Blogs from Tarapoto, San Martín, Peru, South America

Part 1 Boats galore over the past few days!! We headed to the cargo boats after our last blog Íquitos´. We all realised hammocks aren´t so uncomfortable after all, minus the occasional collisions in the night. Some people liked to make the most of the space available and spread out. Laura sat in her hammock thinking she´s a pea due to the lovely vibrant green colour of the hammocks. It took a while for us to set sail due to the thunder and lightning. For most of our two/three days on the cargo we played card games, not all of us quite understood the rules of all the games though. The toilets on board were...interesting, and the beetles and other insects weren´t quite so welcome either. It was really nice for us all to interact with ... read more

We headed to the jungle on small trucks, one of the trucks managed to have a flat tyre so we had to pull over to the side of a mud road and change our tyre. We got our life jackets on and travelled to our reserve, the boat journey was a good 5/6 hours with a spot of lunch cooked by our guides. We saw monkeys, snakes, piranhas, birds, sloths and other lovely creatures. In the evenings we went alligator hunting and were all successful and we also went fishing some catching Pirahnas, some poisonous fish, some managing to hook electric eels, some getting absolutely nothing, not to mention any names...Adam. The food was lovely crackers were demolished and egg and rice or fish and rice was also on the menu. The two nights sleep in ... read more

Tarapoto was a good “base point” for some great hikes to various waterfalls. We recommend you to get information at the tourism agency of the municipality, which is in Plaza de Armas. This is a public information point and therefore allows you to plan your own trips without having to go on more expensive tours organised by private agencies. In fact, this office puts you directly in contact with those guides who live in the villages close to the waterfalls. The hike to the Tamushal waterfall allowed us to visit a project which is reintroducing local species into the area and which takes place 10 minutes away from the waterfall. The hike to the waterfall was 1 hour and a half at a good speed, but it can take up to 3 hours if you walk ... read more

After 4 nights in the Barranco district of Lima, I ventured out with a local to the amazon region of Tarapoto. It was a nice view of the county side along the 29 hour bus ride. Went north up the coast then cut inland over the Andes for the remaining 10 hours. As the bus travelled along the thin ambilical cord connecting the amazon cities, towns, villages with modern civilazation the landscape slowly changed from dry desert to lush humid jungle with peaks and valleys. Arriving in Tarapoto 9pm got a 12 dollar hotel and was anxious to get horizantal after the bus. Tarapoto is a city of about 100,000, fairly compact, with a nice central plaza. Markets and moto/cars fill the streets. moto car are similiar to the tuktuk in thailand. Tarapoto is surrounded ... read more

I know I haven’t blogged since Christmas (Sorry!!). A lot has happened since I’ve been back...I won’t bore you with all the details, but in nutshell I’ve been completing the last stage of my project, writing my master’s ‘thesis’, traveling a little, and trying to enjoy the time I have left. It’s really strange to me that my time here is coming to an end…although I’m extremely excited to go back home, Peru has sort of become a part of me, and it will be hard to leave knowing I may not be coming back (although I do hope to stay involved with the work here). It’s also exciting knowing that I’m graduating a month from now…my master’s essay has been approved and I’m officially done! Now I can stop paying Hopkins the big bucks, and ... read more

Coming from the delightfully friendly town of Chachapoyas, we were high on the concept that small town Peru was fundamentally different to the surly indifference we have often received in Peru. So we embarked on a bus journey to Tarapoto - our gateway into the Amazonian rainforest/jungle areas. Granted the bus journey was over four hours longer than expected due to the search and seizure of a suspect bag of fireworks on our bus. After the two action DVDs had expired, the spare time was voluminously filled with poor quality footage of a music concert - every band a similar format, with 4 guys singing and dancing on the stage. No surprises, but the music was all very much the same, only occasionally punctuated by the girating form of a barely clad female doing her best ... read more

Hola... Well good news, I was finally able to claw my way out of the Amazon Basin, 2 hours up into the foothills of Peru´s Northern Highlands in the city of Taropoto. I definitely got my fill of the jungle... whether it was swimming in a tributary of the amazon with pink dolphins, playing soccer with native children in an isolated village of 200, salsa dancing with a prostitute in a bar during a torrential downpour, waking up to find a disturbingly large spider laying dead on my mosquito net, or seeing mosquitos bite through 98% deet repellent. Alas, luxury (it´s relative) will ensue. Oh, how I have missed regular showers, fresh meals besides rice with river rish, and efficient transportation. The main form of transportation in the Amazon is boats, which are painfully slow (days ... read more

To David Skinner, the road from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas really is not bad, yes there were land slides, mud, rain, all that good stuff that makes the old saying "its the journey not the destination" true to the core. I can only highly recommend it, some say its for the adventurist, but when you see old men like me in a taxi going through the mud, etc. anyone can do it. Now to qualify this, I must say that I am traveling with my friend from Iquitos, he met me in Lima 2.14.08 and we are putting the last few pieces together for forming a tour company, the name is Curuhuinsi Eco Adventure Tours & Expeditions located in Iquitos, you can contact Gerson Pizango, my partner, at (51) (065) 9940011, email: alexander.pizango@gmail.com. Yes, this is a ... read more

Had the decision made for us to go to Yurimaguas today, Sunday, as on Monday the road from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas will closed for 18 hours mas o manos due to construction, rock slides and all that other good stuff traveling is made of. I had read many accounts of travel on this road, however, they do not live up to those stories, minimum of 10 times worse in some peoples opinion. But what a trip into the mountains, over the mountains, down the mountains. Once in Iquitos maybe I can find a better internet cafe to upload photos. Shaun, the road from Mae Hong Song to Chiang Mae is like traveling on the highway along Turnagain Arm. You would have enjoyed some of the construction activity, or not. Not up to your engineering standards in ... read more