After the one-day stopover in Bahrain, I woke up early to catch my connecting flight to Amman, the capital city of Jordan. At the hotel reception, I was handed a large hamper full of food with almost six packets of eggs, sausages, sandwiches, coffee, and assorted juices. I was overwhelmed by such a large quantity of food and only managed to eat half of what was given to me. It was still early morning, and a taxi was waiting for me to shock me off at the airport. I managed to stop to take pictures of the morning skyline, filled with an orange hue. Mornings and nights are more relaxed in Bahrain, but in the afternoon, it gets hot. I was impressed with the country; it was clean, and it was clear that people here had an excellent quality of life.

By connecting, the Gulf Air flight was on scheduled time, and this was the first time I was traveling business class, so naturally, I was being looked after well. I was served champagne and nuts on the flight and managed to get some sleep on the three-hour-plus journey.

Amman was cold and chilly as I got out of the airport. It was freezing, and a flush of cold wind hit me in the face. It was raining heavily, and the weather was very windy. As luck would have it, I found a friendly taxi driver who drove me to my hotel and promised to take me around the city for sightseeing. 

I can’t wait to see the rest of Amman, so keep reading my blog for the next update.

The Amman Citadel 

After recovering from a day-long jet lag, I managed to get up early today for breakfast and was ready to take the city tour of Amman. I became friendly with a taxi driver named Issam, who took me to the day’s first stop, the Amman Citadel. This is an old archeological wonder at the heart of the city. It has the ancient temple of Hercules, along with a museum. The historic site has an old 1700-meter wall dating back to the bronze age. It also has the iconic Umayyad place along with the temple of Hercules. You can cover the entire site within two hours, and this is a perfect place to get a panoramic view of the city of Amman, as the ruins are at a great height, towering over the city. The breathtaking view is a perfect spot for taking some great pictures. The site is 850 meters above sea level and is a UNESCO world heritage site. There is also the old Byzantine church that one can visit. The place dates back to the Bronze Age and the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad eras. The temple of Hercules has two towering pillars that are thirty feet tall and date back to 160 CE. One can get a visitor pass for three riyals and a tour guide for thirty riyals who will take you around the place. All in all, it was a tremendous historical experience.

King Abdullah Mosque 

The King Abdullah I Mosque in Amman, Jordan, was built between 1982 and 1989. It is capped by a blue mosaic dome beneath which 3,000 Muslims may offer prayer. Tourists are allowed to visit. Men must have long trousers on, and women must cover their heads, arms, and legs. This was my next stop. There are also a couple of shops where one can buy artefacts and memorabilia that depict the true culture of the city.

Roman Theatre 

Roman Theatre of Amman is a 6,000-seat, 2nd-century Roman theatre. A famous landmark in the Jordanian capital dates back to the Roman period when the city was known as Philadelphia. It also has a history museum that shows the nomadic roots of the people of Jordon.

Hair Cut at a local Babar Shop 

I also managed to get a hair cut and have wax inserted in my ears and nostrils to get rid of the unwanted hair in those areas. All the while, my taxi driver kept me company.

Traditional Food’s of Jordon 

I tucked into Mansaf and Khanif, the traditional foods of Jordan. Mansaf is The conventional signature dish of Jordan and a source of pride for all Jordanians who make the best Mansaf. A large platter of white rice over paper-thin bread called “Shrak” topped with pull-apart lamb cuts and soaked in a special sauce made from dried yogurt called Jameed.

 Every meal has a dessert, and Knafeh will stand out. It consists of crispy baked dough made from either semolina or vermicelli noodles, topped with a unique white cheese. Once it has gotten a crisp golden brown color, it is flipped, doused with a special syrup, and sprinkled with pistachios to add more texture.

The Cake Shop of Amman – Jordon 

I was immensely jet-lagged and slept the entire day at my hotel. After enjoying a meal of chicken and rice, I went back to sleep again. I was so jet lagged that I had no energy to go sightseeing in the morning and decided to give it a miss; my taxi driver had been waiting all morning and had to return from the hotel as I asked him to come the next day. 

In the evening, I managed to get myself back on my feet and decided to walk around Amman’s busy streets. I ventured into a sweet shop selling local sweets and managed to chat with a few locals, trying to learn some words from the Arabic language. The city is frigid, with temperatures falling below three degrees. I walked across the street and the city alleys and found a beautiful cake shop. This was a perfect place to enjoy coffee and cookies. I was welcomed by the shop owners and given some cookies on the house, along with a pot of black coffee. I chatted with the owners and showed them some of my YouTube videos of films I had done with Shah Rukh Khan. The locals were delighted. Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are the most popular actors in this country. They are also big fans of Amitabh Bachchan; I showed the cake shop owner, Karim, some of my videos from the film Rann, where I acted with Amitabh Bachchan. They were delighted and became friendly with me. 

