We appologize....

We apologize to all that wanted to follow our Peruvian adventure.   It turns out that there are two things that do not work very well in third world countries.   Toilets and Internet.   The first we leave to your imagination.   The second was a great disappointment.   We truly wanted to post pictures each day but it was not to come to pass.   Even in our base of operations in Lima, Internet was slow and unreliable.   The Internet in outlying areas of the Amazon, Andes and Paraccas were a joke with speeds barely that of dial-up connections.

We are now back in the states and happy to be home.   Our trip was wonderful with a minimum of glitches (Most of those caused by an American Airlines of the same name. (Do not get me started on that one)

I took over 5500 hundred images from the trip and have condensed them down to a pictorial story of about 260.   Here is the link to a public album on Facebook that you should be able to see without a Facebook account.  Peru 2014 Images   Please follow this link and click on the first picture then scroll through the images.   There is a caption explaining almost every picture.

We hope you enjoy the images and we one again apologize for not be able to keep the blog up and running during our journey.    We are looking into technology that will allow us to do better on future trips.

Thank you again for your understanding.

Chip and Jan Kunka

Hi

We are on day 3  of our Amazon adventure.    The first two days have been unreal. From pink dolphins to wild parrots everyplace.  Sorry no pictures until we get better Internet,  

Gotta go,   It is almost cocktail hour

Peru 2014 More from Lima

Our group leader and five others were supposed to fly in after us on Saturday night.   When we arrived at our hotel, we received word that their flight was cancelled due to multiple issues  and that they would not arrive until 6 pm the next night.   On Sunday morning we decided to go exploring on our own  and hit the Inca market

The four lone rangers went off exploring our corner of the city and had a blast. Beautiful weather and very friendly people.   More later

A few images

Peru 2014 Lima day 1

Made it to Lima.  Minimal delays and our driver was waiting for us.   Got bed at 1am.  Long day.    Our group leader and rest of the group delayed in US an will be 24 hours late.  More later.  Courtyard at our hotel. 

Peru 2014 departure.

We have been up since 5am.  Lots of little things to get done and managed to misplace a few items.  Had to make a last minute run to Walmart.  All is well.  Our neighbors dropped us off at the airport and here we are.  Lots of miles to go but we are on our new way

Peru 2014 Preparations

Wow, only one day left till we leave for Peru.    Lots to do and so little time.

Although not required,   We went throu a regimen of immunizations that are recommended  for the area we are traveling to.   These include Yellow fever, typhoid, hepatitis A and B.      We also will be on an anti-malaria regimen.   Better safe than sorry.

Packing is an extreme challenge as since we will be travelling in both warm, humid rain forests and cold alpine environments.  Doing lots of layers.   We will be able to store a suitcase  in Lima during each of our jaunts  which will make it easier.

No trip of this magnitude can be made without significant camera equipment.   Here is what we are taking.

Two Cannon DSLRs 30d and 50d
Sigma 18-200 zoom
Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom
Sigma 135-400 telephoto zoom

In addition we are carrying our new Olympus TG-2 compact that is not only waterproof and shock proof but has both HD movie  and an exceptional macro capabilities. 

We are also traveling with a net book PC, external hard drive for storing images, a 7" tablet and a smart phone.

One of our biggest challenges will be keeping everything charged as two of our Amazon lodges have very limited electricity.   We have extra batteries and hopefully we can get through the week without having to recharge much.

OK, enough for now.    Must finish packing and tie up last minute business.   We will report in as time allows.

Peru 2014 Itinerary

A little about our trip

We will be leaving February 8th for Peru.   We fly into Lima and spend  a couple of nights there.  We then fly from Lima to Iquitos where we will board a small boat that will take us to our jungle lodges.   We are staying with the Explorama group and will be staying at three different lodges during our stay in the Amazon basin.   Her is a link to the Explorama web site http://www.explorama.us/

We will be staying at  Explorama, Explore Nappo and then Ceiba Tops.   The first two lodges are open air with minimal electricity.  All lighting comes from oil lamps.  We sleep under mosquito netting.  Ceiba Tops is a bit more luxurious with air conditioned rooms and even a swimming pool.   The interesting thing is that all lodges have WI-FI Internet.   Not sure how that will work but it will be how we communicate during our adventure.

After our week in the Amazon, it is back to Lima for a night then another flight to Cusco in the Andes where we will board a train to visit the ancient Inca ruins at Machu Pichu.   

We will again fly back to Lima and then a small group of us is going to venture off to Paracas on the pacific coast where we will visit the Bellestas islands.   Many biologist consider these islands to be a mini Galapagos.

More about our planning soon.