It is hot, humid and buggy; but a complete riot in every way. A few things you need to bring with you to Iquitos are insect repellent with a lot of deet, and a sense of humor because you are likely to find yourself in some rather uncomfortable places, which brings me to...
Day One:
As I mentioned, I finished up my exams on Thursday before heading across Peru to Iquitos, where we arrived around 8pm, which was just enough time to check in to our hostel and grab a nice last meal before we set out for our adventure the following morning. I had an alligator burger; it was pretty good.
Travel companions: Clare, Patty, Millie and Dani
Day Two:
The fun really started day two when we left cozy, comfortable and relatively bug-less Iquitos for the raw jungle, where we would spend three days with no electricity, no running water and no dignity. After meeting up with our tour group, we hopped the boat that would carry us from site to site on the Amazon for the duration of the trip. Our first stop was the Serpentario, which was essentially a small zoo with animals from the Amazon and lots of thieving monkeys. I got to hold them all and it was pretty cool.
First of two times meeting a sloth (perezoso)
Monkey friend who rode around on my back until I decided to hold the anaconda to which he said "Hell no"
My amigo Toucan Sam
(insert Nicki Minaj 'Anaconda' lyrics here)
Not the last time I would run into a scarlett macaw on this trip (they aren't as nice as the other parrots)
Tortuga Prehistorica (Prehistoric Turtle)
Thieving Monkey Montage
Pen
Alcohol stolen directly from the hands of one Danielle Day
Monkey is an aspiring photographer
"Quick! You distract her and I will steal all her shiny stuff"
Next, we hopped back on the boat and went to drop off our things at the Amazon Safary Lodge where we would spend the next two nights under mosquito nets and covered in a thick sheen of sweat.
The Lodge
My room/hut
There was a toilet and a garbage can full of water with a pitcher inside. You had to manually flush by dumping a pitcher of water down the bowl. (Be careful going number 2; you might be seeing it for a while)
Next we went on a little walk to go visit the Yagua tribe. It rained a bit, which felt nice. They performed a dance for us and taught us how to shoot blow darts.
The group in our rainbow ponchos
Yagua tribesmen, women and children performing
Us joining in and making a mess of it.
After the wet, muddy walk we returned to the lodge for some typical amazonian cuisine. I never really knew what I was eating while in Iquitos.
At the time, I was about 80% sure this was pork
Thought this was a sweet berry, turns out it was the hottest pepper you can find in the Amazon
I ate one of these worms (suri) and it was as disgusting as it looks. A completely accurate representation of this experience is when Simba in the Lion King eats bugs for the first time with Timon and Pumba--the texture is rather off-putting but it more or less tastes like chicken.
After lunch and a quick snooze in the hammocks, we hopped back on the boat to go to another animal reserve with a different variety of creatures.
Some sunbathing Caiman, I preferred them in a burger
Paiche: Some BFF (big f****** fish). They came to the surface when we tossed them bits of fish. Stephie if you are reading this, you can find these in lake Michigan too and they especially like to eat human toes.
Some floating plants
Parrot frenemy. He bit me when I was trying to get him to play with me
Making kitty friends wherever I go.
This guy was pretty nice, he liked playing with a volley ball we brought with us.
Next was time to smear ourselves in black mud and play some beach volleyball. This was the extent of our bathing for the trip: splashing in the muddy amazon for a few minutes before covering ourselves in sweat and sand on the beach.
mmm mud
The mud was supposed to help remove all your dead skin. I think it worked because I am all smooth now.
After getting "clean" again we took the boat to Iquitos to have a quick beer before dinner and turning in for the night.
The Amazon is beautiful while the sun is setting
Day Three:
After waking up to a delicious, savory pancake, we embarked on the boat to the Mariposario where we would see some of the less carnivorous insects: butterflies! I unwittingly slathered myself in Deet immediately upon waking, so the butterflies largely steered clear of landing on me (which is just fine if you really want my opinion).
