Blogs from Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, South America - page 3

Iquitos The view from the plane was spectacular during landing: an endless sea of green jungle with the wide, black Amazonas river snaking through the middle. Iquitos is the largest city unreachable by land, a hot and humid metropolis where you just can't get rid of that layer of sweat. The extent of poverty became apparent to us as we walked to Belén, the floating slums. Its currently the end of the dry season, so we got to walk around the dirt paths between the bare wooden houses on stilts. In the gigantic Belén market you can find absolutely everything, from chopped up turtle to giant slugs and snails and fish with what seems like crocodile skin as well as any type of fruit, vegetable or herb. The Amazon At 6.45am we were ready for the ... read more

Last I left off; I was in a boat to Iquitos. Having traveled the Ucayali up to its confluence with the Marañon, the river became the Amazon. This immense, brown stretch of water, witnessed from the middle of the river, was beyond impressive. Concepts of water scarcity and salinification in the world don´t necessarily compute here. I stood in awe of the river, amazed and how many waters from so many places meet and mingle here. And that it is flowing, constantly replenishing, rising and falling; it lives. As usual with long boat rides, the last day is something of a guessing game. Those who know the voyage well were at an advantage, but no one knew for sure when exactly we would arrive. Folks made bets as to the hour we touch shore, shared their ... read more

Given its proximity to the Amazon rain forest Iquitos seemed the perfect place from which to explore some of it, so we joined a three day tour headed for a lodge about 100km away. A huge slowboat took us 90 minutes down the amazon, our first of what would be many trips on the world's largest river. We then changed to a speedboat for 10 minutes to Indiana, a tiny village on the banks of the river. A 15 minute mototaxi took us across to the Napo River, a huge tributary of the amazon originating in Ecuador. The last leg was half an hour in a speedboat to our lodge, hidden in the Sukusary tributary, completely engulfed in rainforest. The lodge itself was impressive. It was not quite luxury, but they provided good food and even ... read more

Accompaning pictures are near the bottom of this page On the 19th of January I celebrated a landmark. I have been travelling for six months, I have been outside of my home country for six months, and I have been living in places where my mother-tongue is not spoken for six months. These and more are all firsts for me, and I have been in Peru for the majority of them. On the flip side of things, this means that my six-month Peruvian visa is nearly spent. As exiting and re-entering with a new tourist visa is fairly tranquil, I really just had to choose a border and visit for a day or two. My priorities were to not take an airplane, to be in an interesting ecosystem, to have a non-stressful journey, and (hopefully) ... read more

Arrivee tard dans la nuit a Iquitos on file se trouver un hotel, des le lendemain on file au commisariat et a l office du tourisme pour deposer les affaires de l americaine ( bon histoire un peu folle: a Pucallpa avant le depart du bateau on fait la rencontre de Rebecca, on parle une soiree ensemble sans plus, le lendemain le bateau part et en fin de journee on se pose quand meme la question ou est la 5eme gringa de la lancha??? pas vu! on pense tous au pire!! on rassemble ses affaires il y a son passeport son argent sa camera tout quoi!!! dans l idee de deposer ca a Iquitos en indiquant sa disparition) au commisariat on a deja rencontre des incompetents mais la ca depasse tout entendement, on explique l histoire ... read more