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Published: August 20th 2015
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Iquitos paintings
This particular painting was completed by a local artist, high on Ayahuasca, who expresses himself through paintings The next country for us to explore was Peru, and first home base was Iquitos. Iquitos is home to over 500,000 people, is well known as the tourist gateway to the Peruvian Amazon, and due to the river systems surrounding it, it is one of the few major cities that doesn't have road access, only being accessible by boat or air. Due to this difficulty, there are very few cars in Iquitos, but many thousands of Motocars, and these are the form of taxi’s so more commonly known as moto-taxis. If you don't know what at a Moto-Taxi is, it is a single wheel and motorbike motor at the front (with accompanying handlebars for steering), and a covered, double bench seat at the back. It's the mullet of motor vehicles. (get it, business at the front, party at the back? Pete thought it was funny). Fortunately, we weren't picked up directly from the airport in one of these, and we were able to get our bearings, and understanding of them, from a traditional 4 wheeled vehicle before having to travel in one for ourselves on the Sunday.
The other very interesting fact about Iquitos is that it is
the gateway for the Ayahuasca (or in simple people's terms, Spiritual Enlightenment), through a series of Amazonian retreats just outside Iquitos with local Indigenous Shamans. From what we can gather, based on the conversations we had, overhead and the people we saw, it is a continual hippy fest. For those from Australia, think Nimbin, out in the middle of the Amazon, run by the Indigenous local leaders, where people can spend 7, 9, 12 or even 28 days 'finding themselves' with a natural plant known as Banisteriopsis Caapi (which is similar to the drug DMT), meditation and yoga. A quick research of the drug showed it is pretty strong stuff, and the reports we were hearing from people only backed that report up, but while people waited to go to their retreat, there was much pot smoking going on (or someone was continually burning it in a city wide incense burner as it was rather strong where we walked), so there was much happiness and friendliness towards us while we were in town.
As usual, our meals have been an important part of our travel and discoveries, and finding something new and different to eat, while still
remaining well, is part of the experience. Iquitos didn't disappoint, with a wonderful little cafe on the bank of the Itaya river (which is a tributary of the Amazon) called the Dawn on the Amazon, providing us with an amazing chicken soup, a beef dish known as Lomo Saltado and Renee opted for a simple chicken stirfry with a pisco (the local alcoholic spirit) sauce. Lunch the next day, in the Karma Cafe (I bet you can guess what the topic of conversation was in this place), proved again that hamburgers with bacon are always a winning combination, and the meat patties here were awesome.
Having only 1 full day in Iquitos, we hired a guide and a Moto-Taxi and did as much as we could. Firstly, the Belen Markets. Being surrounded by rivers, obviously fish would be a popular selling item, and without refrigeration, everything was very fresh, with some fish still breathing while on the table! We checked out fresh herbs and local medicines, stuffed and decapitated animals being sold as ornaments, along with the array of turtles, fish and caymen you could buy to eat, before we moved on, deciding we probably didn't have
the resources (and stomach) to purchase anything from here. It was a little confronting, especially the part where turtles had been ripped out of their shells and their heart was still beating. We later found out that these turtles are protected, which was sad to see just about everything was being sold at these markets (see picture in this blog). We then went up the river to see another butterfly farm which was meant to be a bit more than butterflies, but we were either too early, or they weren't too aware of their advertising suggesting the animal rescue centre, so after another explanation of the life cycle of the butterfly in broken English, we moved on. We checked out the local zoo as well, got as close to an anaconda as we would want to (a 6m specimen behind a fence is close enough for us), Pete held a boa constrictor for a bit, and we saw all types of birds, felines, reptiles and mammals in their enclosures. Just in case we hadn't seen enough animals in the Galapagos and didn't see enough in the Amazon.
Our highlight for the day though was going to the
Manatee Rescue Centre. What a great place, funded by various organisations from North and South America, they focus their energies on rescuing, rehabilitating and if possible, releasing back into the wild, not just manatees, but all sorts of local wildlife. They also have a great educational plan in place, delivering important information on ecological sustainability to school students, local villagers and supporting the local university by having students study there and local scientists directing the operations of the centre. While there, we saw turtles, monkeys, macaws, paichi (a fish that is kind of like an eel, but not), a river otter, a sloth and of course, manatees. The manatees were definitely a highlight, as we were able to feed a few of the younger ones who were well enough to interact with us, heard about the success stories so far in releasing them back into the wild and how they achieve successes.
And so we move onto the Amazon! Yay! For those interested, look up A&E Tours or Amazonia Expeditions through Google or Facebook to see what they do there, and what we are getting up to! - Peter and Renee
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Aunty C
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So interesting
Love reading of your adventures and experiences