Greetings from Iquitos, Peru. We got in from our jungle adventure last night. It was an amazing experience not soon to be forgotten. We left on Friday the 29th of October from Coca, Ecuador, and spent 11 nights on and around the Napo River making our way to Iquitos, Peru. It was tough at times with the mosquitos and the uncomfortable sleeping situations, but it was all worth it. We came out the other end with much more information and a new appreciation for "roughing it."
On Friday, we left coca and took a public boat for thirteen hours to the last town in Ecuador, Nuevo Rocafuerte. The boat was extremely cramped having everything you could think of on it. There were little puppies running around, baby chicks in boxes, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing, a refrigerator, and all kinds of people. So after the thirteen hour boat ride, we stayed with Don Pepe. It turned out that Don Pepe knew everyone there was to know the whole stretch of the Napo River. The next day, we left Nuevo Rocafuerte for Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. On our way to the park, we visited an indegenous family. They were a Quichuan family. All of the indegenous homes are thatched roof huts. The roof is made of a tree called conambo. The floor is made of a strong type of palm tree. The family mainly eats smoked fish, but when they don't catch any fish, they just eat yuca. Yuca is a root similar to potatoe, except it is much drier. Most indegenous people grow banana, and yuca. After the indegenous family, we continued on the Yasani River to the park. We stopped at the mouth of a lake to go swimming and had some lunch. While our guide, Ramiro, and Don Pepe prepared lunch, our third guide, Julio, took Dad and I out in the "paddly boat." We paddled into the lake for a while and we got to see some giant otters catching and eating fish. They make a loud grunting or snorting noise to scare anyone from their meal. The otter will surround fish in a small lagoon or a mangrove swamp. The fish being cornered and not having anywhere to go, are eaten by the otter. Proceeding the otter sighting, we went back and had some lunch. Following lunch was a short hike to see the giant tree. It was a tree similar to the Pilon tree from Costa Rica. Completely straight and very tall. Later on that night, after setting up camp, we went out fishing for pirahna. The three guides all caught pirahna and Dad caught one. I caught a catfish, but I hooked it when I was reeling in and caught it's side. So needless to say the guides got a kick out of my faulty fishing abilities. While fishing for pirahna, we were fortunate enough to see a group of scarlet macaws flying over the river. If you love birds, then this is definately the place for you. The next two days were pretty laid back. We moved camp to a spot on the lake. During our paddling around and time in the picky picky boat, we saw a bunch of pink river dolphins, tucans, and a fish called peiche. Peiche is a fish that can get up to 18 feet long. The next day we went for a long hike in the jungle. We saw several types of plants and trees and also animals. There is the mouse candle which is a small tree that, at night, glows for up to six feet. The matapalo plant is a plant that kills trees. It's seed is eaten by birds and when the birds fly around to other trees, they drop the seeds on the other tree. The plant then completely surrounds the tree suffocating it and eventually kills it. As I said before, there are lots of birds in the amazonian jungle. One of those is the Florence Strotch. This bird has over 65 different songs. When a tree dies certain things have to break it down. There are two such worms that are delicassies to locals. One is the Mayun worm which is about two inches long and white in color. The other is the willian worm. it is smaller but equally as white. So as we sat watching Julio chop down two different trees to search for these worms, Ramiro explained certain things they do with the worms. Normally they put them all in a pan with oil and just fry them which we witnessed later on at camp. We returned to the boat after the two trees were completely chopped and all the worms had been collected. The next day, we went back to Nuevo Rocafuerte to restock our supplies and discuss the next part of our journey. I spent most of the time playing with Don Pepe's baby howler monkey.
After Nuevo Rocafuerte, we went to the first town in Peru, Pantoja. From there we went to a house built by the Quichua for tourists. We stayed there for two nights. One day we went for a hike through the jungle with Ramiro and Julio. We saw the capiberra hangout spots. They are essentially mudholes with a little bit of water on the top. The capiberra like to play here and bath. Also, they sometimes eat the mud. We did more fishing down river where Dad caught a bass and I caught a big fish. When I asked what kind of fish the guides just told me it was a special fish. We saw all kinds of animals though. For birds, we saw scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, mealy parrots, yellow and black headed vultures, oropendulas, toucans, great tinamous, cacique birds, parakeets, kingfishers, greater anis, hoatzins, large-billed terns, lesser kiskadees, white-banded swallows, and white herons. There were the Mandi trees which turtles eat, andchoutillas which were spiky palm trees. We also saw squirrels, squirrel monkeys, giant otters, river dolphins, many fish, turtles, capuchin monkeys, tapirs, giant armadillo tracks, capiberra tracks, and balck agoutis. The amazon is definately a god place to see all sorts of animals. From the house, we went to Pantoja in Peru and switched our guides and our boat. We got a smaller boat to finish the last leg of our jungle trip. We were about to travel 900 kilometers down river in a boat with a ten horsepower motor.
