being raised on the manicured hiking trails of the St. Joe National Forest in Idaho.

More boulder-hopping.

They just keep getting bigger!!

Second night´s campsite

At one point, we had to make a tricky hand-off of packs in a particularly deep part of a canyon. This is me trying to keep my balance on algae-coverd rocks just under the surface. If I fall off them, it´s game over.