Blogs from Leticia, Colombia, South America

The next day we moved to a more centrally located hotel built in the 16th century, for the simple reason that Quito is a difficult place to arrange trips and our original hotel was useless. Early the next morning we headed north crossing the equator and traversing a forest area rich with the endangered Spectacled bears. Mindo apparently has grown hugely in recent years but is still a reasonably small village with some great natural attractions including a couple of butterfly houses and wonderful birding, I was particularly excited about the hummingbirds which were incredinle. I had never seen one before and it was a real challenge to photograph them, one location we visited was crawling with birds but they told me that in May the area is truly spectacular for Toucans and many other species. ... read more

La sensation de rentrer dans un monde qui ne t'appartient plus, c'est celle qui nous a traversée lors de cette première expérience dans la forêt Amazonienne. Accueillis dans la maison de German pendant une semaine, nous avons pu cumuler les expériences dans la "Selva", la traverser, y dormir, s'y perdre ou encore se nourrir de ses fruits. Nous avons pu vivre, le noël le plus atypique de notre vie dans cette communauté évangelique. The sensation of entering in a world which don't belong to you anymore, that's what we passed through in this first experience in the Amazonian forest. Welcomed in the house of Herman for a week, we had to cumulate the experiences in the "Selva", walk into it, sleep into it, get lost into it and get feeded by it. We could spend the ... read more

Solo poche doverose parole per ricordare Iquitos, capitale dell´Amazzonia peruviana, considerata la piu´ grande citta´ al mondo (isole escluse) non raggiungibile via terra; essa conserva ancora le vestigia di un periodo non troppo lontano quando, verso la fine dell´ottocento, le ricchezze accumulate grazie al commercio del caucciu´ ed al barbaro sfruttamento delle popolazioni indigene la trasformarono in una grande metropoli in grado di rivaleggiare con quelle europee e nordamericane: nella sua piazza e´ ancora in piedi una casa di ferro progettata in Francia dal celebre Eiffel e spedita fino a qui direttamente via nave. La giungla e´ pero´ tornata rapidamente protagonista della scena, ed oggi la citta´ e´meta di turisti da tutto il mondo in qualita´ di porta della foresta amazzonica; nel frattempo un nuovo modello di turismo si sta diffondendo, e questa volta pero´ promette ... read more

three days in puerto narino y perù... read more

We arrived to the place of 3 frontiers before lunch time and were dropped at the bank of the Amazon on the Peruvian side, we think. It was hard to tell because there was a lot going on around us and to get anywhere we had to take a water taxi anyway. We negotiated a price with a boatmen and he took us first to the immigration office so that we could be stamped out of Peru. As it happens water is too low for the barca to go there so you have to really deal with the extra cost. It was not much anyway and the guy waited for us to take us to Leticia, port of entry to Colombia…ah, finally. People say it is not pretty but we found it rather nice. The streets ... read more