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Published: November 21st 2012
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Wow! I almost dont know where to begin with this blog! I have done and seen so much scince I last wrote. I am right now sitting in Mancora a costal town on the very north coast of mancora enjoying a guilty beer and relaxing. But let me start from the start....
From Lima I had a very comfortable flight to Pucallpa. When I arrived I easily found an overpriced hostel, but late at night in a city I didnt know I decided to treat myself to some air conditioning. It was 7.30pm and I was sweating, the jungle heat was strong here! I had a restful night sleep and in the morning enjoyed a free omellete for breakest. I had checkout time of 1pm and wanted to get up early to try and organise my boat to iquitos. So I left the hostel at 730am, armed with a small amount of info from my lonely planet. I knew I had to find a guy in a market who had a small communications shop. So I found the right market, fought my way through animal carcasses, fruit stands and moutains of vegetables asking after this guy. Eventually someone pointed me
in the right direction. I asked if there were any boats leaving for Iquitos in the near future. WellI cant say enough for his kidness, he took me to the port, introduced me to the captain. The boat was leaving that afternoon! Perfect, so off I went to buy a hammock, some water and collect my bag. By 12pm I had managed to collect everthing I need and return to the boat. Originally I was conviced I would be the only gringa on the boat, but as i embarked I saw another gringa, best thing was I recognised her! So as we made our way down the long bow of the boat stacked with trucks, supplies, smaller boats and pigs we began to talk. We climed the ladder like stairs to the mid deck where the hammocks were to hang. As we practiced our knots we discovered that we had me one night in Arequipa. Her name was Amy, she spoke fluent spanish and really made the next four days so enjoyable. Now to try and describe the four days that came after. The days were pretty similar. Sleeping in a hammock was alot easier than I excpected, lie diagonal
in it and you are almost lying flat. The nights were cool and often with small touched of rain to cool the jungle air. The first night at aboyt 10pm we stopped on the side of the river with two other barcos (carrier boats) from the company. In the morning I found out it was because that part of the river had experienced a pirate attack a couple of days before! The other nights were fairly calm, with the exception of one woman who had her stuff stolen in the night. The boat stops at many small amazonian towns throughout the day and night, so someone embarked and took her things and left in the night. The days I filled with talking with the locals on the boat, traching and playing cards with them and Amy. Writing and watching the amazon pass me by. I saw birds, dolphins pueblos, and so much jungle. Beautiful sunsets every day! We ate the food on the boat, which was neither delicious or nutrious but quite passable. The days were incredible hot and sometimes the nly way to escape was to sleep swinging in the small amount of amazonian breeze. Eveytime we stopped in
the pueblos(small towns) seƱoras selling food came aboard, didn't matter if it was midday or midnight the came on board yelling hay gassioas, ha juane, hay choclo, hay agauje! I tried everything without meat, but have to say I did not appreciate the offers at three in the morning!After four days with pretty much the same people, we felt like a big boat family. So when came time to say goobye it was a little sad, however we had some dates arranged to meet the locals again.
So off Amy and I went to find a hostel, after a little searching we found a cheap place with a nice enough bedrooms. I was meant to be couch surfing but could not contact my host! So I sent her an email of where I was hoping she would find me. Iquitos was HOT HOT HOT! I couldnt believe how hot! WE checked in and went to explore. I knew there wouldnt be much for me to do as I didn't plan on going to the jungle on a tour here but I wanted to hang out for a while. We found some food and walked around, we had a date
to go salsa dancing so decided to go back to get ready. We had a great night out but were stood up by our dates 😞 so we danced the night away in revenge.
THe following days were filled with icecream, someshopping, and we did manage to meet the locals for beer and laughs. Onenight we fond a pool bar, and although we were the only girls, the only gringos, we thought lets do it! So we proceeded to play a shocking game of pool and another. The next day we decided to take on the belen markets. Usually the markets are floating at this time of year as the water rises in the monsoon, but the monson is late so it is a hard to navigate cluster of stalls that you can get lost in for days. Many people told us it as a dangerous place, but armed with our wits we went in. The lonely planet describes that if anythiung ever moved it is sold here. It is a very apt description. We started in the clothes, then it changed to fruit and vegtetables, then all kinds of meats, fish and unrecognisable animals. The people her sell
every part of the animal, sitting on stalls in the stinking heat of the jungle as the smell of frying meat in spice wafts through it all. In amongst all this was the sad reality that you can buy sloths, monkeys, turtles, parrots, crocodiles and who knows what we didn't see. I was left with a very bittersweet feeling, glad to have experienced it, but sad that it exisits. On the second day of the my time in iquitos I was found by my couchsurfing host and was happy to be hosted by a young peruvian couple who even cooked me delicious meal one night.
Soon it was time to board another boat. This time to a small jungle town called Yurimaguas. I knew the boat was leaving wednesday at 6pm. SO on I hopped and soon I was swinging my was down a new river, this time in th company of a couple from spain I had met in Iquitos. We flaoted along pretty much experiencing the same beautiful experience as before. However on the second night two gringos boarded. As I had a lack of people to play cards with I decided to aks them. As we
played we discovered that we had the same travel plans. So now I had new travel companions. When we arrived in Yurimaguas we had to get to Tarrapotom the most economic option being the back of the ute. SO we took it on, 4 hours in the back of a ute. Fun at first then as more people joined it became a little uncomfortable, the point when two pigs were hoping in the driver was kind enough to offer us the cabin seats for the same price. So the last hours were spent squished in with a local family. We didnt arrive in time for the last bus, so had to find cheap sleep. To cut the next bit short we slept a night in tarapoto then traveled for 21 hours to Mancoura where the real fun has started!
Here I have had only two days. Yesterday was pretty good, we explored, sunbaked and swan. met some artesians who i promised to visit today. I spent 4 hours durfing today. managed to stand a coupl of time, still not that good but love it. I met the artesians and now I am learning how to make their jewelry! I
am still having an amazing time, I havent listed here half of the amazing things I have done but if when we talk I will!
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Chloe
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Pool Bar
When you were writing about the pool bar and there were only guys there I was expecting like a swimming pool full of seedy men with drinks and you guys in bikinis lol. Glad it was the other kind of pool. The meat looks amazing... and I just wanna rescue the monkey. I'm glad you found some people to talk to, it would've been a pretty lonely trip otherwise. Sounds like a lot of fun!