My first impression of the city was very positive. The people are really very friendly. From the airport to the hotel, I felt very welcomed . 

I will be exploring the city’s many sights tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the pictures from the day.

I was excited about my first travels to the Middle East; I planned my itinerary weeks in advance. It was simple: my tour plan was to spend two weeks in Jordan, where I would travel to Amman, the capital of Jordan, and then proceed to Doha, the capital city of Qatar, following which I booked my hotels in Egypt. I wanted to spend at least three weeks in Egypt, knowing there would be much to see in Cairo. I had also planned a trip to Tehran in Iran, but that was not to be as fighting had started in Iran, and due to the adverse conditions in the country where there was great fear of familiar tourists being detained or arrested, I decided against the trip. I was going to three countries that I would cover in this trip: Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt. As luck would have it, I would also get an opportunity to see Bahrain. This was because my flight from Delhi to Bahrain was delayed, and thus, the connected flight from Bahrain to Amman would also have to be rescheduled. 

Due to this, I got the chance to spend a whole day in Bahrain itself. I got friendly with a lovely Airhostess on my flight from Delhi to Bahrain, who gave me a lot of attention and ensured that my first air travel in business class would be an experience I would never forget. I got champagne and prawns for dinner and enjoyed the in-flight entertainment. When I landed in Bahrain, I was given a new waiting pass and was booked into a beautiful five-star hotel for the night. Bahrain was warm, and my first impression of the country was fantastic. The roads are brilliant, and the government is an island city surrounded by water and pristine beaches. Everyone drives cars here, and people are very well off. 

This is a fishing country, and fishing is what the people of this country do. Along with oil and tourism, that is what sustains the economy of this place. A Kenyan cab driver who duly drove me to my hotel picked me up at the airport. The Art hotel was where I would spend my day in this country. I was greeted by a Pakistani waiter called Malik in the hotel, and I was happy to speak Urdu with him. The people are amiable here, and the country is very sparsely populated. It has only two million people. There is a lot of space around, and everyone is very well off. Most people drive cars here, and Bahrain looks to be a very prosperous city. After tucking into a plate full of Biriyani, I had a quick hot shower and decided to catch a tapas. I felt totally jet lagged.

Since I had to be at the airport the next day early in the morning, I could not see much of the city or any of its attractions, but I managed to get a good feel of the country nonetheless.  

The Amazon basin; a tangle of rivers, lakes and labyrinth of winding jungle trails, home to 20% of the water on the planet. In fact, in the Peruvian Amazon, which represents more than 60% of its territory, it’s estimated that there are more than 19.77 million acres (8 million hectares) occupied by wetlands, or large marshy areas, dominated by the ‘aguaje‘ palm. But, why are these swamps important, and what animals can be found lurking beneath?

A swamp is defined as a forested wetland and, like marshes, they’re often found near lakes or rivers, and have slow draining mineral soil. In the Amazon, swamps sustain communities of animals that benefit from the ecosystem’s rich nutrients, water and shelter. These wetlands perform many essential ecosystem services, from flood control and carbon storage to fish production.

It’s not just animals that benefit from the mineral rich soil, however. People living in the Amazon region also take advantage of the ecosystem’s recourses. Palm fruit, for example, has a sweet, pleasant flavour, and is a popular snack amongst locals, whether it’s eaten fresh, blended into ice cream or zesty drinks (aguajina).

Those residing in the Amazon also use the cut trunk of the aguaje as a source of ‘suri‘, the edible coleoptera – a small, vibrant beetle – larva that is frequently used for both food and local medicine. The coleopteran lays its eggs in the pulp of the trunk, there the larvae develop in the form of round, plump worms, high in fat.

Whilst paddling through the swampy waters, those exploring might spot a pair of eyes, just above the waters murky surface; the Black Caiman, the largest predator in the Amazonian ecosystem. Other animals that dwell in the swamps include the anaconda, boa constrictors, the tapir and capybara, amongst others.

At Inkaterra’s Amazonian properties, guests can join the popular Lake Sandoval excursion, which involves an intimate boat ride through dense swampland, before embarking on a sightseeing journey across glistening Lake Sandoval; also the wetlands located within Inkaterra Reserva Amazónica property and near the “Reserva Ecológica Inkaterra protected area.

Protecting One of the Most Diverse Areas on Earth
The western Amazon harbors the greatest known richness of species on the planet and offers millions of plants and animals a refuge from climate change.

To stop protecting this habitat would be to turn our backs on the thousands of species who depend on a healthy forest for survival.

How We Protect Wildlife
Direct habitat protection: creating conservation areas and helping manage forest lands sustainably for the sake of wildlife
Ensuring that wildlife has a place to live and strive is central to our work.

