Blogs from Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, South America - page 4

Well...we finally hit a snag in our plans. Friday: Flight from Bogota to Leticia (both in Colombia). Leticia is in the very south-east corner of Colombia at the tri-border of Colombia/Brazil/Peru. We crossed into Tabatinga, Brazil (no formal border entry just quite yet) with the intention of heading down the Amazon river on Saturday for 3 days to reach a town called Manaus. Our first surprise: the office that issues Brazilian Visas (in Leticia) closes at 2pm. We didn't get into town until about 4pm so immediately we knew we could not make the Saturday boat because the office isn't open on weekends. These boats only leave on Saturday and Wednesday so this set us back immediately at least 4 days. Our second surprise: about 30mins later we find out the office in Leticia NO LONGER ... read more

Iquitos, the Peruvian jungle capital, is a strange old place. The city is an island in the middle of the jungle; only reachable by boat or plane (in fact it’s the largest city in the world not connected to a national road network). As there is but one road heading out of the city (and that only goes 100km to Nauta), not many people have cars, so Iquitos is Mototaxi City, with an alleged 20,000 of these mototaxis serving the 400,000 residents. I spent 8 days in the area in total, and the heat during the day was decidedly too much. One day we had exceptional heat, which apparently reached nearly 40 degrees. When the storms come, it absolutely buckets it down, but this makes a refreshing change, as long as you’re indoors. Interestingly, as we’re ... read more

Nach dem Inca trail haben wir uns noch 2 Tage in Cusco ausgeruht und sind dann fuer einen kurzen Abstecher nach Lima gefahren... man muss ja mal in der Hauptstadt gewesen sein. Die ist allerdings nicht so berauschend und wir haben dort auch nichts wirklich unternommen.Sind zur Kueste spaziert, haben ein paar Surfern zugeschaut wie sie im dreckigen Wasser surften und sind abends ins Kino gegangen. Am naechsten Tag ging unser Flieger nach Iquitos... an den Amazonas. Als wir aus dem Flugzeug ausstiegen wurden wir prompt von einer Welle schwueler Luft empfangen und einem Tuktuk... viel Autos gibt es dort nicht, da Iquitos auch nur ueber die Luft oder das Wasser zu erreichen ist Hier in Peru beginnt der Amazonas und wir wollten es uns nicht nehmen lassen ihn wenigstens mal kurz zu sehen. Unser Tuktuk ... read more

Salutations! I spent this past weekend (Friday-Sunday) in the Amazon, and I must say, it was a unique experience. I use the word "unique" loosely because it was both good and bad. It was unique in a good sense because I was able to see some amazing animals in their natural habitats like monkeys, bugs, spiders, birds, sloths, snakes, lizards, etc. It was bad in the sense that there were an abundance of large, disgusting bugs that enjoyed making you uncomfortable. It rained quite a bit the first day as well. Overall, it was most certainly worthwhile. I started out flying into the northern jungle city of Iquitos. You see, in Peru there is northern, central, and southern jungles. In my prior travels to Peru I visited the central jungle in Chanchamayo (*see old entries*). This ... read more

It’s early Sunday morning in the rainforest. It’s about 6:50 in the morning as I write and it looks like a beautiful day ahead. The last two have been pretty overcast and a little wet, but that has also kept us cloaked in unseasonably cool temperatures. Sleeping has been easy the last 2 nights. I’m curious to see what today will bring, though I can take a little discomfort for another day and a half. I’m awfully curious to see how the video will come out. It’s frustrating not to be able to do some editing or even look at it on a bigger monitor, but I’ll be able to hook up to the TV in my hotel room once I return to Iquitos tomorrow. Soon we’ll be served breakfast - the menu say scrambled eggs ... read more