Blogs from Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, South America - page 9

Hola. Just made it to Iquitos today. Had to fly on standby this morning because I didn´t book it far enough in advance to do it on the internet. It made for a hectic morning. I woke up at 6 after a late night at the hostel bar. The plane took off at 9:00 so I arrived 2 hours early at 7am... after a speedy and terrifying taxi ride to the aeropuerto. They told me to come up to the ticket desk at 8:30 to see if anything opens up. Thanks to a little good luck, they were able to find a seat for me on the plane. I just had to withdraw some cash (they dont take cards at the counter with Starperu) and pay at a different counter before coming back to check my ... read more

The Amazon - Planning Ahead and Looking Back - Part 2 Note: This is part two of a narrative of my 1982 Amazon trip (Amazon 1.0) -- a prologue to the blog I will post during Amazon 3.0, which will begin in mid-June (2008). Riverboat Life El Arca’s departure was rescheduled for Monday evening. The hammock deck soon became crowded. You meet people quickly when you are butt-to-butt in swinging hammocks. As the only foreigner on this trip I would have ample opportunity to improve my Spanish. I introduced myself to my new neighbor as she strung her hammock, apologizing for my mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. Beti was a nursing student at a college in Iquitos, heading home for a between-term break. Home was Requena, about a day upriver. She was attractive, flirtatious, and careful ... read more

Amy OK, i get to bring you a bit more up to date as well, as we have been somewhat behind!! As Ben said, we arrived in Iquitos and went directly to the very backpacker orientated, but very good, hobo hideout- which is an impossible name to say in Spanish- difficult in taxis! and celerated finally arriving with 1 or 2 or.. a few more beers, which turned into a late drunken night at a club where the bar tenders took turns dancing on podiums and the peruvians did lots of sequence dances which are some much more complicated than brit ones! lots of fun. the next day we went to belen market and bought vegetables which we hadnt eaten for 4 days, and looked at all the weird and wonderful stuff you can get there ... read more

Slackman: There are many internet cafes in every town and village I´ve been in, yes a lot easier than Thailand for finding access, also phone cafes in or adjacent to internet cafes. Speeds are quite good as long as there are not alot of people in the cafes. I´m not emailing just responding on this blog to peoples questions or comments. 2/29/08-went to Belen again, (for all readers that know of Belen skip this part, it´s the same old stuff every other blogger writes, this is for my friends and family) spent about an hour in canoe touring the "Venice of Peru", yeah right, this Venice has much floatsom and jettsom, in other words much trash consisting of plastic bottles, bags, various forms of rotting food, non-swimming animals, the dead type, and many unidentifiable articles. This ... read more

Day 9 - Lesmahagow to Peru For the past few days we have been pretty much been on a high. The opening of the centre at Ica; participation in extreme sports; wildlife spotting; singing and dancing at Kusi and meeting people and boys whose lives have been changed for the better. We have been witnessing the successes and the results of many years of hard work and dedication. And then we came to today. This morning we were taken to a place in Iquitos called Belen. Belen is Spanish for Bethlehem. But Belen is not a place with any hope, any joy, any spirit. Belen, quite simply, is a place which should not exist. At all. It is poverty, squlaor, deprivation and tragedy of the highest order. It is a place where vultures live and circle ... read more