The Amazon - all kinds of awesome

The Amazon River and Amazon rainforest are another couple of places you grow up hearing about but never think you'll find yourself there.  For Kurt especially it was a lifelong dream to go to one of the most naturally diverse and mindblowing places on earth.  Now we just had to decide where we'd do it.

The Amazon River itself is the second longest river in the world and flows west to east from Iquitos, Peru, all the way across Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean.  It flows mostly through these two countries, but it is part of the border between Colombia and Peru, and it has over 1,100 tributaries reaching into Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia.  And then there's the Amazon rainforest, which is the largest in the world, covering well over 8 million square kilometres.  It's almost impossible to comprehend just how huge that is.  However, with all the deforestation that's gone on over the years and continues to happen, who knows what will become of it?  If only those ignorant, selfish bastards would think of the consequences.  Obviously that's far too much to ask for.

When we were in Bolivia we considered going to a place called Rurrenabaque in the north, as a lot of tourists do jungle/pampas tours from there.  However, the Amazon River doesn't actually flow through Bolivia which kind of defeated the purpose of doing an Amazon tour there, so we crossed that off the list.  It was when we arrived in Peru that we decided the best place to do a tour would be from Iquitos, in the northeast of the country.

Iquitos is actually located on the Amazon River itself, and the only way to reach the city is by plane or boat, with the exception of a road to Nauta, a small town roughly 100km south. It's the largest city in the world which cannot be reached by road.  Pretty cool, ay?  So, we booked our first flights in 6.5 months and thankfully it wasn't too expensive - just under $300 return for both of us.  When we got there we were surprised by how big a city it actually was and that there were pretty much no cars whatsoever - only motorbikes, buses and about a million mototaxis/tuk tuks.  It was crazy.  The central part of town where we stayed was a bit run down and shitty, but what can you expect from an isolated city in the Amazon? It was also bloody hot, which was a nice change from the pretty much constant cold weather we'd had for the last month or two.  Time to bust out our now pasty white limbs.

We arrived in Iquitos early on a Sunday morning, so that afternoon we walked around a few tour agencies to find out prices and details of tours offered.  We've found that you get the best deals by booking closer to the time rather than booking online in advance, as you get it much cheaper.  We found one agency that had good reviews online, but being a Sunday it was closed.  Never fear, the security guard sitting outside called the owner who showed up about 15 minutes later in the car with his whole family, half drunk.  Awesome.  He was still able to give us all the information we needed though, and in the end we decided it was the best we'd found.  We initially thought we'd do a 3 or 4 day tour, but ended up going for the 5 day option which left the next morning.  And the best part was that there was only one other couple booked on the tour, meaning there would only be 4 of us.  Actually no, the best part was that we ended up paying about half the price they did.  Yeow! 

On Monday morning we were picked up from our hotel at about 9am and then we had to go pick the American couple up from the airport as they were only just flying in that morning.  It was absolutely pissing down which was a nice welcome for them.  Not.  Jennifer and Bill were from a small town in Oregon, and we had a couple of hours to chat a bit on the drive to Nauta, the small town where we got on our first boat which would take us to the village we'd be staying in.  The boat was fairly comfortable with seats and a 'roof' which we were thankful for shortly after when it started pissing down again.  We passed several other small boats with locals that were almost sinking in the river, and they were all huddled together getting pelted by the rain.  Poor bastards. 

Our boat

Their boat

We were on the boat for about 2 hours on one of the tributaries before we got to the mouth of the Amazon River.  And, pardon my French, but fuck me it's a massive river.  It varies between 1.6 and 10km wide at it's lowest stage, but during the wet season it expands to 48km or more.  We were there about a week after a massive flooding, so we could see the watermark on the trees at least a metre above the current level.  It was even more apparent when we reached the tiny village we stayed in.  The houses are all built on stilts, and when we arrived the first day the watermark was above the floor level.  We were actually supposed to have stayed in a lodge the agency has for tours, but it had been flooded and couldn't be used.  So the four of us stayed in one house which was basic, but we had a bed and mosquito net each and a toilet, and a roof over our heads.  No need for much more.  Well, a shower would have been a bonus, but when you're all in the same boat (literally) and wear the same clothes for five days getting steadily stinkier, it's all even stevens.

