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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.

Water cascaded out of a pipe dropping a couple of meters and landed heavily on a tin roof. Motorcyclists in panchos rode through deep puddles. After three days of clear weather my first excursion is scheduled for a rainy day. At eight my traveling companion showed himself and we discussed whether or not to go on our trip. Richard thought that he could call the girl he met the night before but then figured she wouldn’t show up in the rain anyway. After a bit of putzing around we grabbed the grub I had procured the night before, a couple of sandwiches and 4 skewers jammed with chicken and headed off in a random direction. After a while we decided that we could cut the trip short by actually going in the direction of the river which by this time we could not ascertain. A few inquiries and a couple of turns later we headed to the dock to meet Roberto, who was to take us on our cruise to Isla Miko (Monkey Island). Roberto was nowhere to be found so I inquired about and was finally directed to somebody who might be interested in a longer excursion. I wondered what the rest of these people were planning to do all day if they were not going to take people out. The guy told us that he could take us for two hundred thousand pesos. Yesterday we had established a price of one hundred fifty thousand, but Roberto was not here. The man went into the usual bullshit about the high price of gas, (ok it’s five dollars a gallon but you are not going to burn more than five gallons) and then showed us a pre-printed price list as this ostensibly gave validity to this high price. I took out a sheet of paper and prepared a pre-printed price list that was much lower. Richard found this amusing. We failed to conclude a deal and started to walk off. A man around the corner observed this and clandestinely approached us and we struck a deal. We procured some ice, 10 bottles of water and 6 beers and put them in the cooler along with the food and headed out. The boat was one of the smallest on the river but it did have a cover. We droned down the river for a bit and stopped at ???? were we could observe the flora and fauna. Two parrots were perched under a thatched cover. A raised boardwalk beckoned us and then fell to nothing. The rain was not abating and my camera was fogging up.

The man explained that the cost of walking around and taking pictures was ten thousand pesos and Richard squawked “It’s five dollars, Christ.” Then we started our tour. Richard didn’t want to walk in the mud, “Hey bud, you are in the jungle, it rains. You are wearing sandals that you can wash off in the river, what is the big deal? Do you just need to bitch about everything? God you whine a lot.” So we saw the big trees and the lilies that were a meter and a half across, viewed the garden took a few pictures and left. We continued up the river and Richard bitched about the duration of the trip, the rain, This was becoming wearisome.

A couple of hours into our trip arrived at the island. We walked by a gift shop with monkey skulls and piranha jaws, blow guns, bows and arrows and the various accoutrements of indigenous Amazonian people. A large man wanted to know how long we were going to be there. Why do you need to know? What difference does it make? Forty thousand pesos to feed the monkeys? I don’t think so, let them fend for themselves. Then we walked down the board walk, when we neared the end we were told that to go further for the 10 minute walk to where the monkeys were would cost us forty thousand pesos and yes this was a private preserve. I said “I’ve seen a whole lot of god damn monkeys in the wild without a charge of admission” and this time I agreed with Richard and we walked back to the reception area. The restaurant probably had 20 tables, each of which could seat 6 people, these guys had a good little deal going for them. Thirty locals just stared at us, having obviously nothing else to do. We walked over to the gift shop followed by a crew of observers. They demonstrated their proficiency in English. Picking up a blowgun, “Blowgun.” Picking up the jaws of a Piranha, “Piranha”. I picked up a caiman tooth and said, “dente camain.”, “Si”. Picking up a wooden phallus, I said “penis”. Whatever, adios.

We wanted to stop at one of the villages on the banks and pointed to one but our captain told us that that was Peru and he couldn’t make an international trip. I guess that is because they didn’t have an immigration office like Santa Rosa where you could find an immigration official if you looked hard enough. We entered and opening on the Colombian side of the river and wound our way around the bends and the floating debris; now this was more like it. Typical Indian village, wooden shacks, no electricity, outhouses, a couple of sidewalks, some dirt trails, chickens. A great many children peered out the windows at us, Women looked at us suspiciously. What the hell are these white guys here for anyway. Richard observed “I don’t think they want us here.”

