El gran viaje 2007

When Sergio and I got off the plane last Wednesday in Iquitos, the first thing we noticed was the heat. Lima is cloudy and chilly. The Amazon is... well it`s kind of cloudy because it rains every day. But it´s hot, really hot and humid. Not that we didn´t expect that-- it´s the rainforest, after all.

We spent one very hot night in a creepy little hostel with jaguar skins on the walls before we starting our jungle tour. On Thursday morning we took a boat to the lodge we´d be staying in for three days. The lodge was pretty rustic-- no hot water and no electricity, but who needs a shower or electronic entertainment when you´re in the rainforest? We ate jungle food-- plantains and yucca and papaya every day.

Our three days in the rainforest were spent sloshing through the muddy forest or gliding along in a boat on the river. We saw animals, mostly domesticated and on show for us tourists but we saw a few monkeys up in the trees and plenty of bugs (especially ferocious, evil little mosquitos and more than a few cockroaches). We visited a native village, which was very touristy but kind of fun anyway.

Some people warn that visiting the rainforest can be disappointing-- I guess because it´s a lot like the forest anywhere, and it´s pretty hard to see the cool animals like jaguars and anacondas. But Sergio and I weren´t disappointed and it was a really cool experience. The noise at night (mostly from toads) is louder than any city street could be. And the forest smells strongly like rain and rotting leaves. And the Amazon River itself could not disappoint-- it´s far wider than any river I´ve ever seen and it´s a murky brown color from all the sediment it´s carrying from the Andes all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. And the people speak a weird language that they call "Castellano" for some reason but is really a mix of Spanish, Portuguese, and Yagua.

And just when we thought we couldn´t take another meal of fried fish and yucca, it was time to head back to Iquitos where they have pizza and burritos, and tomorrow it´s back to cold, rainy Lima. That sounds pretty nice right now.