We arrived in Iquitos around midnight Wednesday night, there were surprisingly taxis waiting for us with our names to take us to the hostel. We found out that surprisingly, Iquitos is about the same size as Omaha but is so vastly different. I thought the Omaha airport was small, Iquitos only has 2 gates. The city, which is made up of many different little towns, is only accessible by boat or plane. No driving to and from anywhere outside the city. So crazy! Anyway, we arrive at our hostel (that we made reservations at btw) and the lady kindly informs us that she has no room for us. Ahnika showed her the confirmation they sent her and somehow they decided to not hold a room for us. Thankfully she felt bad so she called around until a hostel had enough space for all 6 of us. This place was super nice and had A/C!!!
To the jungle:
We woke up early and headed to the jungle, our tour picked us up from our hostel and we drove to the port and went down river for about 2 hours. When we finally arrived at the little camp site I felt like I was back at church camp, except this was the Amazon Rainforest! I was already getting eaten by bugs because for some reason I am a tasty treat for them. After setting our stuff down and hanging in some hammocks (pun intended) we ate lunch. A little after that we packed up and headed to Monkey Island. This was my dream. I got to play with monkeys and hold them and I was so full of happiness. At one point I was taking a picture for Danielle and a monkey landed on my shoulder and as much as it scared me it was awesome! Some of the monkeys were play fighting and would fall from a tree onto or into our arms. It was so cool, especially since it was wild, the monkeys and birds and everything could come and go as they please, but since there's food and people rescue some monkeys and donate them here. They were all so happy and entertaining to watch. I also held quite a few birds and an anaconda!! After that we just drove around the river for a while looking for cool things to see. We saw some pink and grey dolphins but they were kind of hard to spot. We returned home just before the sun went down and then went on a short night hike through the jungle with only the sweat on our backs and some headlamps. There were a lot of spikey trees and bugs. But we saw some really cool moths and a tree frog who decided to go on the rest of the trek with us by riding our guide's back (he would not get back onto the plant and just kept jumping back onto him, so we continued)! We returned around dinner time and scarfed down some really good food. By this point, both lunch and dinner had consisted of pickled vegetables, rice, meat (chicken/catfish) and beans. But it really hit the spot. The rooms have big screens and yet are filled with bugs. There is literally no getting away from them. By the time I went to bed, my legs were covered with bites, despite the fact that I wore leggings all day. Oh well. The camp only has power from 6pm-9pm. Just enough time to charge everyone's phones/cameras (since there's no derive out here in the wild, a phone is now just a photo-taking device). Since lights out was at 9 and it was pitch black by 7, we were all in bed ready for bed about 8:30. Sleeping was very rough because the jungle apparently comes alive at night, it was way louder than during the day. So being the light sleeper that I am, I woke up at every and any noise and took forever to fall asleep.
A note about our tour guide Josiah (aka Yaku): He was absolutely amazing. He knew every plant and animal and had worked on tv shows on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and more!! And the most amazing part is, he stopped going to school after elementary school. WOAH! Somehow he started working with scientists and learned from them, then started teaching jungle survival skills and now doing what he loves: showing people like us the time of their lives.
A note about our tour guide Josiah (aka Yaku): He was absolutely amazing. He knew every plant and animal and had worked on tv shows on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and more!! And the most amazing part is, he stopped going to school after elementary school. WOAH! Somehow he started working with scientists and learned from them, then started teaching jungle survival skills and now doing what he loves: showing people like us the time of their lives.
On our way to the jungle!
If you look close, you can see the line between the rivers. The Amazon is the brown.
So many boat rides
Heading up to camp
Our bungalows
The hammocks are my favorite place
Yes! I ate Piranha!
So rainforest-y
Huge lillypads!!
Cayman (aka crocodiles)
This monkey jumped on our boat before we could get off and unscrewed the lid to his water bottle!
He was not very friendly. No cracker for Polly.
Related to the Raccoon, he was not too friendly (this day) either
He attacked me for this banana, but he's cute so it's okay
This guy tried stealing my sunglasses
A nice resting spot
Arr Mateys !
I love Toucans.