Our first day on the river, we realized what it's going to be like. Long days on a boat with no cover so we will be baking in the sun. The first night we stayed with an indegenous family. We went to bed at 7:20 because there was nothing to do and it turns out that the family had a party and everyone got drunk. The next day was brutally hot, but when the sun goes down, it isn't all that bad. We stayed in some town that night. They had a party going on but we were banished to the boat. Our two guides got drunk and stayed up all night. We left at 5:30 the next morning. When we left the party was still going strong. To give an idea of how unsanitary the river is, our guide took a crap in there before we left. After he did that, a guy washed his face in that same spot and a kid jumped in and went swimming in that same spot. To them I suppose it's quite commonplace. In the morning, our propeller fell off and we spent well over an hour paddling to the next large town. One of our guides left us and stayed in this town and we continued with only Julio. The next night, we stared with one of Julio's friends, Jorge, and his father. Jorge lives in Iquitos, and both he and his father are mechanics. They also had a pet monkey but they didn't know what kind it was. The next day we took a considerable shortcut and cut hours off of our time. We took a motokar through a small river city and cut about four hours off of the travel time. We then took a boat into Iquitos.
Iquitos is a really cool city with an awesome vibe. Last night we watched the Pats get trounced by the colts on Monday Night Football. That wasn't the best thing to be welcomed with after 11 days in the jungle. The bar was cool. It was owned by a guy from Texas named Gerald. There was a bunch of gringoes in there and hanging out. If anyone watches the Motorcycle Diaries, Gerald is in several parts. The main part is when they are on a boat and Ché's friends plays cards with all the other people on the boat. Gerald is one of the people on the boat. Just a little tidbit for all. We have been getting things done today. We did laundry and got plane tickets to Lima. We are going to a zoo knock off tomorrow afternoon. That should be pretty fun and we'll let you know how that goes.
Phil
On Friday, we left coca and took a public boat for thirteen hours to the last town in Ecuador, Nuevo Rocafuerte. The boat was extremely cramped having everything you could think of on it. There were little puppies running around, baby chicks in boxes, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing, a refrigerator, and all kinds of people. So after the thirteen hour boat ride, we stayed with Don Pepe. It turned out that Don Pepe knew everyone there was to know the whole stretch of the Napo River. The next day, we left Nuevo Rocafuerte for Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. On our way to the park, we visited an indegenous family. They were a Quichuan family. All of the indegenous homes are thatched roof huts. The roof is made of a tree called conambo. The floor is made of a strong type of palm tree. The family mainly eats smoked fish, but when they don't catch any fish, they just eat yuca. Yuca is a root similar to potatoe, except it is much drier. Most indegenous people grow banana, and yuca. After the indegenous family, we continued on the Yasani River to the park. We stopped at the mouth of a lake to go swimming and had some lunch. While our guide, Ramiro, and Don Pepe prepared lunch, our third guide, Julio, took Dad and I out in the "paddly boat." We paddled into the lake for a while and we got to see some giant otters catching and eating fish. They make a loud grunting or snorting noise to scare anyone from their meal. The otter will surround fish in a small lagoon or a mangrove swamp. The fish being cornered and not having anywhere to go, are eaten by the otter. Proceeding the otter sighting, we went back and had some lunch. Following lunch was a short hike to see the giant tree. It was a tree similar to the Pilon tree from Costa Rica. Completely straight and very tall. Later on that night, after setting up camp, we went out fishing for pirahna. The three guides all caught pirahna and Dad caught one. I caught a catfish, but I hooked it when I was reeling in and caught it's side. So needless to say the guides got a kick out of my faulty fishing abilities. While fishing for pirahna, we were fortunate enough to see a group of scarlet macaws flying over the river. If you love birds, then this is definately the place for you. The next two days were pretty laid back. We moved camp to a spot on the lake. During our paddling around and time in the picky picky boat, we saw a bunch of pink river dolphins, tucans, and a fish called peiche. Peiche is a fish that can get up to 18 feet long. The next day we went for a long hike in the jungle. We saw several types of plants and trees and also animals. There is the mouse candle which is a small tree that, at night, glows for up to six feet. The matapalo plant is a plant that kills trees. It's seed is eaten by birds and when the birds fly around to other trees, they drop the seeds on the other tree. The plant then completely surrounds the tree suffocating it and eventually kills it. As I said before, there are lots of birds in the amazonian jungle. One of those is the Florence Strotch. This bird has over 65 different songs. When a tree dies certain things have to break it down. There are two such worms that are delicassies to locals. One is the Mayun worm which is about two inches long and white in color. The other is the willian worm. it is smaller but equally as white. So as we sat watching Julio chop down two different trees to search for these worms, Ramiro explained certain things they do with the worms. Normally they put them all in a pan with oil and just fry them which we witnessed later on at camp. We returned to the boat after the two trees were completely chopped and all the worms had been collected. The next day, we went back to Nuevo Rocafuerte to restock our supplies and discuss the next part of our journey. I spent most of the time playing with Don Pepe's baby howler monkey.
