Blogs from Amazon Rainforest, Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, South America

A life-long dream realized. I finally make it to the Amazon Rainforest and the mighty Amazon river. From the earlist days of watching Creature from the Black Lagoon where scientists were convinced that the earliest form of life appeared to reading in National Geographic magazine about this mysterious place that has gone largely unexplored for many years, I could experience it all from my base in Peru, by traveling to Iquitos by plane, just North of Lima. I love the idea of being able to enter the plane from the tarmack - is it called a tarmack? It's kind of a throwback to when traveling was an adventure, really classy, like the flight attendants of Peruvian Air. Wow. Anyway, it's only an hour and a half-long flight and seems to go quite quickly. I was met ... read more

I spent about a week in the Amazon jungle and it was a pretty amazing place. I had very nice accommodation considering it's the jungle. There were flush toilets, cold showers, meals prepared, and even laundry service! Though no electricity, no internet... which was good... but fortunately I still had my iPod! I couldn't have survived without listening to some of the music I love. In the clearings I saw countless butterflies and a variety of other creatures. In the jungle, it was a bit darker and, being non-native, I was kinda scared of just about everything around me. At one point there was a huge track of ants on the trail for about 100 meters. Others were bitten, but I was spared. Here are some pics of what I saw.... read more

After one final, and very heavy, night in Mancora, I was on a 9am chicken bus (bad seats, no air-con) outta there. Long story short, so as not to dwell on it (I just deleted this paragraph as it sounded to negative!) , this, the next 15hour night bus, and the taxi rides (more the taxi drivers - they are just bad people) made me somewhat irate - more than any other journey I had taken this tour! Anyway I arrived at Yurimagus, and more importantly, I arrived at the time I wanted to, which is to say, I arrived in time to catch the boat. I did not even know there was going to be a boat that day, nor what time it would leave, so Lady Luck was definatly on hand for that one! ... read more

My sisters have called me The King of Unfinished Projects (I have an embroidered pillow to prove it) so just to spite them I’m going to finish this travel blog. We made it home last Saturday morning, mostly none the worse for wear. My back still hurt from the motorcycle wreck so I went to the Doctor on Monday and found out I’d broken a rib. The Doctor thought I was nuts because I wanted to take a picture of the x-ray and was quite excited by the news. I told her it just made the story of the trip that much better. My last post had us leaving the jungle for Bagua and then back to Chiclayo. On Tuesday we started our milk run to Iquitos from Chiclayo, first to Lima where we changed planes ... read more

What does an 'indigenous' community mean? After visiting a few it seems to me like it is only a marketing label. I guess we are some two hundred years too late to meet a real indigenous people, add to that our contemporary conscious of cultural contamination we dare to visit communities that haven't seen a white man before. Therefore when I see an army of men and women ravaging on me with their arsenal of handicraft I feel disappointed and cheated - I don't think this is indigenous, even if they are half naked. For this reason I appreciate the trip I did with Daniel in the jungle near Pucallpa, a jungle city on the Ucayali river at the far eastern end of the Peruvian road system. The city enjoys small amounts of tourism both local ... read more