I walked over to a kid, put my hat on his head, he smiled and I took his picture, his friends laughed and everybody loosened up. The women smiled at us, waved back at us. These were some really pretty women. As we walked by a man with a chisel and a hammer Richard stepped away like he was a poisonous snake even though he was 12 feet away. I said, “got you are such a git” and walked behind the fence and talked to the man expressing interest in his work. He showed me that he was mortising a rail for a bed, showed me the bed and then a big one inside his house. I asked him if he was like Joseph padre Jesus Christo but he had no idea what I was talking about. A nun walked down the street and I thought I saw Richard drool lustily. We returned to town, went to a bar and watched amazingly drunk Indians stagger around. Locals tried to give us home made rum. I am not sure how a bar works where patrons show up with their own liquor and the other patrons don’t even know what planet they are on. One guy picked up a bottle of soda,
put his lips to the straw and then lifted the bottle as if he was going to drink out of it. As it was now two inches from his mouth and his mouth was closed around the straw it just spilled off his chin, down his shirt and onto his pants.

Three people at the next table wanted to practice their English on us. I figured they were having enough problem with their own language, maybe due to the lack of dentition; there wasn’t a full set of teeth between the three of them. This was getting tiresome and I suggested that we go to across the road there being a bar on the river with more things to see. A couple of kids sat there and clacked bolos, two balls on each end of a string, an ancient hunting device that I explained to Richard. Two guys and an incredibly hot young woman sat at a table. I joined them, one of the guys was a student studying law in Medellin, the others had never left this small city. The woman avoided my eyes, finally told me she was married. We watched the boats go by and the clouds on the horizon while the sun set behind an island.

We walked back into town and had no success with any of the women we approached. Richard agreed that they did not demonstrate the usual Colombian willingness to be a companion for a day or a night. He had to get online to place some bets. I had some catching up to do so we went to the internet café and then went our separate ways, probably in pursuit of the same thing.

At 10:00 Carlos knocked on my door. I walked down the street and saw Richard, Carlos went through his spiel with Richard, but he only wanted a one day tour. He told me about the Hotel Divino Nino and I decided to change hotels. As I was checking out the guard looked at Carlos and then at me and told me that tours are very, very dangerous. Carlos carried my boat bag and we walked to the other Hotel. Three women sat behind the counter. I was checked in within 2 minutes. My room is at the top of the stairs, right in front of reception with a shuttered paneless window that opened on the side of the room facing the reception area at a slight diagonal. The hole for the upper barrel bolt was a slot, rendering that half of the locking mechanism worthless. I shut the shutters and engaged the lower bolt, dropped of my stuff and we headed out.

As we passed on restaurant Richard told me authoritatively that was the best restaurant in town. “What, Lonely Planet?” Lonely Planet is the largest publisher of travel books but they are not always correct, sometimes I disagree with their opinions and have found their facts demonstrably incorrect, like the length of trails, off by a factor of two. I then opined that the restaurant was not that great, they overcook the fish and that you can get a better meal for less from the street vendors. He stopped at a restaurant named after the department of Antioquia with a picture of El Piedre Guatape, the big rock I had climbed last week. I wanted breakfast so I continued down the street had a couple of fried eggs and a large roll with a cup of coffee for a couple of bucks.

Lacking anything better to do we went Santa Rosa. As I had discovered Richard like to bitch about everything. “What’s wrong with these people? Why do they fucking live here? “ “Hey dickhead, they were born here, probably never been out of here. You fucking moved to El Paso, that was your choice, what does that say about you? And as for being here, you paid good money and spent time to get here, they didn’t make the effort.” That shut him up for a minute but then he found another reason to deprecate another person. He whined about something else and I said “With you every silver lining has a cloud, lighten up.”

Didn’t I already post the story about the guy at immigration?

We returned on a large comfortable boat and inquired with the captain, if you can call the guy at the outboard on an oversized canoe a captain, how much it would cost to go to Isla Monik (Monkey Island). We offered 150,000 pesos for the day. He refused then I guess he thought about the money, he was only making 6,000 for this trip and agreed to meet us the next day at ocho medio, (8 1/2) in the morning.

The electricity went out all over town, so just grabbed some grilled chicken on the street corner and went to the internet cafe, which was running off a small generator. When the electricity came on I went back to hotel,turned on my air and cropped the days photos.