the amazon (june 21, 2007)

Hola guys :)

I´m totally in love with the Amazon. I want to live there in a village hut with my man, fishing (but someone else will have to kill them for me when I´m not looking... unfortunately it´s the only way to make a living in an Amazon village), swimming in the river and exploring the jungle! The last couple of weeks have been incredible.

Although, I must admit, 12 days on the boat were at times a bit tedious! However each time I looked out across the river, and each time the sun set, I felt so amazed. We travelled a lot closer to the river bank than I thought we would which enabled us to see loads of birdlife, and all the various types of jungle vegetation you can imagine. We saw a few river dolphins and manitees, and passed many little villages consisting of little wooden huts on poles, sometimes seemingly floating, with faces peering out of the glass-less windows. We saw villagers fishing in their canoes, washing clothes and muddy children in the river, and paddling like mad out to our boat to shout and wave and wait for food to be thrown. It was so fascinating to see such a way of life drift on by. We also passed a surprising amount of bigger towns, stopping at most of them along the way to drop off and pick up cargo and passengers. We got off at one and were lucky enough to stumble into an Amazon festival! We were told that monkeys could be seen from the boat, swinging in the trees, at 5am but we never got up early enough to see them! We also saw many floating logs that we thought were anacondas or alligators. There is lightening every night over the Amazon river, even though most nights are clear. It´s beautiful, and kinda freaky.

I slept in Rede (hammock) class and it´s an experience I´ll never forget! The hammocks were crowded in so tight that you spent the night swaying into other people´s feet and heads. Unbelievably I did actually get some sleep! Ranga and I were the only gringos on the boat so inevitably we got a lot of unwanted attention, especially at the start of the trip. Thankfully the novelty wore off after a couple of days and Ranga and I were able to find some peace, even if it meant hiding out in her cabin all afternoon! The meals were ok, but after 6 days of the same rice, noodles, meat stew and beans Ranga and I were totally hanging out for fruit and veges! It´s funny how the entire day´s routine revolves around meal-times when your world becomes confined to a boat deck.

We finally arrived in Manaus - a crowded and noisy city. It´s hard to believe it´s surrounded by jungle! We had one and a half days there to organise our tickets for the next boat to Tabatinga, and to find some fruit and vegetables. Our hippy friend Jorge, who we met on the boat, lives in Manaus and he kindly helped us sort out our tickets and showed us around the place. He even went so far as to smuggle a giant anaconda skin into our hotel room so we could take pics!! God knows where it came from... he spoke only Portuguese so we missed most of what he said! We also visited an Amazon environmental research centre and finally saw monkeys and caiman!! But before we knew it we were back on the river...

The boat from Manaus, "Sagrado Coracao de Jesus", was rather nice, an improvement on the "Amazon Star"... especially considering Ranga and I splashed out on a cabin!! I know I had adventurous dreams about the hammock for 12 days, but believe me, 6 is really enough. Our cabin, sorry: "suite", was really very luxurious... nicer than any hostal we´ve stayed in! Despite having to share a bed we were very comfortable with our own tv (ok, this only had one channel and we could never get reception... but it did have TETRIS!), our own bathroom, our own fridge, and our own balcony! This time the boat seemed a bit more civilised, we weren´t harrassed at all. We were happy to see a few other gringos onboard this time too and became fast friends with Dane the American and Beth and James the English couple. Our cabin became the social hang-out where many card games were played in the air-conditioning. I set my hammock up on our balcony and enjoyed some time swaying in it while staring up into the big bright Amazon night sky... aaahhhh :). On the last night on the boat a big firefly flew aboard, I was totally amazed as I´d never seen one before! We spent a few minutes chasing the glowing beacon of light around the deck. It was so magical! At about 6am on the 6th day we arrived at our destination: the triple frontier -Tabatinga! As we were packing our last few things into our bags we suddenly realised that it felt like we were moving again... slightly puzzled, we opened our cabin door and OH MY GOD!! Tabatinga was fast drifting away from us!!!! Slightly frantic, Ranga´s desperate pleas to the captain to turn around and let us off were ignored. Not even a money bribe worked!! "Sorry, too late" he said (in Portuguese), pushed her out the door and locked it behind her! We were in total despair... apparently the boat was not turning around and returning to Tabatinga until the NEXT DAY!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Thanks to a kind passenger who was heading to the next town (and noticed us hovering around our cabin, whimpering) we discovered that from that next town (one more hour away) we could catch a river taxi (boat) back toTabatinga... and so that´s what we did.

