Day 1: Iquitos - what a place! Wild, crazy, busy, hot and beautiful spot totally isolated from Peru and the rest of the worldby the fact that there are no roads to here from anywhere! Only the river or flights.
I got the weirdest flight ever to here on the military airline in Peru called Grupo Ocho (Group 8). I flew into the town from Lima in a Hercules like the ones that the army evacuates refugees in! With 2 long planks down either side and no seat belts just a strap to hang on to it was a pretty interesting, and really noisy ride.
Iquitos is really laid back though and despite its proximity to the Amazon jungle, it is not really very touristy at all.
I stayed at Hostal Alfert and my room had an awesome view of the Amazon River and Belen floating shanty town right outside my window. Tomorrow leaving for my journey into the Amazon basin.
Day 3: So far my jungle journey has been brilliant. Left Iquitos yesterday in the "speedboat" which took 4 hours into deep jungle to the camp. The camp is on the Yanayacu River which is a tributary of the Amazon. It has two sleeping areas with beds and mosquito nets, a screened kitchen/dining area and not much else. After getting to the camp yesterday, went for a swim - was a bit apprehensive about pirahnas but Andres (the guy from the camp) assured me that they only attack you if you are bleeding! Reassuring...
Then we went looking for the pink river dolphins and found some feeding just before a wicked storm came in and we had to seek shelter in this village where we were bombarded by kids with a million questions and having to play volleyball in the mud and pissing down rain with them.
Coming back up the river in the dark once the storm had passed was cool too, looking for cayman (like alligators) and crocs and owls and tarantulas - awesome!
These guys know the jungle so well - I can't get over how cheap this is value-wise. Not sure what the plan for today is but I'm sure it will be ace! These guys have been building the camp for 2.5 years and the 52 hectares of land costs him 75 soles/month as loan for 8 years - thats $25 per month!
Day 3: Great day again yesterday. Took it easy in the morning because it was raining so hard but then we went past the dolphins again onto the biggest part of the Amazon River (about 3km wide) and stopped at a village which sees VERY few tourists, which was cool. After tea that night, we went with Juan and his dad in a canoe through the jungle with torches which was excellent. The sounds and atmosphere was UNREAL! Juan caught a few little cayman which we held which was cool.
Saw heaps of birds, bats, owls and BIG tarantulas all from this canoe which was about 2 inches off the water and the Polish lad with us had to bail out occasionally! Just an excellent experience.
We were supposed to go on an all day hike this morning but it is raining pretty hard so its been postponed for a bit. I'm spewin that tomorrow is my last day here. The amount of monkeys and birds that come here to hang around looking for food is incredible - have taken some great photos which I will upload soon.
Just came back from 7 hours of hiking and canoeing through the jungle with Juan. Totally awesome day! Went pirahna fishing and Juan caught some pretty big ones - I caught a sadly very little one. Their fishing rods are sticks with fishing line off them with hooks made from monkey spikes (fur).
Amazon Jungle, Iquitos, Peru