We partner with local governments, individual landowners, indigenous communities, and others to create a network of protected lands in Peru and Bolivia for the purpose of conservation.

We also work in the buffer zones of major conservation areas (such as national parks) to strengthen forest-friendly land management practices and protect them against external threats.

Creating conservation corridors to connect vital areas for species’ survival
We protect landscapes with an eye toward the big picture of connecting tracts of protected areas over time, magnifying our impact for biodiversity conservation.

Our impact goes beyond the boundaries of the conservation areas we help create.

We work in the vast land between conservation areas to ensure connectivity among them. In other words, we ensure animals can move across uninterrupted patches of tropical forests, which is vital for species preservation.

Stopping threats to the homes of wildlife
An important way we help wildlife survive is to detect and stop threats before they destroy entire ecosystems within the Amazon rainforest.

We use the technical tools of our Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and our Southwest Amazon Drone Center to analyze, monitor, and work with local authorities to stop deforestation happening on the ground right now.

Using camera trap technology to track biodiversity
Camera trap technology enables us to document wildlife presence, abundance, and population changes, particularly in the face of deforestation and habitat destruction.

We deploy camera traps all throughout the western Amazon, at our research stations and at multiple conservation areas we help manage. We have deployed over 100 camera traps and gathered over 10,000 photos and videos of more than 40 species of mammals and birds.

Many of the species captured on camera have an endangered status (Near Threatened or Vulnerable) according to the IUCN Red List, including jaguars, giant anteaters, giant armadillos, white-lipped peccaries, tapirs, and pale-winged trumpeters.

Peruvian Amazonia (Spanish: Amazonía del Perú), informally known locally as the Peruvian jungle (Spanish: selva peruana) or just the jungle (Spanish: la selva), is the area of the Amazon rainforest included within the country of Peru, from east of the Andes to the borders with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia. This region comprises 60% of the country and is marked by a large degree of biodiversity. Peru has the second-largest portion of the Amazon rainforest after the Brazilian Amazon.

Extension
Most Peruvian territory is covered by dense forests on the east side of the Andes, yet only 5% of Peruvians live in this area. More than 60% of Peruvian territory is covered by the Amazon rainforest, more than in any other country.

According to the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon (Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, IIAP), the spatial delineation of the Peruvian Amazon is as follows:

Ecological criteria: 782,880.55 km2 (60.91% of Peruvian territory and approximately 11.05% of the entire Amazon jungle).
Hydrographic criteria or basin criteria: 96,922.47 km2 (37,421.97 sq mi) (75.31% of Peruvian territory and approximately 16.13% of the whole Amazon basin).

Lowland Jungle
The lowland jungle (in Spanish Selva Baja) is also known as Omagua region, Walla, Anti, Amazonian rainforest or Amazon basin. This ecoregion is the largest of Peru, standing between 80 and 1,000 meters above sea level. It has very warm weather with an average temperature of 28 °C, high relative humidity (over 75%) and yearly rainfall of approximately 260 cm (100 in). Its soils are very heterogeneous, but almost all have river origins. Because of high temperatures and high rainfall, they are poor soils with few nutrients.

The jungle contains long and powerful rivers such as the Apurimac, Mantaro, Amazon, Urubamba, Ucayali, Huallaga, Marañón, Putumayo, Yavarí, Napo, Pastaza, Madre de Dios, Manu, Purus, and Tigre. The Apurimac River is the source of the Amazon River. The Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, the Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve and the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Regional Conservation Area are within the forest.

Highland Jungle
The highland jungle (in Spanish Selva Alta) is also called Rupa-Rupa region, Andean jungle, ceja de selva. This ecoregion extends into the eastern foothills of the Andes, between 1,000 and 3,800 m above the sea level. The eastern slopes of the Andes are home to a great variety of fauna and flora because of the different altitudes and climates within the region. Temperatures are warm in the lowlands and cooler in higher altitudes. There are many endemic fauna because of the isolation caused by the rugged terrain of the area.

Within the Amazon rainforest there are several other types of forest but they all have one characteristic in common: abundant rains. Over the course of a year, a portion of tropical forest will receive between 1,500 and 3,000 mm of rain. This creates the typical tropical atmosphere of a rainforest, with an average temperature of around 24 °C or more.

If you’re backpacking through South America, there are probably a few adventures on your travel hit list: hiking to the top of Machu Picchu, roadtripping through Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flats and trekking through the Amazonian jungle. You’ll certainly earn your adventurer’s gold badge for each, but nothing (seriously NOTHING) will top a jungle tour through the world’s largest rainforest and the many surprises that lie within.

As you probably already know, the Amazon Rainforest is massive. So much so that you can book an Amazon trek in one of four (yes, you read that right – four!) countries: Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia. I chose Colombia because Amazon treks there are still relatively new. And being a “go hard, or go home” kind of girl, I equated that to it also being the most raw and rugged Amazon tour on the market. The fact I naively glossed over is that this would also make it the most challenging. So much so that I’d even be inclined to quit my first night in.

