Blogs from Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, South America

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! ... read more

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 don't even know where to begin. My very good friend Adam sent me a quote today, and he couldn't have sent a more appropriate quote at this time: ¨Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear. - Gandhi¨ I feel like everything is going wrong. Don't get me wrong, I know things don't go as planned on a trip, and they absolutely should not. And I have had some great times - partying with Ivette and her friends in Bogota, hanging out in Leticia... but I feel that I'm having a bad time with good moments. It shouldn't be like that. I should be having a good time with bad moments! I had one of many breakdowns last night. I've been feeling more ... read more

It's not all bad here. My hostal is the most lovely place. It's only 7 blocks or so from the centre, and it's name is Chuya Chuya. For anyone who may read this and be travelling to Iquitos, I simply insist you go here. It's between Napo and Pevas, Calle Teniente Pinglo #160. The owners are a lovely couple. Joel, from Switzerland, and Valeria, the very pregnant peruvian. In fact they thought the baby might come today! It's just a little hostal, and at the moment the only others there are Andi, from Germany, and her boyfriend Olly, from England. We're quite the group of different languages! This evening I got back to the hostal and chatted with Joel a while - as usual in our strange mixture of Spanish and French. Then I gave him ... read more

Hola Todos! I have spent the last week in the Amazon rain forest. It was great! Although originally I had planned to go with my friend César, he couldn’t go at the last minute… But there’s nothing wrong with traveling alone. From what I have experienced, lots of people chose to travel that way (but not necessarily to the jungle, haha). The city I went to was called Iquitos. It is in one of the northern-most provinces of Peru and is adjacent to the Brazilian Amazon rain forest. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that had no land route; or in other words, you need to take a plane or boat to get there. Although the boat rides are dirt cheap, I chose to go by plane. The flight was only about an hour ... read more

After our amazingexperience of the Inca Trail we continued our trip to our last destination on Peru... Usually you say last but not least but in this case I´m afraid it was so. We arrived at the airpost and as soon as the door opened a guy called our names, he helped with our bags and then he escorted us out to our guide Luis. Luis had a friend with him, Marden and he said that he would join us on our expeditions in the Peruvian jungle.And why not, the more the merier... We went to our hotel for the night and in the morning this friend of our guide came to take us to Belen floating Market. The place smelled very bad. We had to breathe through our mouth but the smell was normal bearing ... read more

So after a 12 hour up river speedboat journey where the boat was packed and I had an isle seat with chance of pics... I arrived in Iquitos to a SWARM of taxi drivers who would not leave me alone lol, all I wanted was a Cig and stand for 5 minutes! Nevertheless I picked one guy who would not let me out of his sight and we hopped in his motored rickshaw and headed to an ATM then to the hostel ( The Flying Dog ). It is very cheap to take taxi's here and the town looked like it died maybe 150 years ago it was a boom town, but now it is pretty dead. I got to the hostel and immediately felt good vibes, the manager Marcel is a cool guy who will ... read more