Day 9 – Floating Down the Rio Don Diego

Today we floated down the Rio Don Diego – i opted to leave my iPhone in the backpack even though the case is waterproof.  While I wish I had taken it, I don’t think that I would have got very good photos.

Our guide Rafael picked us up from the hotel at 8 and we caught a public bus to the Rio Don Diego which is about 10 minutes from where we are staying.  This is a first for Stu and I catching public transport while we are on holidays (excluding train systems in Asia). One highlight was we got to see snow on the moutains off in the distance – the Andes are still high even here.

After a 10 minute or so walk through a village and along a jungle path we got to an eco-resort nestled on the river.  

The rainbow flag represents the Inca’s in South America.

There waiting for us were our boat and inner tubes.  We were each given an inner tube then off we went down the river.  Rafael made sure we all kept to the middle of the river and that none of us got too far ahead or behind.  We had floated only a few hundred metres when we saw an iguana sunning itself on a rock beside the river. About half way we crossed under the freeway then we saw (and heard) howler monkeys – they were hard to spot and on the way back in the boat the sun was behind them so I hope the pictures turn out ok.

Just before the end of the floating the Rafael called out cocodrilo and there it was a croc sitting on the river bank sunning itself – yet we floated on.  The picture was from the boat on the way back.

 

Some of the mountains look like where they filmed jurassic park – the above doesn’t do this principal justice but all I think about when I look towards some of these mountains is the scene where they fly into the park for the first time in the first movie.

After lunch we went for a walk along the beach (it is still too rough to swim here at the moment) then sat in the rock pools for a little while before Stu and i headed for a walk up the hills behind the hotel (I’ve included some photos of the from of our room.  We then had a dip in our pool (huge bath – picture tomorrow) behind our room.