Nos vamos

Leaving Peru in a few hours. We're really going to miss this country and it's people.

Amazoning: Day 5

Today is the day of piranha fishing. After a "Big Boy's" style breakfast, we jump in our "slow boat" bound for coves in the Nanay. We attach worms to a long stick with fifteen-feet of line and toss out. And wait. And wait. And "Nothing's happening here, let's go to the piranha farm," Nixon says.

The piranha farm is a private lake downstream on the Nanay. Nixon quickly hooks a piranha and wastes no time chopping it into bloody bits for the rest of us to use as bait. Then our other guide catches a piranha and dices it up. A few minutes later, he catches another. That was the last piranha we say before the sun started beating down on us from three degrees south of the equator.

We all take a dip in the pool, eat lunch, and take a short naps. Piranha fishing near the equator is tougher than it looks on Wikipedia!

At 4 o'clock that afternoon, we get in a canoe with Nixon and other lodge employee. The canoe is essentially a huge, hollowed out tree trunk. It works great but sits dangerously low in the water.

We peacefully canoe the main river body and other hidden smaller bodies until the sun sets. Here's a video Hannah took (I think I was fiddling with my camera the whole time):

Amazoning: Day 4

It may be 10 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon in the Amazon rainforest, but it's five o'clock somewhere. Off to the jungle pub!

After a short boat ride and a shorter walk, we reach a jungle pub and rum distillery. The owners brew fresh "jungle juice" from sugar cane and molasas. Here's a quick vid of the joint:


Then we jump on a "slow boat" with villagers bound to sell their food at a nearby village soccer game. The food is turtle and rice delicately wrapped in a steamed leaf.

We spend the rest of the day playing in the pool, eating huge portions during lunch and dinner, and watching the sun set over the Nanay River.

Last Saturday in Arequipa

Hannah and I have moved our return trip up one week. Instead of leaving Arequipa on the 22nd, we are leaving next Friday, the 15th, and arriving home the following Saturday, the 16th. This new intinerary means today is our last Saturday in Arequipa.

We're taking Karina and Beto our for dinner tonight. Karina is going on a business trip, and we may not see her before our flight out.

Amazoning Day 4 coming up!

Amazoning: Day 3, taming the jungle

We're eager to begin our tours of the jungle, so we ask Nixon if we can wake up early and listen to birds along the river. Nixon agrees, so at 6:30 a.m. we take a "slow boat," which is a eighteen-foot wood boat with a 15HP outboard, up the Nanay River.

We travel from for twenty minutes, turn off the motor, and listen for our feathery friends. We see several birds and learn about their different calls. The jungle has it's own version of our mocking bird. We even see a few hawks and one eagle.

After the bird watching and listening excursion, we come back and grab breakfast. We had bread, eggs with ham, cheese, breakfast potatoes, fresh fruit, fresh juice, and powdered coffee. A breakfast of champions before our 9:30 a.m. jungle walk.

About thirty minutes before we head out to tame the wild jungle, we meet in the lodge's hammock room to review safety precautions. We each get machetes and Nixon carries a sawed-off shotgun. Rabid jaguars and pumas roam the jungle outskirts during the rainy season, which we are in.

After discusssing the proper ways to fend off quicksand in the event of a suprise attack, Nixon gives us "gum boots," big, thick rubbery things, to keep our feet dry in the jungle marshes.

Here's a quick video of Hannah trying to cross a fallen tree over one of those jungle marshes. Sorry for the horizontal framing. I didn't think about this as I held my camera upright to take the video. Anyway, you can still see Hannah help one of our jungle guides across the fallen tree:


The jungle walk took about three hours, and we never ran into jaguars, pumas, or deranged quicksand. We did, however, drink purified water from a thick vine, eat jungle fruit straight from the tree, rest at giant tree (left), identify poisonous spiders, and visit a native tribe. In the tribe's village, Hannah and I had a chance to practice our blowdart skills. Turns out Hannah would be a better hunter and gatherer.

After a huge lunch back at the lodge, there's just enough time to play in the pool before our next jungle adventure: the botanical garden.

To get to the botanical garden, we have to walk through two neighboring villages. A soccer field (right) is the center of each village, and all other buildings, such as homes, school houses, and libraries (yes, bibliotecas), are built around the fields' parameter. Nixon tells us that these villages spend most of their Sundays playing soccer with themselves and other villages. Apparently Sunday is a day of soccer for the men and relaxation for the spectators, women and children.

At the botanical garden, Nixon shows us several dozen plants and tells of their medicinal purposes in the jungle. We drink "Seven Root," a elixir for impotence made from a phalus-resembling tree root. Also, Hannah plays with a nocturnal monkey (left) being bred in by the gardenkeeper.

The gardenkeeper gives us a lucky bean, and it's back to the lodge for dinner and 199 channels of DirectTV.

Animals at the Amazon Rainforest Lodge

Here are a few of the animals at the Amazon Rainforest Lodge.

"Sam" (as I call him) the tucan:


A wild turkey:


Turtles:


"Michael" the monkey (yea, that's his real name):


"Sam" and "Michael" feasting on some bananas:

Amazoning: Day 2

After leaving Home Peru at 4:00 a.m., we ask our taxi driver to swing us by a McDonalds for coffee and a quick breakfast snack. He takes us one block to a gas station which has hot water and instant coffee mix. We mix three cups of joe (one for our driver), head to the register, drop a few soles, and ask for lids for the coffee. The gas station is out of lids. So we take three full cups of near-boiling coffee through a twenty-minute pot-hole, speed-bump infested ride to the airport. My shirt was ruined before we made it half way.

We check in with Aero Condor, pay our airport tax (all national departures require a tax ranging from three to six dollars per person; international flights, such as ours to Canada, will be about twenty-six dollars), pass through security, and wait at gate four for an available condor. We end up sitting across from two guys from the University of Oklahoma. I didn't have the guts to ask them if they knew how to say "Statue of Liberty play" in Spanish.

We arrive in Iquitos, meet Nixon (left), our jungle guide at the Amazon Rainforest Lodge, and take a quick tour of Iquitos before jumping aboard a "fast boat" bound for our lodge. One quick note about Iquitos: While Arequipa is ruled by small, yellow Daewoo taxis, Iquitos is bursting at the seams with "mototaxis," which look a little like a ferris wheel carts with two wheels attached to the back of worn-out motorcycles.

The lodge is about forty-five minutes by boat from downtown Iquitos. To reach the lodge, you have to take the Nanay River, one of the three rivers connected to the Amazon Basin. Here are two brief videos of the voyage:



Once at the lodge, we eat a huge lunch, check out the lodge pool, hot tub, and observation tower, and make friends with the lodge's resident animals. We'll post those videos tomorrow.

As the sun sets, our guide take us for a short boat ride down the river to listen to the jungle at night. We then grab dinner before settling into our bungalow. After a long day, it's time to relax with our 19-inch television and 199 channels of complimentary DirectTV.

Yes, we had it rough.