The Amazon Jungle

Last week a few of my friends and I took advantage of our Easter vacation days to make a trip to the Amazon. We bused, hiked, canoed, boated, flew, swam, and moto-ed through the Peruvian departments of San Martin, Amazonas and Loreto, all to get up close and personal with nature. If you continue reading I think you'll agree that we accomplished this beyond all expectations (or desire). Talk about going off the beaten track... this was not a "vacation" for the faint of heart.


Leg 1: The ride to Tarapoto


We left from Chiclayo and took a 14ish hour hus ride to Tarapoto, known as the "eyebrow" of the Peruvian jungle. Tarapoto is a cool mix of jungle and sierra landscapes and cultures and we really enjoyed our time there. We went to see some waterfalls and went to some nice restaurants and bars that night.

At the lookout point on the way to the waterfalls.


The waterfalls.


Jumping through them.

Hoppin night life in Tarapoto.

Plaza de Armas.

Leg 2: Getting to Lagunas

At 3:30 in the morning we took a colectivo (taxi) to Yurimaguas, a port town close by, where we met up with our guide's daughter and got on a boat to Lagunas, the launching point for the jungle reserve. The taxi ride was about 3 hours long (though it seemed much longer) and the second worse part of the trip. The road was windy and I was sitting in the back middle seat flinging side to side and squishing Jess and Kim who were sitting next to me. I was just too tired to brace myself. Sorry guys. The boat trip was about 10 hours long and actually quite pleasant. We set up our hammocks, played some cards, took several naps, snapped some pics, and had an all-around great time.

Our boat, the Romantico. It was not that romantic.

Did I mention it was a tight squeeze?

Between naps.

The rainbow that welcomed us to Lagunas, and that did absolutely not give us good luck.

Leg 3: Trekking to the reserve

After being picked up at the port by our guides, we spent the night in Lagunas. Lagunas is a small town in the Amazon where there really isn't anything. The electricity doesn't go on until 6 at night and the only thing going for it that I can see is the fact that you can get to the reserve from there. To be fair to Lagunas, I have to say that I am a little biased against it. More later. We left early in the morning to embark on our journey into the jungle, and after waiting for a new driver to pick us up (the one that was supposed to take us was too hung over, oh Peru) and unpacking all of our bags and repacking the things we needed for the excursion into 1 small backpack for every 2 people, we were off.

We had to ride about an hour down a dirt road which was interesting since it was rainy season. We had to get out and walk for a while so the moto could get through, which was completely fine, just unexpected (as the majority of the trip ended up being).
Us on the moto/tractor contraption.

The road. It got worse, I just don't have pictures because I was walking through the mud.

We finally arrived at the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve...

Thanks in large part to the help of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, who conveniently joined us on this adventure.

Leg 4: The reserve

We stayed in the reserve for a total of 3 days and 2 nights. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip (obviously) since we got to see the animals. Sure, the food was lackluster, there were absolutely no bathrooms, electricity or running water, but it's all part of the experience, right?
With the exception of one hike we went on, we got around on the reserve by canoe, paddled by our fabulous guide, Felix y Arri.

Picture taken when we still liked canoes (read on).

We saw several species of monkeys while on the canoes. I was really happy about this because I didn't know if we were going to be able to see mammals. The were really hard to get in a picture since they're so fast and live so high up, but I did manage to get one! You might have to enlarge the picture to see it, but it's not too bad.

Sunset in the Amazon. We were lucky enough to have some great weather during the trip. It rained the second day (to be expected during this time of year) and while we were heading back to Lagunas the third day, but overall it was nice. I think my favorite moment of the whole trip was during the second night at the reserve. We went out after the sun had gone down to hunt for crocodiles and anacondas and while we were on the canoe I just leaned back and looked at the sky. It was so clear that you could see every star and the sky was illuminated against the profiles of the trees on either side of the river. There are no words.

One of our guides explaining to us that when a puma finds a turtle it carries it home on its back to eat it. We saw lots of animals and plants on our hike. There were trees that leaked substances that can cure every disease known to man, parrots, fish, and more monkeys. Later we saw river dolphins, scorpians, tarantulas, piranhas and river wolves (the scariest things you've ever seen or heard). The guides threw fresh meat in the water and immediately you could see the splashing of the piranhas fighting over it. Kinda scary considering we had just swam in that same water...

Now come the pictures of me holding all types of wild and exotic animals. This is me with the sloth (there was also a babya sloth that I got to hold!).

The crocodile (yes, a little one). My mom asked me, "Can't you just see those same things in the zoo?" Of course you can, but it's different when you're in the wild and the animals aren't used to humans being around. Anyway, I've never held a crocodile in a zoo before. I was a little nervous holding him because the guides were being VERY insistent that I hold his neck tightly (which led me to believe that if I let go he would bite off my hand). I still have ten fingers and toes.

The guides said that anacondas are the biggest threat to humans in the jungle. It's super hard to find them because they are usually underwater during the day but, lucky for us, this one came out to get some sun and we caught him (by "we" I mean our guides). They can grow to be more than 20 meters long with a width the size of a tree trunk. Yikes.

As you can imagine, I have about a million other pictures from the reserve and my friends do too. I will try to post more later for people who are interested in this part of the trip.

Leg 5: Lagunas, again.

