Hirsute, swarthy, filthy, sweaty, muscular with a very disturbed appearance. His bloodshot and yellow eyes tracked me as I crossed the street to avoid him.

First attempt

Original English

I need a crew to build 15 cabins in the central amazon region of Peru. The cabins are to be simple framed wood sided buildings with wooden floors and thatched roofs. The bathrooms workers will require concrete and tile workers, showers, toilets and septic tank onsite construction.

I will provide transportation from Mexico or Texas to Iqutios via Lima, Peru and return transportation. Work will commence at 10:00 for those who wish to enjoy the bird watching, jungle walks or fishing. Others may begin work at 6:00 and will be compensated accordingly. Work finishes at 18:00. On site lodging will be provided. Women are readily available in Iquitos.

Expected duration of work is two to three months.

Translated into Spanish by translate.google.com

Necesito un equipo para construir 15 cabañas en la región amazónica central del Perú. Las cabañas son de madera simple para ser enmarcada edificios del lado de suelos de madera y techos de paja. Los trabajadores baños requerirá de hormigón y baldosas trabajadores, duchas, aseos y la construcción de fosas sépticas en el sitio.

Voy a ofrecer transporte desde México o de Texas a través de Iqutios Lima, Perú y el transporte de regreso. Los trabajos se iniciarán a las 10:00 para aquellos que desean disfrutar de la observación de aves, caminatas en la selva o la pesca. Otros pueden empezar a trabajar a las 6:00 y se compensará en consecuencia. El trabajo termina a las 18:00. El sitio de alojamiento será proporcionado. Las mujeres son fácilmente disponibles en Iquitos.

Duración prevista de los trabajos es de dos a tres meses.

Now The translation back from Spanish to English

I need a computer to construct 15 cabins in the central Amazon region of Peru. The simple wooden huts are to be framed buildings on wooden floors and thatched roofs. Workers require concrete bathrooms and tile workers, showers, toilets and construction of septic tanks on the site.

I will provide transportation from Mexico or Texas by Iqutios Lima, Peru, and return transportation. Work will commence at 10:00 for those who want to enjoy bird watching, jungle walks and fishing. Others may start working at 6:00 and be compensated accordingly. The work ends at 18:00. The hosting site will be provided. Women are easily available in Iquitos.

Expected duration of the work is two to three months.

Let me try again

Original English

I need a team to build 15 cabins in the central amazon region of Peru. The cabins are to be simple framed wood sided buildings with wooden floors and thatched roofs. The bathrooms workers will require concrete and tile workers, showers, toilets and septic tank onsite construction.

I will provide transportation from Mexico or Texas to Iqutios via Lima, Peru and return transportation. Work will commence at 10:00 for those who wish to enjoy the bird watching, jungle walks or fishing. Others may begin work at 6:00 and will be compensated accordingly. Work finishes at 18:00. On site lodging will be provided. Women are readily available in Iquitos.

Expected duration of work is two to three months.

Translated into Spanish

Necesito un equipo para construir 15 cabañas en la región amazónica central del Perú. Las cabañas son de madera simple para ser enmarcada edificios del lado de suelos de madera y techos de paja. Los trabajadores baños requerirá de hormigón y baldosas trabajadores, duchas, aseos y la construcción de fosas sépticas en el sitio.

Voy a ofrecer transporte desde México o de Texas a través de Iqutios Lima, Perú y el transporte de regreso. Los trabajos se iniciarán a las 10:00 para aquellos que desean disfrutar de la observación de aves, caminatas en la selva o la pesca. Otros pueden empezar a trabajar a las 6:00 y se compensará en consecuencia. El trabajo termina a las 18:00. El sitio de alojamiento será proporcionado. Las mujeres son fácilmente disponibles en Iquitos.

Duración prevista de los trabajos es de dos a tres meses.

Back to English

I need a team to build 15 cabins in the central Amazon region of Peru. The simple wooden huts are to be framed buildings on wooden floors and thatched roofs. Workers require concrete bathrooms and tile workers, showers, toilets and construction of septic tanks on the site.

I will provide transportation from Mexico or Texas by Iqutios Lima, Peru, and return transportation. Work will commence at 10:00 for those who want to enjoy bird watching, jungle walks and fishing. Others may start working at 6:00 and be compensated accordingly. The work ends at 18:00. The hosting site will be provided. Women are easily available in Iquitos.

Expected duration of the work is two to three months.

