Iquitos 2/28/08 A day in the Life

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To Sophie, I was on the Eduardo VI boat I noticed approximately four cabins on this boat and as far as I could tell there were no bathrooms in the cabins except for one which was the capitans, wouldn´t you know. As to the other Eduardo boats I don´t know about bathrooms in cabins. In accuality the bathrooms I wrote about for the upper deck were very sanitary being cleaned numerous times a day. In speaking to other travelers that were on boats in Brazil they said the Brazilian Boats were nicer. I guess that´s relative to what one considers nice. As I wrote before, I´m an old man and all worked well for me.
To JJ: What do you mean, sharing my blogs to the other girls at work, all of these blogs were for your private viewing no one else in the world was suppose to read these as they were just for you, oh wait this is a public blog anyone else in the world can read these, never mind. I´m glad Megan is enjoying these. And, JJ, thanks for sharing with the folks where you work.
Now to items at hand in Iquitos. Was suppose to go to Puerto Miguel Village today, however, do to the inordinate amount of water this year am unable to access the village due to extreme high water the village is totally isolated. As an example last night a thunder storm moved in about 8:30pm and the 8 inch street gutters were over flowing in less than 5 minutes, and we think we get a bunch of rain in Oregon. It rained all night, should say poured, very loud on the metal roof, drowned out the sound on the TV, no pun intended. Tue or Wed (don´t remember as days are running togther) went to a village about 15km from Iquitos were absolutely Beautiful pottery is made as well as hand made dolls. It´s times like this that I wished I traveled with more than small backpack as the native art I´ve come across is just fantastic. So far I´ve bought 3 tshirts, big spender that I am. I paid 18 soles for 2 of them or about $5 US. They roll up real nice so to fit in the backpack. I forgot to mention that on the boat trip 2/20/08 there was a full lunar eclipse. Spent about two hours on the outside deck absolutely mezmerised. I don´t personally know anyone else that can say they watched a full lunar eclipse while traveling by boat down the Amazon River. Now that is one of the things that make traveling our world such a great experience.
Tomorrow going to a butterfly farm, where they, they being doctors or whatever they call butterfly studiers study butterflys, yeah I know, it sounds real exciting. Met a Dr. from Guyana the other day, names Hyatt he does post-mortums you know Doc´s that look at dead bodies. I thought I was a little off center, this guy was way over the edge, and the good thing was he would not let me spend my own money at dinner or for some drinks, my kind of guy. But Dr.´s in that line of work, he´s the 1st morgue doc I´ve met, have a a weird sense of humor, or at least he does. I won´t go in to detail as this is a family hour blog. Now when I see him around Iquitos I´m trying to duck into the nearest door.
Thoughts and observations: It remains hot and humid (gee Ralph your in the jungle) but when the rain comes it cools down then the humidity rises after the rain stops. I wrote that APEX was coming to Iquitos, I ment to say APEC they will be meeting this weekend I understand. In talking to some of the street vendors that I´m hanging with, they have been told to stay off the streets and not bother the delegates, how´s a guy or girl to make a living, I may have to find legitimate work now, no I don´t think so. I´m trying to make arrangements to go to a private island that´s named Monkey Island, can anyone guess why the name. Anyway it´s suppose to be a sactuary for a whole bunch of monkeys that another Dr. is fostering for the betterment (is that a word) of the numerous Amazon Species, so we shall see.
Well, it´s 3:12pm and time for somthing cold to drink, this is going to be a tough decision, a beer or Cuba Libre, they are both so nice in the jungle, wait both sound just fine, so one of each it shall be.
Until next time, please take care of yourselves,
Ralph

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Comments

[Slackman]

Civil
Sounds like an awsome experience watching the eclipse. Also, I am observing that access to a computer for email is alot easier in Peru than Thialand.