Our housing in the Amazon was on the primitive side. For instance, we had no electricity. We had pit toilets. The showers were on platforms with bamboo screening for privacy. When someone asked our guide about hot water, he said that we could have all the hot water we wanted, as long as we only wanted a cup of tea. At night, they lit small oil lamps for us to find our way to wherever we had to go. In our rooms, we only had short walls with no windows and no ceiling except a bamboo roof up high to shield us from the rain. The animals came in at their leisure. But it wasn’t so bad. When I got the Amazon Flu and I could not make it out of my room, there were no windows in my way to the great outdoors….well, you get the picture. The interesting thing about getting sick in the jungle is that it causes a feeding frenzy. But what the heck, it was the quickest eight pounds I ever lost.

This is Vicky standing in our lodge room. Nice, neat, clean and close to the jungle.

The jungle and the wildlife were just a couple of steps from our beds.

There was one platform in camp that was just for hammocks. We would spend time each day in a hammock mostly listening to the sounds of the Amazon jungle.

There was no getting too far from the wildlife, even in our rooms. You can see this parrot just waiting to grab a snack - or a camera case, or clothing, etc.

Our jungle lodge wasn't devoid of amenities. Our guides and the lodge crew would sing and play local songs for us each night and they were really quite good. We joined in sometimes.