Watermark on the house from the flooding

Our humble abode

Over the next 5 days we ususally spent a few hours each day on a little canoe that was very authentic and obviously hand made by the villagers, but was incredibly, bum-numbingly uncomfortable.  But when you see so many different kinds of new and amazing creatures every single day, you can forget the numbness for a while.  I can't even list all the different things we saw, but there were about a hundred new bird species, butterflies, bugs, monkeys, a sloth, iguanas, fish (including piranhas), caimans, both grey and pink dolphins, giant water lilies and just simply stunning scenery.  We really wanted to see the famous pink dolphins, and we weren't disappointed.  Once we started spotting them they were all over the place, and surprisingly unattractive.  Well, strange looking from what we could see.  They were a very pale pinky grey colour and had a weird looking humpy back and head.  Not as beautiful as the other more 'normal' grey dolphins, but it was amazing to see such a rare creature.  Quite a buzz really.  Basically the only thing we didn't see at all was an anaconda, but our guide told us that he's lived in the jungle all his life and he's only ever seen two in his lifetime.

A big bird

Spider monkey

Sloth

Iguana

Pink Amazon dolphin

Giant water lilies

Bill had brought his own fishing pole with him, so one day we found a good place and he tried his hand at a spot of fishing.  There was clearly shitloads of fish around, as we'd see a whole heap of little ones suddenly leap out of the water, maybe getting away from bigger ones.  Whatever the reason, it was an awesome sight, and it happened over and over.  It took a while to get his first one, but Bill then caught four fish in quick succession.  And two of them were piranhas.  They're pretty innocuous looking little things until you see the teeth, and they are razor sharp.  So thanks to Bill, dinner that night was a feast of fish, and they were all actually quite tasty.  Not too many people can say they've eaten piranha.  At least it wasn't the other way around.

Piranha!

 
Our English speaking guide, Homer, was only about 24 and had grown up in a village further north on the river, so he knew a lot about the local wildlife.  He could name all the different birds at a glance which was pretty impressive and could spot things miles away.  But even more impressive was our other local guide, Miguel, who was older and therefore had a lot more experience and basically did all the cool shit.  He was pretty much a combination of MacGyver and Bear Grylls and was totally awesome.  When we camped out for two nights deep in the jungle he constructed the shelter for our tents, made fire and cooked for us, bushwacked a trail on a 6 hour walk through the jungle and didn't get lost (well, actually that's debatable), demonstrated how they weave thatched roofs, hacked open tree trunks to look for huhu/witchety type grubs, identified trees that when cut open had a sweet milky substance you could drink and other roots/plants that when cut open held water for drinking, and that by rubbing termites all over yourself you have a natural bug repellant because of the smell it gives off.  We were a bit wary of this one, thinking he was just taking the piss and wanted us to get termites all over us, but we tried it anyway.  Any kind of repellant to keep the mozzies away is a blessing. Just being around someone like him and witnessing how much he knew was incredible.  And I don't know about the others, but it definitely made me feel a whole lot safer knowing he was with us.  Especially when we went caiman hunting one night. 

The start of our tent shelter

Termites ready to be squished into repellant

Miguel weaving a thatched roof

Drinking water from a plant

We set off from the village on our last night at sunset and headed to a spot where they know caimans hang around.  Then we had to sit and wait quietly for about an hour until it got fully dark, which was a bit unnerving.  Then we circled around a pretty large area, with both Homer and Miguel calling to the caimans to try and locate them, and using a headlamp occasionally to find our way and try and see the tell-tale shiny reflection of the light in their eyes.  Miguel got excited a couple of times when he thought he could hear a big one, but we couldn't find it.  Probably a good thing, because if we'd come across a 2 or 3m caiman in our dodgy wooden canoe that was only just above water level, I would have freaked the fuck out.  As it was, we spent at least an hour circling around and had almost given up when all of a sudden Miguel spotted one, clambered over from the back of the canoe to plunge his hand in the water and came up with a caiman in his hand.  I had no idea what to expect, but it was just a little baby one, about 30 or 40cm long.  It was actually really cute and not at all scary.  Well, I still didn't want to put my fingers anywhere near it's mouth, but it wasn't going to kill me.  I just hoped mummy wouldn't hear it's scared little cries and come over to fuck us all up.  We all got to hold the baby caiman and get photos, but Kurt had to remind me to release my death grip on it before I choked the poor thing. Sorry little buddy.

A bigger caiman the villagers caught

So, after 5 incredible days on the Amazon and in the jungle, we headed back to Iquitos for one more night (and a much needed shower) before flying back to Lima.  That final afternoon in Iquitos Homer and Miguel took Kurt and the others to the Belen market (I opted to stay in the hotel and chill out).  Kurt said it was a pretty dodgy experience which could have turned ugly real quick if they hadn't turned back at one point.  The market is full of black market stuff where the locals illegaly trade in protected rainforest animals and wildlife.  There were dead animals, skins and skulls and all sorts of other crazy shit.  They didn't stay long because it started to feel a bit ominous, so they wisely got the hell out of there.

I know I've said it about a lot of other things we've done so far on our trip, but our time in the Amazon was yet another highlight and completely unforgettable.