View Santa Fe to Current Location in a larger map

I just finished a night at Amazon Rainforest Lodge. The place was filled to capacity. Twenty two simple but large cabins each with a private bath but no hot water. The food was substandard the meals could readily have been purchased in town for the equivalent of $2. A stay here in this mostly inclusive (lodging, meals, tours) lodge is $90 a day. One night is two days, two nights is 3 days, etc. The diesel generator belches more smoke than a dozen city buses and is just as loud. So much for tranquility. When full the cabins average 5 people apiece.

Peter Gabriel recently spent a night here with the band while on tour. Why is the place so popular? There are not many lodges and this is the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, near Iquitos, the largest city in the world not accessible by road. Iquitos is also the most inland port in the world, 1,864 miles from the Atlantic.

The hop from Lima to Iquitos is a short commuter airplane trip. With a population of over seven million people, Lima has the ability to overwhelm the tourist capacity of this town and the surrounding areas. Seems like a hell of a business opportunity, now it is time to shop for some land.

Put your last jungle trip in print; send us your Amazon travel articles, journal entries, observations scribbled on napkins at a bar or just a copule of photos wel print nearly anything and put your name on it.

Iquitos Times, Editor Mike Collis
Office Putumayo 163 – Call 065 9754976
michaelcollis@hotmail.com

81 hectare on the Amazon $40,000 USD
Thats about 200 acres

130 Acres with riverfront on Nanay and Momon Rivers 30 minutes from downtown Iquitos $120,000

Boat For Sale 80 feet and a width of 13 feed construct in November 2008. Capacity 100 passengers, can be inspected on the doc on the first block of Peval street . Asking price only $15,000 US or very near offer.

U.S. Embassy Lima issued the following Warden Message on May 6:

This warden message is being issued to alert U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Peru that the U.S. Embassy is aware that a political group which has employed violent techniques in the past will stage a strike in the regional capital city of Iquitos on May 12 and 13. The strike may disrupt general transportation into and out of Iquitos as well as public services such as water and electricity. Travelers should be flexible in their travel plans and be prepared for travel delays.

We remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times.

The Embassy notes that Peruvian law prohibits the participation of foreigners in political protests or strikes, and Americans who have joined such demonstrations have been detained.

For any emergencies involving American citizens, please contact the American Citizens Services (ACS) Unit of the U.S. Embassy?s Consular Section, located in Monterrico, a suburb of Lima, at Avenida La Encalada, Block Seventeen; telephone 51-1-618-2000 during business hours (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) or for after-hours emergencies; fax 51-1-618-2397, or 618-2724 (American Citizen Services Unit); Internet website at http://lima.usembassy.gov/. The Consular Section is open for American Citizens Services, including registration, from 8:00 a.m. to 11:30 am weekdays, excluding U.S. and Peruvian holidays. The U.S. Consular Agency in Cusco, Peru, can be found at Avenida Pardo 845, Cusco. The office can be reached by phone at (51-84) 231-474, and is open Monday thru Friday, excluding U.S. and Peruvian holidays, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

I am now on an 8 hour trip via boat from Caballococha to Iquito.

My cell phone woke me at 5:00. The promised wake up call never came. I glanced at the shower and decided to give it a miss. I checked my ipod and it had no charge, at least my notebook was fully charged. Packing and dressing took about 3 minutes, then I brushed my teeth and headed down the stairs. The front doors were locked and no attendant was in site. Thanks, assholes. The large double steel doors were secured by a lock with three deadbolts. I operated the huge barrel bolts on the top and bottom of each door and gave the doors a pull with some reluctance they swung inward.

The sun was not up yet people were gathered in doorways socializing. As I passed I realized that they were not early risers, they were still partying from last night, pouring beer from 600 ml bottles into small glasses in the style of the Amazon. The next casino I passed was filled to capacity with five or so couples dancing to a quick salsa. The were no signs of serious inebriation that I had witnessed repeatedly in the last week. A large boat , the …………. was now docked. A rat scurry on the embankment. I walked down the stairs until I was level with the deck and got aboard. As I attempted to enter the lowest of the three levels I was directed to the second level. After ascending the stairs I surveyed a large open area, maybe 20 feet by 150 feet with a dark, dank interior. Hammocks hung from the ceiling the whole length, all were populated and large backpacks lay on the floor beneath the hammocks. Benches lined the side on which a score of passengers sat, presumably as all the hammocks were occupied. This was is going to suck big time. I took a seat on the bench and put my backpack and rubber boat bag on the floor in front of me. A crew member approached and said “No rapido barco.” Well that was a great relief, this is not the fast boat. I grabbed my bags and returned to the dock.
I just noticed that my computer battery is drained 30% and all I have been doing is typing this entry. A quick look at process manager shows me that works is consuming 70% of the CPU and all I am doing is typing. I shutdown all works and started again in wordpad, now I am running at 1%. How much does microsoft suck? Why am I even booted into windows? Oh yeah I need to backup my itouch.