Monkey hugs
Huge tree with a huge (old) Hornet's nest
Just pulling out an anaconda
Apparently hopping in the anaconda's water is no big deal
Woah
Squeezing my arm and really heavy
We woke up around 5:45 the next morning and took the boat to go fish for piranhas. Since I have never caught a fish in my life, I expected to just stare at the water the whole time. Little did I know, I have a knack for piranha fishing with a stick. Our guide tied fishing wire and a hook to the stick and we threw our hooks with a piece of beef into the water and had to thrash the end of the pole in the water, I'm assuming to represent a struggle. Then you wait for a bite and yank it up, hoping the nibbles you felt result in a fish and not just an empty hook with no meat. I caught one! I was ecstatic! I could now say my first fish was a piranha!! Then...I caught 5 more. Yes. I caught SIX pirhanas!!! I was so beyond excited! I even got a really big one! If it wasn't for all the bugs, I would come live here as a piranha fisher for the rest of my life. After we caught all the pirhanas jn our area, we drove around a little more and saw a Tiger Rat snake that our guide tried to go grab out of the tree, but it slithered away too fast. He also caught a baby tarantula which I gladly held (it reminded me of the one my first grade teacher had)! Then we stopped at a little village thing to see a Cayman (alligator) and sloth.
Not a wand. This is my fishing pole!
FIRST CATCH
The guide was proud of this big one I caught :)
I proudly caught most of those!
Baby Tarantula
Yes, I held the tarantula. But I did that in first grade too. No big deal.
Now let me tell you about sloths. I hate them. I personally think they are one of the grossest animals around. Their claws/talons, the way they move on a flat surface. It makes me gag. But I overcame my fear and held the sloth. The fur was not as wirey as I expected and it just looked like a robot. So that may have helped me a little bit. I held it, took some pics (I have both the good smiling ones, and my disgusted face included below) and gave it back to one of the many sloth-lovers in my group. I even got the courage to hold it again, this was the mistake. It grabbed my leg like a tree, oh how cute, then proceeded to get stuck on/in me. It's claws moved around and got caught in the bag and my shorts. It was squeezing by butt with the claws that I hate and was latched onto the back of my shorts and Claire had to pry it off me. That was enough. This is my reason why I still do not like sloths, but they're not as gross as I believed before (but very painful with their grip).
We enjoyed some breakfast in a small village and then drove around in the boat a little more to spot neat nature things. After lunch and some more hammock time, we went back to Monkey Island for a little bit. I'm really glad we went on Friday because today there were only 5 monkeys hanging around and they were all preoccupied with each other. They were not really wanting to play with humans, until we got some food in our hands of course. Then the monkeys were climbing all over us and ended up taking our snacks and running off with them. It was pretty cute. Then we went to swim in the river with dolphins!! It was intimidating, especially because the river is very brown so you could not see anything in the water. Anytime I were swimming next to each someone and I brushed up against their leg I freaked out! Some dolphins got pretty close to us, but they're blind and not really used to humans, so they don't usually come right up next to people. But after the heat and the bugs all day, it was so refreshing. That night after dinner we went out on a little boat to look for more things in the dark. We found tree frogs and birds and moths and lots of bats. I really like bats for some reason, I think they are so cool, so seeing so many fly over us was awesome. Thankfully, I passed out once I got in bed, so I caught up on a little sleep.
The next morning we were out of bed by 4:30 and out on the water to see the sunrise over the amazon. Since it rained all night (which is why I slept so hard- I haven't had a thunderstorm or rain since Nebraska!) it was still cloudy in the morning when we woke up. Unfortunately I am only left with my imagination to make the sunrise since it was too overcast for anything. Headed back to the camp and I took one of the best 2 hour naps of my life! Breakfast then we went to a village in the jungle to watch a native dance and shoot a blow dart gun! We took a short hike through the village and out to a little circle where they did the ceremony. Our amazing guide told us some history about them and then the dancing commenced. The little kids had us join in the dances with them and even though it was raining and buggy and muddy, we all really enjoyed it. And I am proud to say that even if my aim with the blow dart gun is not the best (really my aim with anything is just terrible), my accuracy is on point. Another point for Shelby! Then I bought a bracelet and a necklace because why not? They're from the Amazon! This ended our trip and we went back to the camp to eat lunch, pack and nap/hammock time.
After the 2+ hour boat ride back up river to Iquitos, we checked into our hostel (the same one that didn't have room for us a few days prior) and the guys that took the room we booked were still there. Not only still at the hostel, but still in the same spots and still chain smoking. I'm convinced they just came to sit around. We walked to the main square and came upon a Margaritaville. I'm not sure if it was a licensed one, but we were ecstatic to see something with texmex. But of course no chips and salsa. I ordered hot wings that were fried wings with a death-by-fire sauce to dip it in (I ended up getting BBQ sauce because it was too much to handle). Back at the hostel I struggled for some sleep but it was somehow hotter than the jungle was and I continued to get bitten. Needless to say I did not get much sleep before our alarm went off at 3 am to catch our flight. It was a torrential downpour outside, the streets were flooding a little bit, but we made it out safely and I am home nursing my hydrocortisone-covered legs.
