El hombre que me dijo que me recogería para ir al rio para ir en la canoa al Chalalán no vino. Un hombre que trabajaba en el hotel me dijo que el me conduciría al rio, pero su coche no funcionó. ¡Por lo tanto fui en su moto detrás de él y otro hombre puso mi equipaje en el frente de su moto! ¡A mi me gustó esta experienica muchísima! Necesité una foto de mi transporte y lo tengo.
Había 5 turistas, nuestro guía, y dos hombres que manejaban en el bote. La corriente en el rio era muy rápida y en la dirreción opuesta que íbámos. Por lo tanto, 3 hombres (el piloto y el otro que trabajó en el bote y un turista) fueron en el rio para empujar el bote más de 10 veces. ¡Usaron todos de sus músculos! Pareció muy difícil. Pasabamos casi 8 horas para llegar a Chalalán. Paramos 2 veces, una vez para almorzar y otra para pescar. Uno de los pilotos atrapó un bagre muy grande. ¡Más or menos de 80 libras!
Llegamos y caminamos media hora hasta Chalalán. Es un lugar muy especial—rústico, con sonidos de los pájaros, un lago bonito, reds contra de los mosquitos alrededor de las camas, hamacas cerca de cada habitación, y más. Almorzamos de nuevo y entonces fuimos en un bote para buscar monos que vimos, por supuesto. Después de cenar, caminé con 2 otros personas y nuestro guía, Richard, para explorar la selva. Vimos muchos animales y plantas muy interestantes—arañas, telarañas grandes (telaraña es una palabra nueva para mi que a mi me gusta!) las hormigas que cortan las hojas y les traen en sus espaldas, tarantulas inmaturas. Oimos los sonidos de los sapos y Richard nos dijo que cuando estamos cerca del rio y podemos oir los sapos en la noche tenemos que cuidarnos de las serpientes venomosas. No vimos ningunas serpientes, pero vimos la piel larga de una serpiente.
TRANSLATION: The man who was supposed to meet me at the hotel to take me to the motorized canoe to get to Chalalán didn’t come. A man from the hotel said that he would drive me there, but after trying to start his car & with 2 other men attempting to help him, getting there by car wasn’t going to happen, so I went a better way: on the back of a motorcycle of someone who works at the hotel & my duffel bag on the handle bars of another motorcyclist. Loved it! Had to document this so did get a photo.
There were 5 tourists on the boat, our guide, & 2 men who navigated it. The river’s current was very strong, but in the opposite direction that we were traveling & due to the fact that it was the dry season, the water level was low. As a result, we got stuck many times (at least 10, if not more) requiring the man at the bow, the man at the stern & 1 passenger to get out & push with all their might to get us unstuck. It took >8 hours to reach our destination, but was wonderful. We stopped twice: once to eat lunch & once to fish. The man at the stern caught 1 of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen—a catfish that they estimated weighed > 80 pounds.
After a ½ hour trek to the ecolodge, a beautiful place—very rustic, with sounds of birds, a beautiful pristine lake, mosquito nets around the beds, hammocks near each cabin, and more. Had a 2nd lunch & then went in a small row boat to look for monkeys, which of course we saw. Cute! After dinner we went for a walk in the jungle. We saw every kind of insect imaginable, including the heavily weighted down leaf-cutter ants, carrying large chunks of leaves on their backs, a huge spider making an incredible web (I love the word spider web in Spanish: telaraña [tela=thread & araña=spider]. My Spanish vocabulary keeps growing!!), immature tarantulas (as opposed to mature ones, no thank you!), etc. When we heard the frogs croaking, our guide, Richard, said to be careful because when you hear them at night & you’re near water, there are probably venomous snakes around. It was fine with me that we didn’t see any snakes, but we did find a long, wide snake skin on a log.
Adventure Life has been an extraordinary travel resource for us over the years and today was no exception. Our River Cruise booking was handled by Jess (who has been our personal trip planner for several years) the same day as our inquiry. Suggestions were given for cabin choice and pre-trip options (that were not shown on the cruise line's website) like airport transfers and prepaid gratuities. Trip insurance recommendations followed and we were assigned a travel co-ordinator till the end of the tour. All we have to do is show up! Great service from friendly folks.
APtravelwell
1 day ago
My representative Kevin was very responsive generally and in crafting our itinerary to our specific priorities.
Rocco Labella
1 day ago
Although there was a lot of paper work, I received help and guidance when I needed it.
Donna Kirby
2 days ago
Our travel was flawless! The rider pickup (airport, hotel, ship) was seamless. Jane's recommendation for Emerald Cruise Sakara was everything I wanted but the experience was soooo much more. Adventure Life took care of each and every detail and this was the easiest of all my travels.
Anne Petty
3 days ago
Follow up was effective any questions were answered in a timely manner