The Amazin Amazonia

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We arrived In Letitia airport Thursday 12th July in the morning and we were shocked by the heat, as we were coming out of the plane. We were ushered into the arrival area and were welcomed with singing and keyboard playing y two Policemen. It was a really neat welcome. The security was very tight, with all baggage checked, drug dogs sniffing around and you could not leave the arrival area without paying the arrival tax and your baggage tickets checked by a policeman. It felt really good to be in such a secure and welcoming place.

Leticia is Colombia, Tabitinga is Brazil and Santa Rosa is Peru, all places you can go freely without boarder stamps. The locals call it the frontier, and it is really like a country of its own. There are not roads in or out, only by river or air.

We were met at the airport by Tony, a guide who encouraged us to stay at his hostel in Tabitinga (Brazil) and also managed to talk us out of some money and do a five day jungle/river trip. We were advised to buy long sleeve shirts and take Vit B to keep the mozzies off. This proved to be very valuable advice. We went to the shop in Leticia by motorcycle taxi (we had to take 2 of them). I haven't been on the back of a motorbike for years, because I do not like the feeling of being less than perpendicular, I managed to stay on and not put the driver off balance.

We started our jungle trip on Friday the 13th with a 6 hour boat trip up the Amazon River (and then up some tributaries) with Migoel, our guide and Lopez the boat driver and his father's boat. It was a long wooden boat with a very long out board motor that was swung around to steer it and it was possible to make the boat go backwards and easy to lift the motor out of the water when going over fishing nets. They bought a great big chunk of ice that kept our water and food fresh for the five days. The river is very wide and has lots of traffic, with big boats and long boats and fishermen everywhere.

We arrived at a lodge on the Yavari River, and had a rest in hammocks with a mosquito netting tent over the top. It was really pleasnat in the lodge with palm frond roof and a parrot walking over the rafters and having a good look at us. the lodge was on high poles, when the river is in the wet season the water goes under the house and boats can tie up to the steps It is now the dry season and our boat was quite away from the house and down a muddy bank with wooden steps. The family had a little covered hut on floating logs - where our boat was tied up and this is where they did the washing and had their baths. After our rest we went dolphin spotting and we was a few pink and grey freshwater dolphins. After tea we went caimen spotting and it is bit like spotlighting. the caiman's eyes show up as red an we managed to catch a couple of the baby blanca variety that are not as ugly as the black variety. They have no tongue, which is a bit odd and we were told that they have to bring their catch to land to eat,k or they will drown. Their skin is like very smooth tiles with lumpy bits on the tail and they look like a reptile.

When we arrived back at the lodge there was a 16th birthday partly going on and everyone had waited for us before cutting the cake. We were invited to join the festivities and felt very humbled knowing the effort and cost of getting the cake all the way to their home. The birthday girl blew out the candles and everyone sung a song and then the cake was cut and we had a piece and some red drink - a very strong alcoholic beverage. the whole village attended and participated in the singing and dancing. All the children were partnered with adults. Paul had to do the first dance with the birthday girl Diana and everyone laughed at his attempts at the Salsa. All the little children could really Salsa and were obviously bought up with the beat. The alcohol flowed freely, I felt tired and turned in but Paul carried on dancing most of the night, along with everyone else.

It wasn't a very early start the next morning. We had a late breakfast and went on another boat trip further inland for 4 hours. This was like an adventure the river getting very narrow and winding and full of small aquatic plants covering the whole waterway. It really felt like the deepest darkest jungle, fish jumping everywhere, birds and butterflies flittering about. We were skidding over log jams and passing people in little canoes fishing with nets or spears. About half an hour before we got to the village we passed a canoe with two older men and a women loaded up with supplies and yelling at us we managed to pass them. We landed at the village we were staying at. This was the most basic you could imagine. No power. No beds, Fire on the floor. No table, A chair. 4 young children. The family slept on the floor with mosquito netting. We went for a walk to visit the school and this was on a flat bit of land with a soccer field and surrounded by small houses. the school was open on all sides, just a floor and a roof, school desks were of 1940 (NZ) vintage in poor state of repair, blackboards were bucked from the rain but the whole setting looked very pretty. We walked back to the house and the lat we passed with 3 people arrived, the two men were drunk as, and we had a great time enjoying their company. One of them was the local shaman, and we were staying with him. He had white scarring over his body - later found out it was caused by black malaria. They were really taken by me, one of them wanted me to take him home as a pet. Paul also met the school teacher, who took a liking to his had that had the stag emblem on the front.

We had chicken and rice for tea and ate most of it between the four of us and then realised that the family was going to eat the little bit of chicken that was left. We saw the mother, young girl and some boys had their two front teeth missing - we were told it was a cultural thing.

We slept in the jungle that night, well away from the village, noisy with insects , wild fruits, including pineapples, bananas and other exotic fruits growing all around us. Our hammocks were hung between trees with mosquito net tent over the top. during the night it began to rain and the guide put plastic up over us to keep us dry and we were warn and cozy in the jungle, just sleeping in our damp clothes Everything was damp as the humidity was so high. When we broke camp in the morning I found all my stuff covered in termites, I may not have slept so comfortably knowing they were under me. There were lots of monkeys and parrots screaming at each other from early morning.

On the Sunday, we went on a jungle walk and another boat trip to a large lake. the tributaries getting narrower. Returning to the Shamans home we went piranha fishing and they are very quick to take the bait and we fed them alot of it. They were everywhere, hoards of the. We could see them breaking the surface of the water everywhere. We were reluctant to go swimming in this river. We ate them for tea, they were very tasty. Cooked over an open wood fire, on the floor, with no lighting, except parrafin lamps. We slept in the Shaman's house in our hammocks. We had a tube of lollies that we gave to the little boy, he took off the wrapper and licked the paper, then gave all his sisters a lolly then his mother and father and then he had one, then he gave the rest of the sweets to his father. So well behaved.

With the rain and river going down,there was mud everywhere. Everyone was so clean, all their clothes had no mud, they were so neat they looked like they had been through a dry cleaning.; It was unbelievable how clean everyone was, compared to us mud larks.

Paul went down to the school in the morning to see the children, all in their best clothes doing school work. He took some photos and gave the school teacher his hat, he couldn't believe his luck. Paul gave the children a run down on NZ with the teacher translating, not sure if he was translating what he was saying or not, but he got lots of claps and felt very humble by it all. Their life is so simple, but the women's life is very hard, most are old before their time.

We returned to the first village and made camp across and up river in the jungle. - we were told there were tigers over there. All the villagers wanted to know if we were frightened, no way. Again we got rained on in the middle of the night and this time not so comfortable, but no tigers got us.

During this trip we saw lots of monkeys, birds of all descriptions, different types of tropical fruits, huge snail shells, balsa an rubber trees and one huge tree with a massive trunk. Even way up here we could see where they had taken out logs. Lots of butterflies and flowers. Tuesday the 17th we broke camp and went dolphin spotting again. We say lots of pink dolphins and one swam under the boat. They seem to be in groups of 4-5 and are as big as our common dolphin, quite large. The grey dolphin is smaller and more of them. we made our way back to Tabitinga passing the towns if Islanida and Benjamin Constant of Brazil. We had spent 5 days going in and out of Brazil Peru and Colombia and not a passport stamp anywhere.

On our return it was good to have a shower and fresh clothes. While we were away we heard there was a bombing at the Letitia Army base by the rebels. We never noticed any difference in security.

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