This was by far the best trip of Peru and maybe even ever for me. It was so much fun and I would go back in a heartbeat (with correct cargo pants and about a gallon more of bug spray). I can't believe I have only 2 weeks left in Peru! Time is flying by and it is finals week this week. Time to get to studying...but I'll probably just be looking at the pictures of this weekend instead. :)
A baby cayman
"It looks like a robot"
It stared into my soul all morning...creepy
You're really weird
You cannot see the sloth but this is the process of getting him off my shorts
Beautiful reflections
I love it.
We enjoyed some breakfast in a small village and then drove around in the boat a little more to spot neat nature things. After lunch and some more hammock time, we went back to Monkey Island for a little bit. I'm really glad we went on Friday because today there were only 5 monkeys hanging around and they were all preoccupied with each other. They were not really wanting to play with humans, until we got some food in our hands of course. Then the monkeys were climbing all over us and ended up taking our snacks and running off with them. It was pretty cute. Then we went to swim in the river with dolphins!! It was intimidating, especially because the river is very brown so you could not see anything in the water. Anytime I were swimming next to each someone and I brushed up against their leg I freaked out! Some dolphins got pretty close to us, but they're blind and not really used to humans, so they don't usually come right up next to people. But after the heat and the bugs all day, it was so refreshing. That night after dinner we went out on a little boat to look for more things in the dark. We found tree frogs and birds and moths and lots of bats. I really like bats for some reason, I think they are so cool, so seeing so many fly over us was awesome. Thankfully, I passed out once I got in bed, so I caught up on a little sleep.
Monkey Island round 2
What're you looking at?
Swimming in the Amazon!
The next morning we were out of bed by 4:30 and out on the water to see the sunrise over the amazon. Since it rained all night (which is why I slept so hard- I haven't had a thunderstorm or rain since Nebraska!) it was still cloudy in the morning when we woke up. Unfortunately I am only left with my imagination to make the sunrise since it was too overcast for anything. Headed back to the camp and I took one of the best 2 hour naps of my life! Breakfast then we went to a village in the jungle to watch a native dance and shoot a blow dart gun! We took a short hike through the village and out to a little circle where they did the ceremony. Our amazing guide told us some history about them and then the dancing commenced. The little kids had us join in the dances with them and even though it was raining and buggy and muddy, we all really enjoyed it. And I am proud to say that even if my aim with the blow dart gun is not the best (really my aim with anything is just terrible), my accuracy is on point. Another point for Shelby! Then I bought a bracelet and a necklace because why not? They're from the Amazon! This ended our trip and we went back to the camp to eat lunch, pack and nap/hammock time.
He carried a bag full of Yuca (a root) on a rope around his head
"Bridge"
"Traditional ceremonial dress"
Dancing and music
This is the statue we shot the gun (tall pole on the left) at
Accuracy
Me and the chief
The kids were a lot of fun to slip around dancing in the mud with
After the 2+ hour boat ride back up river to Iquitos, we checked into our hostel (the same one that didn't have room for us a few days prior) and the guys that took the room we booked were still there. Not only still at the hostel, but still in the same spots and still chain smoking. I'm convinced they just came to sit around. We walked to the main square and came upon a Margaritaville. I'm not sure if it was a licensed one, but we were ecstatic to see something with texmex. But of course no chips and salsa. I ordered hot wings that were fried wings with a death-by-fire sauce to dip it in (I ended up getting BBQ sauce because it was too much to handle). Back at the hostel I struggled for some sleep but it was somehow hotter than the jungle was and I continued to get bitten. Needless to say I did not get much sleep before our alarm went off at 3 am to catch our flight. It was a torrential downpour outside, the streets were flooding a little bit, but we made it out safely and I am home nursing my hydrocortisone-covered legs.
Our cool, adventurous group (with our Arbolist friend from Australia on the left, boat driver in the middle and cool guide on the right)
They eat slugs. They look like the ones Simba eats in The Lion King
Goodbye for now, Amazon
This was by far the best trip of Peru and maybe even ever for me. It was so much fun and I would go back in a heartbeat (with correct cargo pants and about a gallon more of bug spray). I can't believe I have only 2 weeks left in Peru! Time is flying by and it is finals week this week. Time to get to studying...but I'll probably just be looking at the pictures of this weekend instead. :)
Mountain Range and Sunrises=a great ending to an amazing trip
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