The Amazon - Part 1

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Yurimaguas to Iquitos

After a shorter than expected trip on the minibus (2.5 hrs) we arrived at Yurimaguas from Tarapoto, greeted by a number of motor taxi blokes plying for our business. The winner told us that there was a boat leaving for Iquitos tomorrow at mid-day so off we went. After a whirlwind 15 minutes we found ourselves booked on the Gilmer leaving the following day at 5.30pm, in a camarote (cabin) for S150 each. Spent the rest of the day watching some tough blokes heaving cargo on and off the boat. Sleeping was easier than expected despite the spiders, funny looking flies and our two cockroaches. Got a little cold in the night but apart from that all went well although Mrs P reckons her mattress could do with being a little bit thicker!

Next day we shot into town for almuerzo and supplies, rushed back as we didn´t want the boat to go without us. Little chance of that as rumour has it we´re now leaving "tomorrow". Sign on the front of the boat still says "manana"!! A quick change of port to pick up some more cargo, another quick nip into town for supplies and fingers crossed that we´d be off on Saturday. After a few beers (well it was Friday night) and tachacho we took a mototaxi back to the boat. Our taxi driver is adamant that the boat never leaves until Sunday as they load up on vegetables from the market on Saturday! Never mind we´re in no hurry as we´ve got 4 months before our flight to NYC.

Dawn on day 3 (Saturday) and we´re back at the other port for cargo, lots of fruit, the other boat (Eduardo) has taken on a million or so eggs and a herd of cows! The sign at the front of our boat now says it sailing today! It didn´t, it left Sunday, 3 days after we´d boarded! Saw some huge bats feasting on the thousands of insects that are drawn to the light at the front of the boat, HUGE bats. The boat was now pretty full and we had a bit of community spirt going on. We had a couple from Lima on one side of us and a few cute kids who Katherine had befriended (Angelo & Hilberto) and signed up to her Youth Club! Even got fed on the boat which was a blessing as Mrs P had eaten most of our supplies!!

Dawn on day 4 and at 10.15am we´re finally on our way. It´s beautiful, no other way to describe it. Little villages on the banks of the river, fishermen all over the place, millions of noisy birds and even some dolphins (our first glimpse of what was to be a daily occurrence). Absolutely stunning, loved every minute.

Played the kids at Ludo, peruvian rules! and lost. Stopped late in the night at Lagunas to take on additional peeps and cargo, it´s crazy that these places manage to exist so far from civilisation. Day 5 and more small villages, cargo and peeps both off and on, more dolphins (locals call them Bufeos so it took a while to work out exactly what they were). This is such a relaxing way to travel, cruising but not as you know it, Harry!

Late at night on the 5th day we arrived in Nauta and said our goodbyes to Hilberto and Angelo, was a sad moment, not only to say goodbye to them but also because we knew that this leg of the trip was coming to an end and we´d enjoyed it soo much. We sat on the top deck and watched the stars with Cesar (our neighbour from Lima) and saw a shooting star. Early in the morning we landed at Iquitos.

Iquitos

We booked into the same hotel as Cesar & Yilda, they suggested it, we think they wanted to look after us, it was like they´d taken responsibility for our encounter with the hyenas in Lima, they were sweet!

To be honest on 1st impressions Iquitos wasn´t what we´d hoped. It was a little busier and less ´tropical´ than expected.

We took ourselves over to the butterfly farm at Pilpintuwasi, over to Mrs P...

Pilpintuwasi is a butterfly farm and animal orphanage on the edge of a village called Padre Coche, which we reached by river on a small taxi boat. It was a scorching hot day and the friendly villagers were just chilling in their hammocks whilst the kids played "marbles" with plastic bottle tops on the dusty roads. Some of the kids shouted to us as we walked through "hello gringos".

The butterfly farm has more than 40 species of the most colourful (and least dangerous) and we learned about the problems with finding a host plant for each caterpillar, the life cycle of butterflies, problems with predators, etc. and got to see all of the species in their various stages of growth. The painstaking daily routine of ensuring all the eggs are removed for nurture and the dedication to these beautiful creatures is quite overwhelming when you consider that butterflies sadly only live for around 2 weeks. My favourite was the Transparent and Nick´s was the Owl butterfly.

The Amazon Animal Orphanage was designated by the Peruvian Government as a "Centre of Custody" for rescued wild animals in 2004 and the orphanage is home to many rescued and donated animals that are now under the custody of the centre. Some of the animals are rescued from local markets by the Eco-Police and can be in a pretty bad way when they arrive. Each animal has it´s own story, usually sad and traumatic but when you see the work being done to care for them, you feel instantly reassured that they are the lucky ones. I was lucky enough to meet and feed the Capybara and boy was she hungry. She destroyed the giant leaves in seconds. She was brought to the orphanage by a man who had killed her mother for meat and the family wanted to keep the baby as a pet, they soon got fed up´and couldn´t afford to keep her so thankfully they took her to the orphanage. We also saw an Ocelot, Jaguar, Manatee, Marmosets, Coatis and some very cheeky Capuchin monkeys. They were real characters and one was called Emily. Sadly, these particular monkeys have to stay in their compound as they are aggressive and have been taught to steal and pickpocket by street kids who had raised them. They can undo buttons and zips and easily steal anything out of a rucksack. There were 2 baby parakeets that had been rescued from the market and were being taught to open their mouths for food. The thing that struck us was the space that the animals have and their general well being, the environment is a replica of their natural environment and the animals look so well and contented. It´s the aim of the orphanage to release as many animals as they can back into the wild but unfortunately, this isn´t always possible as they have become to used to human contact and wouldn´t make it in the wild.

We ended our visit with a very special few minutes with some Canada Red Face monkeys. They were the sweetest most inquistitive little creatures and loved to jump on us and hold our hand, they loved having their bellies tickled and one cheeky lady decided to lift Nick´s t-shirt and have a rummage with his belt and flies...very funny. You can read more about the place at http://amazonanimalorphanage.org/News/

Go fishing!

We decided to go fishing for Piranha (as you do). This was Mrs P´s first ever fishing trip and we set off nice and early with our guide Julio and Captain Bob (we made that up cos we can´t remember his real name) on our fishing boat down the Rio Nanay. Our guide stopped a local fisherman and bought some small fish to use as bait and we were soon stopped at a good spot by the riverbank. We had a few bites and nibbles and our guide told us that these would be Piranha. Mrs P suddenly seemed to have caught something really big but unfortunately lost it...hook and all! After about 4 hours of changing spot, Big Nick caught a beautiful Red Piranha, he was chuffed to bits, even though it was a little on the small side - the guide decided to chop the poor bleeder to bits to use as bait in the afternoon!!

We stopped for picnic lunch - Tamal (chicken, rice and egg cooked in a Banana leaf), fresh fruit and cheese butties....mmm lovely!

The afternoon started off quietly and we hardly had any bites at all but then Mrs P suddenly caught 2 "tiddlers" * in quick succession - they were nowt to shout about, A couple of hours and several hooks later, we headed back to shore - the trip was a great success.

* Footnote by Mrs P - Tiddlers???? check out the piccies, I caught Jaws and Jaws the sequel!!!

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