With no sign of the boat anywhere I walked over to a cafe and ordered a coffee. The woman poured a cup of coffee into a small bag, tied the top in an overhand knot, stuffed the coffee bag and an egg sandwich into another bag and handed it to the customer next to me. A girl came out and poured hot water from a thermos and handed me the cup. “Necessito cafe, por favor, este solo agua caliente.” The woman picked up a jar of instant coffee and handed it to me. I don’t get instant coffee. The price for the coffee? Uno Sol, about USD .36. I gave the lady a coin and asked for an egg sandwich. The bun wasn’t bad and the two eggs inside weren’t bad, but somebody had a heavy hand with the salt. “Necessito pagar pora huevos, quente questa?” “Uno Sol.” Another coin for the the sandwich.

The pagoda was filling up, I guess everyone knew that the 5:45 boat didn’t leave at 5:45. Around 6:00 what was obviously the fast boat pulled in. The steel hulled boat had a beam of about 8′ and was about 45 feet in length and had a freeboard of about 4 feet. With its steel top and rows of windows it had a look of a marine bus. Passengers swarmed the boat and I was at the end of the line. Women were delivering envelopes, and small packages, this was also apparently the Federal Express for this part of the amazon. I threw my boat back on top and entered the boat through the door centered next to the pilot seat on the bow of the boat and opening in the highly raked windscreen.

The aisle seat in the first row was unoccupied; strange as this is a prime spot, with extra leg room. In short order we departed. The twin Volvo jet engine operated quietly with no vibration. The Garmin 525s GPS showed our route with numerous checkpoints, presumably to ensure that progress is according to schedule as it would be exceptionally hard to get lost on this trip. The small town we just left was on a river which flowed into a second river which emptied into the Amazon, the rest of the way is just about due west on the big river.

6:57 Pulled into a small pueblo. Five police officers read the passenger manifest and board the boat. Each passenger hands over an ID card, or in my case, a passport and the names and numbers are compared to the passenger manifest.

A man walked holding a tray of twenty cups hot chocolate. I kept trying to move my computer out of the way but he seemed adamant on holding the tray over the top of my computer. I took a cup hoping this would make him go away faster and was pleased when he moved on.

Screw this. Just because I’m bored out of my mind doesn’t mean you care about the minutia.

I just made it to Iquitos after an 8 hour boat ride from Caballochoca.

Some guy at a random government agency took me for a tour around town, gave him someone to practice his english on. He showed me a lovely hotel. My room is downtown, poolside with a California King. I deserve a little luxury. This is $99 sol per night about $35.

Tomorrow I have been invited to couch surf at the house of a local tour guide. I´ll give an update tonight, but I guess I am one step ahead of the murders. I just got this in my email.

Jim,

Richard

I checked out of the hotel at which I was staying, paying my 50,000 pesos for two nights. Actually I was staying in the hostel across from the hotel but the hotel had the administrative staff. For two nights I had the large house by myself. I turned in the keys and requested that my bags be checked, “Equipaja seguridad, por favor.” and went for a walk, back down to the school dock, then around town. Lunch was fish soup, fried fish of some sort, rice, salad of onions and tomatoes. The guide I met at the park yesterday greeted me. It was apparent that he just wanted to talk to while away the time. It started to rain, “It’s not the rain forest without the rain.” It slowed to a light drizzle so I went back and gathered my bags and headed back to town central. A few people came by, said their good byes and I waited. At about a quarter to four I headed to the dock. A young woman was taking money from a man and entering his name on a list. “Comprar tiquete pora barco hasta Caballococha aqui?” “Si” I handed her a twenty thousand note. “No cambio”. Shit, how can you do this job with no change? I bought a bottle of water at the store and returned, but she was nowhere to be seen. About 4:30 the 4:00 boat showed up and the woman reappeared. I handed her the ten but she took the five and the two. I thought this was ten thousand but it was merely seven. The boarding process took almost half an hour. We left and half an hour later arrived at Caballococha.

