Day 5 - Walk through the jungle!

Today we embarked on a three hour trek through the jungle in hope of finding some good beaches and monkeys! The island contains no roads and only a few well trodden paths in the jungle that engulfs the whole island. To get to our start point of the walk we were dropped via boat at the main port which consisted of a sandy beach, pier, a handful of shops and a few huts. All of which wouldn't look out of place in a pirate film! Our training for the Inca Trail started at this point with an up hill trek to the first viewing point. By this time we were both shattered and dreading the Inca Trail which is due in one week.
The rest of the walk was not quite as gruelling as the initial climb, and was helped by lots of nice scenery and wildlife encounters. WE SAW MONKEYS !! six of them in the trees, they were a lot smaller than we both expected. We originally thought that they would be much bigger like baboons!! but turned out to be local spider monkeys.
We also saw hundreds of different types of ants, all of which were big with different coloured bottoms and various birds of all shapes and sizes. We even saw a red squirrel perched on a branch nibbling on his nuts.

We also came across several small beaches which were very idyllic, situated in small bays with a few shacks provided refreshments and normal amenities. The last beach we reached which was called lopes mendes which is a popular choice with the locals for surfing as the waves were pretty big. The beach itself was a couple of miles long with white squeaky sand and mango groves, coupled with clear blue sea.
After a long day walking we had both worked up a huge appetite so headed back to the resort for our dinner, which fulfilled our appetites 100% with another three course meal. Not that we are complaining !!

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