Heading Down River

---

from Yurimaguas, on the Rio Marañon :

Sorry there´s no photo this time, I forgot to bring along my connection cable.

Lets begin with a description of today: A FANTASTIC sunrise as we rounded the very sharp foothills of the Andes, 1000 m knife edge karst formations at the very edge of the Amazon Basin.

The Locals had all told me about the fantastic sunrises and sunsets, but I hadn´t quite believed them. The further 'out here' I get, the less reliable the information becomes.

Yesterday in Tarapoto, I watched bands of young people beginning Carnaval a little early with ambushes of Water bomb balloons. Some people passing really got wet, but I timed it perfect and ran like a leopard and escaped all the bombs. Most people were trying to hurl them with such force that the baloons were exploding in their own hands. After watching them for a while, I witnessed a 'tank'- a motorcycle taxi equiped with charioteer-style bomb throwers, the tank plowed into the intersection of doom and for a few seconds it was a waterstorm going back and forth.....good fun!

Now I´m in the last internet place I´ll see for another five or six days: almost as an omen, the wall of this place has a 13 foot anaconda skin and two puma skins on the wall. I guess those kind of artefacts are cheap and easy around here.

Well, gotta go, pics all around next time, and if I figger it out, a map of where I´ve been.

---