After Nuevo Rocafuerte, we went to the first town in Peru, Pantoja. From there we went to a house built by the Quichua for tourists. We stayed there for two nights. One day we went for a hike through the jungle with Ramiro and Julio. We saw the capiberra hangout spots. They are essentially mudholes with a little bit of water on the top. The capiberra like to play here and bath. Also, they sometimes eat the mud. We did more fishing down river where Dad caught a bass and I caught a big fish. When I asked what kind of fish the guides just told me it was a special fish. We saw all kinds of animals though. For birds, we saw scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, mealy parrots, yellow and black headed vultures, oropendulas, toucans, great tinamous, cacique birds, parakeets, kingfishers, greater anis, hoatzins, large-billed terns, lesser kiskadees, white-banded swallows, and white herons. There were the Mandi trees which turtles eat, andchoutillas which were spiky palm trees. We also saw squirrels, squirrel monkeys, giant otters, river dolphins, many fish, turtles, capuchin monkeys, tapirs, giant armadillo tracks, capiberra tracks, and balck agoutis. The amazon is definately a god place to see all sorts of animals. From the house, we went to Pantoja in Peru and switched our guides and our boat. We got a smaller boat to finish the last leg of our jungle trip. We were about to travel 900 kilometers down river in a boat with a ten horsepower motor.
Our first day on the river, we realized what it's going to be like. Long days on a boat with no cover so we will be baking in the sun. The first night we stayed with an indegenous family. We went to bed at 7:20 because there was nothing to do and it turns out that the family had a party and everyone got drunk. The next day was brutally hot, but when the sun goes down, it isn't all that bad. We stayed in some town that night. They had a party going on but we were banished to the boat. Our two guides got drunk and stayed up all night. We left at 5:30 the next morning. When we left the party was still going strong. To give an idea of how unsanitary the river is, our guide took a crap in there before we left. After he did that, a guy washed his face in that same spot and a kid jumped in and went swimming in that same spot. To them I suppose it's quite commonplace. In the morning, our propeller fell off and we spent well over an hour paddling to the next large town. One of our guides left us and stayed in this town and we continued with only Julio. The next night, we stared with one of Julio's friends, Jorge, and his father. Jorge lives in Iquitos, and both he and his father are mechanics. They also had a pet monkey but they didn't know what kind it was. The next day we took a considerable shortcut and cut hours off of our time. We took a motokar through a small river city and cut about four hours off of the travel time. We then took a boat into Iquitos.
Iquitos is a really cool city with an awesome vibe. Last night we watched the Pats get trounced by the colts on Monday Night Football. That wasn't the best thing to be welcomed with after 11 days in the jungle. The bar was cool. It was owned by a guy from Texas named Gerald. There was a bunch of gringoes in there and hanging out. If anyone watches the Motorcycle Diaries, Gerald is in several parts. The main part is when they are on a boat and Ché's friends plays cards with all the other people on the boat. Gerald is one of the people on the boat. Just a little tidbit for all. We have been getting things done today. We did laundry and got plane tickets to Lima. We are going to a zoo knock off tomorrow afternoon. That should be pretty fun and we'll let you know how that goes.
Phil
posted by Phlip | 2:30 PM
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