You, on the other hand, are reading this very post, which means you’re clearly a lot more sensible. You want a sense of what you’re actually signing yourself up to. So here is the full lowdown on my jungle trek through the Colombian Amazon – from the good to the bad to the ugly. Everything you need to know to book the Amazon adventure that’s right for you.

As I mentioned earlier, you can choose from a number countries for your Amazon jungle adventure. So the first step is to decide where you want to go most. I’d recommend building your trek into a more complete travel itinerary in one specific country you’ve been dying to visit. Why not start your trip in the middle of the rainforest but finish it relaxing on white sand beaches? Then, decide how long you think you’ll last in the jungle (two nights? one week?) and under what type of living conditions. Either way, you’ll be roughing it, but more developed tours somewhere like Brazil will offer slightly more luxe options. Once you’ve narrowed it down to which country you’d like to visit and how many days you’re prepared to trek, it’s time to find a reputable tour agency. Reputable is the key word here, because you’ll literally be going into the wild and you’ll want a guide you can really trust.

We arrived in Leticia (the Colombian hub for Amazonian treks) at the height of that steamy afternoon heat. The trip began by stripping our bags to the bare essentials: a change of clothes for when we inevitably got drenched, a few pairs of clean knickers / underwear, some basic toiletries and some handy jungle kit (i.e. a headlamp, a safety whistle and a sturdy rain jacket). We’d be carrying everything (including our hefty bottles of water) on our backs for the entire duration of the trip so we minimised as much as we could. Once packed, our expert tour guide Carlos, who literally grew up in the Amazon jungle, handed us a pair of wellies which would soon become our besties. After a refuel of rice and beans, it was straight into the bush for our first three-hour trek at sunset. But with so much foliage it gets dark really early in the rainforest. So before we knew it, we were relying on our trusty headlamps to prevent from sinking in anaconda-infested waters and making it to basecamp alive.

Legs shaking on arrival, Carlos helped us newbs set up camp, from collecting firewood for our evening meal to setting up our hammocks and overhead tarps to protect us from mosquito attacks (or any other jungle critters for that matter). This even included hanging our wellies off makeshift wooden poles to prevent spiders and snakes from crawling in overnight.  I warn you now – DEET or no DEET – you will be eaten alive in the Amazon. Always wear long sleeves (just power through the heat and humidity), apply mosquito repellent regularly and remember that your very itchy experience will soon make for killer dinner party conversation.

An Amazon River Cruise is an amazing adventure that can be done in many different ways and on just about any budget. In this article, we look at how we traveled on the Amazon on a backpacker’s budget and at some more options for exploring this mighty river. The Amazon River cuts across South America making its way through three different countries; Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. A massive variety of animal species live in the Amazon rainforest surrounding the river. Cruising on the Amazon you may have a chance to see tamarin monkeys, three-toed sloths, scarlet macaws, Amazon River dolphins, caimans, giant otters, and much more. Go on a cruise that will take you to explore the jungle and visit villages deep in the heart of the forest seen by a few others.

Amazon River Cruises

Explore the Amazon on a large luxury purpose-built riverboat with comfortable cabins, excellent cuisine and expert naturalists and well qualified staff. On many cruise you get to meet indigenous communities and learn about their way of life, kayak down Amazon Tributaries, go on day & Night Hikes through the the rainforest with expert naturalists and a chance to spot wildlife including sloths, otters, capybaras, and maybe even a jaguar fish for piranhas, see and maybe even interact with pink river dolphins, learn about the conservation efforts on the river. Expect to pay a premium price for a luxury cruise.

Amazon Brazil River Cruise

On our Amazon Cruises we explore the Amazon region around Manaus in Brazil. Cruises in Brazil are known for going much deeper into nature then cruises in surrounding countries such as Peru and Ecuador. Our cruises can be booked for three days and up. We also offer customized cruises of two weeks or longer.

Best Time for Brazil Rainforest Cruises

All year round it is possible to do our Amazon rainforest cruises. The rainy season runs from December to May each year. All year round it is possible to see different animals only in the rainy season it is just a little bit easier to spot them.

Hop aboard a riverboat and experience the Amazon in style. Led by Amazon Reserve naturalist guides, your cruise will include daily excursions by motorized skiff designed to reveal the exotic wildlife that calls the rainforest home — with any luck you’ll spot sloths, toucans, or pink dolphins! And, with plenty of time for exploration in Pacaya–Samiria National Reserve, you’ll have the chance to experience the jungle up close. The cuisine on board is regional and provides a unique and delicious window into local culture. Gain a rare glimpse of how life “on the river” is lived and experience the magic of the Amazon on this riverboat adventure.