We got back to Lagunas with the idea of renting a hostel just for the day so we could shower quickly before boarding a 32 hour boat ride at 1am to get to Iquitos, the capital of the jungle department of Loreto and the largest city in the world you can’t get to by road. However, we found out that the boat did not leave Yurimaguas that morning so would not be coming that night. Much to our dismay, we had to stay in Lagunas. I do not have any pictures from this part of the trip, but I will give you some hints as to how it went. We had beers with crackers and canned cheese at a general store and then went to the only “bar” in the whole town and were forced to dance with the moto driver who was about 4 feet shorter than the shortest of us and who then tried to charge us 40 soles for the taxi ride when it was supposed to be 10. This was the night when, despite my dedication in applying bug spray, I got eaten alive. The next morning we killed a spider the size of my hand with a white belly in our room. This was right before we found out that the boat didn’t leave AGAIN and would not arrive that night. At this point we would miss our flight to Lima if we did not make other arrangements to get to Iquitos. So our guides found someone who was willing to take us on their boat to Iquitos in 8 hours for a small sun of S/. 230 each. We would have paid 50 on the big boat. So the 14 volunteers went down to the port to wait to board the boat.

Leg 6: The Canoe Situation.

We checked out the boat we were going to be riding on and it didn’t look too bad. There would be a little bit of space to hang our hammocks and even though there wasn’t a bathroom on board, we would only be on the boat for 8 hours. Here’s a picture:
Oh wait, they took the motor of the boat and put it on the canoe. Surely they didn’t think that 14 volunteers and 3 Peruvians, plus all of our backpacks were going to travel 8 hours by motored canoe to Iquitos?

But they did. So we piled in, completely uncomfortable, sitting on planks of wood, legs in our stomachs. Just 8 hours right?

The other half of the boat. It wasn’t too bad for the first 5 hours. I think the turning point was at about the 6 hour mark, one of the guys driving the boat said that we were about 1 hour outside so-and-so village, and from there Iquitos was just 8 hours away. Excuse me? We have to be on the canoe for a total of 14 hours? You’ve got to be kidding me.

It started to rain. We fantasized about how luxurious the canoe was before we had to put a dirty, mildewy tarp over us. We played MASH and sang every song we could think of.

The sun set. It continued raining. We didn’t have warm clothes available because we didn’t know we would be on the boat until the night. We were freezing cold, soaking wet and unable to sleep. The drivers of the boat got lost. On the Amazon. We were lost for 4 hours. We spent a total of 18 hours on the canoe from hell. There are no words to describe the misery. It is safe to say we all reached our breaking points. I’m pretty sure mine was when we discovered, after being lost for about 2 hours, that the guy sitting at the front of the boat didn’t even know where we were going – his job was to watch for logs. Come on, Peru.

Leg 6: Iquitos

We finally arrived in a small port town called Nauta where we stretched our legs for the first time in almost an entire day then boarded a 2 hour bus to get to the glorious city of Iquitos. After we had checked into our room and showered we went in search of food. There is great food in Iquitos and we took advantage of it. From my point of view, “great food” is anything American so I absolutely loved the Texas barbeque, pizza, and frappachinos there. We went to the market there and looked around as well and they sold crocodiles, turtles and more. Ready for the cookin! We namely went out of curiousity about the “witch craft” section of the market and of a specific type of herb called Ayahuasca. The Amazon is known for it and tons of tourists come every year to hire chamans (local medicine men) to give it to them in tea form to cleanse their systems. We had also heard that it causes hallucinations. The market was full of tons of other interesting concoctions for all types of illnesses. I bought my host dad some “Uña de gato” (cat fingernail) because he told me about it before I left. It’s supposed to cure an upset stomach. It’s not really a cat’s fingernail, but I have no idea why it’s called that.

We also went to a part of the city below the market called Belen. It’s a town the basically lives completely on the water. We had to hire someone to take us around the area; we went by canoe (much to our discontent). We told our guides that we would not pay them if the tour went over a half hour (it was all we could take after 18 hours). It was totally worth it though, even if security guards had to come with us because of the high rate of delinquency.
Not the cleanest of places.

One of our two security escorts on the canoe.

Floating houses. They've got electricity and some of them even had satellite dishes.

Look closely and you'll see the American flag on top of this house.

Children bathing in the same water that serves as both toilet and landfill. The outhouses just float outside the houses.

I was actually surprised by the number of tourists we saw in Iquitos. There were lots of middle-aged to older Americans there who had come to do cruises on the Amazon river (we did not recommend our 18 hour trip). I did not realize how popular the Peruvian jungle is. One guy from Indiana had moved down there and started his own tourist company. He said that the area around Iquitos has some of the best fishing in the world.

I really enjoyed Iquitos and would recommend it to anyone who wants to do something different. It’s amazing how such a big city can function without being connected to the rest of the world by roads.

Leg 7: Lima

After Iquitos we had to go to Lima in order to go back to site because it’s hard to fly anywhere in Peru without going through Lima. I could not believe the plane ride was just an hour and a half. It was almost too short.

Leg 8: Piura

After some Papa John’s Pizza and a Burger King milkshake (neither of which I really like at home) and stocking up on some DVDs, I happily took the 14 hour bus ride back to Piura where there was air conditioning, dinner, and a couple movies. Quite comfy.

Leg 9: Vice

At long last, I arrived back at home, relieved to be back in one place, and happy to talk to my host family who wanted all the details from the trip. I’m ready to get back to work and excited about planning my next adventure. You should come with me!