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Published: June 20th 2007
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Plane at Arequipa
The beautiful volcano in the background of my plane to Lima Untitled June 20-21
JC - Thanks for the sweet comment 😊 and i hope your meeting went well today!
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Yesterday may have been the worst day of my trip so far. My flight to Iquitos was at noon Wed, so i had planned to finally get a full night{s sleep, have a leisurely breakfast, visit the book exchange, final stroll through arequipa, and then leave for the airport at 10am. ARound 8pm tuesday night, i find out there is a national strike. this means no buses, taxis, stores close, etc. remember the bolivian blockades i mentioned previously? that{s what happens. so, what{s a gringa to do who needs to get to the airport? I solicited the help of my hostel owner who knows me by now since i{ve been back and forth there 3 times! he says i can either walk which sounded really far and dangerous (going through mobs of peruvians on strike?) plus it{s on weird roads, etc., highway type things. OR wake up really early and catch a taxi pre-strike. noone really knows when the strike will start, so i hoped in a car with another girl from my hostel who was leaving at 4am.
Airport Parking Lot
Lots of activity with all the cars and people. This should give you an idea of my 10 hours here. insane, really. did i mention my flight was at noon? so much for a good night{s sleep but we made it safely and ppl who left at six that i met at the airport couldn{t get through the blockade and some police were there who actually drove them to the airport, luckily! So here i am at this tiny airport, so small that at times 3 hours went by without a single plane there! i sat in a coffee shop for a long time and saw about 20 police in riot gear head out. interesting. and i was also able to go outside, so i laid in the sun and read a book. i{m not sure if it was more annoying to spend all that time at the airport or to be missing the action of the strike! it{s like when we used to go check out the World bank riots in DC - fun action but generally harmless!
So, my flight on top of it all was 2 hours late. even better. once we landed in lima, i RAN, and missed my flight. unfortunately, there are only 2 flights to iquitos per day. this is both because it´s
5 star Sheraton
A slight change from my $5-night hostels, including breakfast. small but also because someone decided to build the dump too close to the iquitos airport. So there is a vulture problem. once the vultures come out they get stuck in the aircraft, in fact at the airport you can see these rusted out planes... so the airport is closed from 9-6pm. i was SO upset when i missed my plane, it had been a long day plus i thought there was the strike in lima (turned out not to be national!) so i had no idea how i would get to a hostel or anything. the airport floor was looking highly likely. I went and talked to the airline woman, and she turned out to be an angel! They booked me on the morning flight (545am, ouch) and put me up at the sheraton, paid for my transport to-from the hotel, and gave me lunch dinner and breakfast (even though it was 4pm). So, a night in a 5 star hotel with meals, things turned out okay except for again not getting any sleep. i really wasn´t getting into iquitos that much later than i would have, since my flight landed at 730am here. it was SO strange staying
at the sheraton, i´m not used to that kind of thing! i felt like a king! (unfortunately i didn´t have my checked luggage though)
after ANOTHER early morning...315am wake up, grrrr....the flight went smooth, and i am NOW in the steamy jungle region...i feel like it´s a different country. i´m so happy to be here. i checked into a very cute hostel with a pet monkey that i immediately fell in LOVE with! it´s a tiny thing about 12 inches tall, i will have to take a picture. I decided that i woudl be adventurous today, so i wandered down to this market that is right on the border of this shanytown. it was amazing, and i saw crazy things for sale - alligators, turtles, these nasty looking huge worm things...i don´t know if they were for eating or what. the market was huge and i just got lost in it for a couple of hours...so much activity going on! i also wandered through the shantytown, which i loved because it felt so authentic...although arguably a bit dangerous. I took off my cheap watch even and put it in my bag, which i was guarding tightly. this is where
Life on the Amazon
Stilts are for the summer - rainy season...the river is low now. the bus incident took place (see pic). the houses are built right up to the water, on stilts for the high season, and people ride around in their canoes and sell things out of them...how quaint! Iquitos town itself however, is nothing worth writing about...except the steamy weather. yay! if i can get myself sorted this afternoon, i am hoping to head out for a jungle lodge tomorrow...these lodges are buried in the rainforest, just off the river. If that works out okay, I will expect to spend 3 nights-4 days there, so you´ll hear from me next on Monday. Happy weekend everyone!
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Justin
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The Sheraton - that's like going 0 to 60 the way you've been traveling. Glad things worked out.