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Published: April 18th 2008
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Monkey
Clearly thinking about eating my ear, from the look on his face They move about seeking food and warmth, we don´t eat them, and they don´t take batteries. You´ve probably guessed that I´m talking about Animals! Yes, they come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes, there´s more than a few of them in the Amazon jungle, and the other thing they have in common is that most of them have tried to bite me at some point over the last few days.
You see, bored with partial respiration at 4000 metres in the clouds, we decided to take a trip to the ´Pulmones del Mundo´ ('Lungs of the World') to quote the brochures. There´s lots of oxygen in the Amazon jungle, and despite what the locals try and tell you, it´s absolutely free! The downside is that it is also buzzing with disease ridden mosquitoes, each hungrier than the last, and all longing to suck you dry like a carton of Capri Sun Orange Coloured Juice on a hot day.
So for the last 5 days or so, aside from being an open buffet for our buzzing nemesi (nemisises? doesn´t sound right), we´ve been hanging out with our feathered, furred, and fishy friends on the 2nd longest river that
there is. We also managed to go for a swim in it, despite the threat of Pirahnas and Croco-gators...
All of this was because we signed up for a 4 day stay at a Jungle lodge near Iquitos in the Amazonian section of Peru. Despite being a Tourist Attraction, we were the only gringos there, the other tourists coming from other Peruvian regions. This is perhaps an indication of the fact that now, being over half way through our trip (and way over half way through the budget), we have moved on from our Boutique Hotel origins, and are now in the budget realms of No Expense Spent.
However despite spending all this time in a jungle shack with no power, cold and colder running water, and spiders as big as your friend with the big face´s face, we had a fab time. This is in no small part due to our simian friends, the monkeys of Monkey Island.
There are over 40 monkeys on Monkey Island, and a handful of different breeds (I´m sorry I´m too lazy to count or name them here!) Monkey Island is a sanctuary for monkeys (duh) of the Iquitos Region, who´ve
been mistreated, evicted, or recently released from monkey jail. They hang out, getting their affairs in order, before re-joining Simian Society. That´s the theory at least. In practice it´s more of a furry free for all, with monkeys stealing wallets, pulling tourists ears and generally creating havoc.
Frankly its some kind of heaven. When you´ve seen a juvenile Woolly Monkey play football with an orange, you´ve seen about all life has got to offer. Another highlight was having a red faced fella (named Ingles - or English - due to his resemblence to a sun burnt man from Blighty) swinging on my camera bag attempting to nick a camera bigger than his head.
We´ve been spoilt for cute critters. Rivalling the monkeys for top spot was Tom, the jungle lodge Ocelot. Ocelots are probably only about 50% bigger than a big domestic cat, but they look like small leopards, and they´re definitely wild. Tom was free to come and go as he pleased, but seemed to spend most of his time stalking our breakfasts (at one point swiping an omelette from the table as it was put down), and chewing on our ankles. We also got to see
Three toed sloth
Close up, these are slightly creepy fellas if you ask me Amazonian River Dolphins (but the grey and not the pink variety), who are apparently practically blind and a bit thick compared to their sea-going brethren.
Unfortunately the animal kingdom can throw up a beast for every beauty. On offer from Mother Nature: giant angry Anacondas and Boa Constrictors, deadly (and not so deadly) spiders so big you can see their nose hairs, cockroaches so large they emit a beep when reversing, and of course a million other bugs with blood on their minds. Sadly we didn´t see any alligators, but given we were in a rickety canoe at the time, and looking for the black caiman (a very aggressive breed), we weren´t overly sad!
From Island of the Monkeys, we moved on to Island of the Naked Folk. Thankfully these were not your average naturist German accountants playing ping pong, but a tribe of Indigenous Jungle Going Folk. They painted our faces, then went about teaching us the steps of their community dances... steps that make the Drilling Man look like a mastery of modern dance. Move forward a bit... move backwards a bit... scream! Was Bez secretly a Peruvian?
To complete our Tribal initiation we both
South American Coati and a puppy!
the puppy just wanted to sleep, but the coati wanted to wrestle... proved a bit of a dab hand with a blow gun, Natalie scoring 2 out of 3 direct hits on her target (the chief himself did no better), and me getting one right in the eye of my target. This was followed by a mildly aggressive sales technique, which has been a feature of Peruvian travel! A small child thrusts a variety of anaconda teeth necklaces in your hand and tries to relieve you of your worldly goods in exchange. Got no cash? Amex will do. The jungle is not what it used to be...
This trip was sandwiched either side by a stay in Iquitos, a town on the edge of the jungle, unremarkable for anything other than the fact it has more (incredibly noisy) mototaxis than people, and is stickier and more humid than anywhere we´ve been so far.
Via a brief sojourn to Miraflores, Lima, we´re now dragging our mozzy scarred asses up the coast to beaches and good time surf. Hey, it´s been a tough trip, and we need a mini break!
Cheers,
Si xxx
P.S. If you´re wondering, the old title of this blog ("¿Cuantos años puede vivir un vegetariano?") refered
Anaconda!
slightly terrifying. This one is only about 4m long...they can get up to 15m... to the dumbest question I´ve heard in a long time... from our Amazon guide. He was most perturbed by our carrot eating state, and wanted to know the effect of eating vegetables on one´s life expectancy.
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Claudia
non-member comment
Hola
Hi I read your blog and Iquitos sounds really exciting, although I'm Peruvian I've never been there. I am going with some friends in december and I am looking for lodges we can see some animals.. Could you please recommend me a lodge/accomidation in the jungle. Thanks. cparedes@liv.ac.uk