The reception party consisted of five or six people bearing signs, half a dozen playing various instruments and a young man singing some awful song greatly amplified and broadcast through a megaphone with expected audio fidelity. It was not musical or charming. A dozen motorized rickshaws sat at the dock. I inquired about the location for immigration and received directions to the police station. Six officers sat around shooting the bull and a couple more watched television. They wore shoes, not boots, black pants and black tee shirts. A web belt secured leather holsters holding old automatics, the bluing was worn off, the grips were worn. I don’t know what one has to do to get a gun in this condition; I have fired thousands of rounds with mine and they look new. One is now in the hands of some Southlake delinquent have been stolen during one of the innumerable parties thrown at my house by my kids when I was out of town.

“Necessito immagracion registrada.” Seems strange to have to hunt people down to get to immigration control. A kid pulled out a bound graph pad filled with stamps and lines and opened it to a new page. Referring back to a former page he drew lines and headings and labels to create a form of sorts. Stamps were entered, notations made and finally he asked for my passport. I gave it to him and then pointed to the fields for my name, passport number, state of birth etc when he asked for them.

I then asked one of the cops where I could by a ticket for a fast boat to Iquitos. Guessing I wouldn’t understand his answer he walked me to the store. I bought my ticket for $70 with a USD $100 bill. They only had two twenties and a five so they couldn’t figure out how to make change. I took the $25 and grabbed a few notes of Peruvian money and said “sufficio completo” ????????????? The took the hint and calculated what it would take to give me $5 USD in Peruvian Sol. The exchange rate used was 2.8 Sol per USD but I had no idea if that was a good rate. Then the cop pointed out the hotel, which looked more promising than the international hostel, which looked like a wharf warehouse. The place was a dump. The man told be “viente cinco dollars.” I looked at the cop and said “viente cinco sol?” “Si” No way was any room in this dump worth $25 USD; eight bucks, that’s about right.

I knew there was an ATM here and need some Peruvian currency so I asked the cop, “Donde este Clave?” I got a blank reply. “Donde esta cajage automatico?” “Como?” Why the hell do they need a different name for an ATM in every latin american country. “Necessito dinero, donde esta banco carte automatico.” Ah, finally and then he walked me over to the bank. I withdrew 400 sol, about $140 and noted that the internet cafe was right next to the bank. Returning to the hotel I gave the man my 100 note. Of course, being a hotel that only accepted cash he had no change. The man grabbed an aerosol can and walked me to my room. He sprayed large quantities of air freshener. The bed looked comfortable and clean and the bathroom was, well, latin american, the shower had no curtain the drain was in the middle of the room, there was no shower head and only a single pipe, no hot water here.

I told him I’d be back in an hour to get the change then went around town. Apparently some voting was taking place and announcements were being made to a large group of people. A man took videos of the crowd while I presume the winners were announced. The crowd cheered the announcements and were filmed in their displays of jubilance. I killed forty minutes at the internet cafe and made my way back toward the hotel. The central park was jammed full of people. Saturday night had begun. I collected my change and went to my room. It took me 10 minutes to open the door and I ‘ve worked as a locksmith. The cylinder flopped around and rotated. I determined how it had to be aligned and held it in place with my thumb while I operated the key. To my great relief my bags were still in the room. My room faced town square. There was no glass in the windows, just coarse screens, the wires sufficiently small that they offered no security but the openings sufficiently large that they presented no barrier to mosquitos, which fortunately did not become a problem.

The music blared. I turned on the TV and watched Casino Royale in Spanish. Bond was getting his nuts mashed. A tone such as could be made by blowing over a glass bottle filled the air. It was so loud it made my guts rumble. WTF? An hour or two later I drifted off to sleep despite the commotion.

I was in Leticia for what, five days? I couldn’t find anybody to take me into the jungle. This morning I went down to Tres Fronteras (three frontiers, Colombia, Peru, Brazil all intersect there) and bought a ticket to Puerto Narino. In five minutes I was on the boat and 80 minutes later was dropped off at a very small town most of the way across this little strip of Colombia on the banks of the Amazon. The trip was comfortable, fast, dry and cheap, 28.000 pesos.

Trips here were amazingly easy to set up. I had the opportunity to schedule trips for just me starting this evening. I walked to the observation tower to the end of the trail on the east end of town and to the west end of town.

I can’t take it anymore. I am done with this post. Three teenage girls giggling their asses off loudly, the girl next to me is downloading music videos. The bandwidth is bad so it buffers, plays this shit music that sounds like its in a loop, pauses to buffer some more and then repeats.

Pictures should be available tomorrow afternoon, hopefully some of these people will be in school.