Butterfly eggs. They lay thousands but only a few percent of them hatch and become pretty butterflies
Caterpillars range from rather ostentatious, to completely camouflaged (the one on the bottom looked like nothing more than a dead leaf)
The cocoon, it moved like a jumping bean if you touched it.
Intimidation technique
The sad truth: butterflies only live for about two weeks (as opposed to the 1-6 mo they spend in the larval stages) which is just long enough to get their eggs out there and cooking.
NEXXTTTT....We visited another amazonian tribe: The Boras. They also showed us a dance and we got to join in.
We were starting to feel the intense heat that would torment us until we returned home on Monday.
Lunch was next, after which we forayed behind the lodge to slash some sugar cane with a handy machete to press for juice. We enjoyed this drink that night after the liquid had been boiled and squirted with a bit of lime.
This mechanism helped press the cane. You would be surprised how much juice you can really get out of there.
After another walk, we boated over to our bath spot to take a dip and play some more beach volley ball. I must say I have never been so happy to bathe, even if it was in the dirty amazon (for those who know me well enough, I could go days without bathing and be just fine with that). We returned to the lodge for a nap and dinner. After dinner we unwittingly set out in rubber galoshes for a nighttime jungle walk [from hell]. We were uninformed; the walk was more of a climb up slippery, muddy orifices, punctuated by startled yells from our machete yielding guides informing us of the poisonous spiders, frogs or snakes (or any permutation thereof) that lied immediately ahead. Most fell, many screamed, and all spirits were broken. Our destination was a high point were we could see the stars (sort of). Proud to say I survived intact and dry (you couldn't say so much for the others). My headlamp was a life saver. Sorry I didn't take any pictures, you'll just have to visualize: hold out your hand. Now imagine it with 8 fingers, huge pincers and a bunch of hair. We got back, cursed our guides for misinforming us, and enjoyed a bonfire until we were tired enough to go to sleep.
Day Four:
We had eggs, fried banana (which we had with every meal) and cafe con leche for breakfast before meeting up with another tourist group of peruvian women who were thoroughly unprepared for the days ahead. Our first stop was the Isla de Monos, which reminded me a lot of the Serpentario from the second day. However the monkeys were a bit bolder: the boat pulled up to dock and we were greeted by a huge monkey toting her baby on her back who jumped into the boat and stole a whole bag of chicken hearts that we intended to be bait for piranha fishing later that day.
Monkeys
On monkeys
It's hard not to love a sloth, even if they are licking the sweat off your next with their mutant, alien tongues.
They really do smile all the time
Obligatory George of the Jungle swinging on a vine photo
Boa constrictor that was less than happy to have company. It hissed and spitted and us and I was informed to not get too close to take my pictures.
Next we went piranha fishing and to enjoy some bomb lunch on the boat before heading to watch the grey and pink dolphins leap out of the Amazon.
Our very rudimentary poles were really just a long stick with a piece of fishing line tied to the end and a hook.
Needless to say, I won and was the first to catch one.
Just look at that beautiful sucker. He was a baby so his teeth weren't all that big yet.
All the women took turns taking pictures with my fish because they didn't catch any.
We returned to shore for the night, showered like it was our last, and enjoyed a delicious, greasy dinner before passing out like Rip Van Winkle (and then waking up at short intervals throughout the night because it was goddamn hot). Iquitos was a blast, but it was great to get back to Lima, with our bags of stinky clothes and enjoy being clean and cool and not worrying about getting bit by a tarantula, mosquito, man-eating snake, carnivorous frog or jaguar. It was a great last shebang before enjoying my last week in Peru reading Amy Poehler's book, watching Netflix in my underwear, and taking long and unnecessary naps.
The boat where we spent many an hour
Trolling back to Iquitos
There were essentially no cars in Iquitos, instead everyone traveled by moto taxi (pictured above) or by dirt bike.
Pepe the Scarlet Macaw lived at the lodge and enjoyed eating mango dropping little pieces of dried leaves on our heads while we were eating.
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