Tabatinga is a small Brazilian town that sits right on the border of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. Its a pretty run-down place with muddy streets and really slow internet, so we went to Colombia to write emails and get icecream. Leticia (Colombia) is a bit more civilised and just 3 minutes away on the back of a motorbike :). But we prefered to sleep in Tabatinga where the beds are cheaper :). We said goodbye to our boat buddies Dane, Beth and James here as they moved on to various places, and we set off for the jungle!!!

Our 3 days in the jungle were at times incredibly uncomfortable (read: we were eaten alive by mosquitoes) and constantly incredible. It was just Ranga, me, Antonio the Spanish guy, our guide Miguel, and our little putt-putt boat driver, Lopez. On day 1 we traveled about 40 mins by our little putt-putt boat to the Gamboa village in Peru, which has about 100 people. Miguel showed us around and introduced us to some of the villagers... one of them had a couple of pet monkeys and a turtle cooking on the fire! We had seen villages just like this from the boat on our trip up the big river and I felt so priviledged to be able to see it up close! In fact, we spent the first night here in a local´s (Noila´s) house (which is better described as a hut). We set up our hammocks in the main room - which also had a tv!! the only tv in the village!!! but apart from the tv and the cds decorating the walls, the house was incredibly basic. No glass in the windows, cracks between all the floor-boards and wall-boards - great for letting all the mozzies in, the roof balancing above with the breeze coming beneath the open rafters (of which Ranga pulled one down with her hammock!!)... the kitchen had a bucket for doing the dishes in, another bucket with clean water in, and an oven made of bricks and planks of wood. You can imagine what the toilet was like!! The whole place was fantastic. The people in the village survive by fishing and selling their catch at the Triple Frontier. They dont even have a shop there. From this village we went on a 3-hour jungle hike with local guide Jose. He slashed a path for us through the vines with his huge machete and we followed him through the clouds of mozzies. The trees were so dense in some parts but not as tall as I expected they would be... we were in the "low" jungle, and it was pretty swampy. It was so incredibly hot in there and we had to wear long sleeves to protect us from the onslaught of mosquitoes (although they bit right through our clothes anyway)... so for most of the 3 hours we were rather uncomfortable... but we were in the JUNGLE! So what did we expect?! :) We saw some monkeys and some macaws, HEAPS of big centipedes and some pretty big spiders. We were introduced to and tasted the sap from the rubber tree, and then shown a poisonous tree which looks exactly the same and has the same looking sap too... That night we went caiman hunting which was SUCH a thrill, putt-putting down the narrow tributaries, with the deep dark jungle on both sides, fireflies sparkling all around... and occassionally the glowing red eyes of caiman in the torch beam! A hunter snake also swam past our boat... but no anaconda unfortunately. The sounds coming from the trees were incredible. The second night we actually spent sleeping in the jungle!! We strung our hammocks and mosquito nets up between the trees and slept exposed to all the critters! It was such a thrill. While we were cooking dinner (chicken) on the campfire our guide pointed out that the shrill peeping sound we could hear in the trees above us was a poisonous snake...that sound continued all night in the trees to which our hammocks were attached! We also lay awake in the darkness fully aware that tarantulas, and the poisonous frogs that we had seen on our night walk, were all around... We all slept quite well! Another highlight was piranha fishing... on our first try I was the only one to catch something - a tiny sardine! But the next day Antonio actually caught a piranha!!! We threw it back after taking the necessary photos. Oh, and I can´t forget the dolphin spotting... we saw lots of grey dolphins and pink ones! Bathing in the river every morning was also a treat, with mud squelching between our toes, fish bumping into our legs and occassionally taking a bite... one tiny fish even fell out of my singlet top when I lifted it to squeeze some water out! The whole experience was fantastic... it will be a highlight of my life I reckon... I am definately going back one day.

Ranga and I arrived in Lima yesterday after spending a few days in Iquitos... a 12 hour "fast" (and dangerously over-crowded) boat ride further up the river from Tabatinga, in Peru. Iquitos is a very rad city of about 500,000. It´s the largest city in the world without road access. There are some really fancy tiled, almost arabic-styled buildings remaining from the rubber-boom days and hundreds of "motocarros" - motorbikes with carriages for passengers on the back - whizzing madly through the streets. We visited another village there - Santa Clara - a suburb of Iquitos really, and again the different lifestyle amazed me. The poverty is extremely apparent, and the smiles on the faces unbelievably big. We also went to a small zoo and FINALLY SAW AN ANACONDA!!! :) In fact we even got to hold her! Her name was Chachito, and she was BEAUTIFUL, just a small one at 3 meters long but very friendly.

We have seen a very grand old monastery here in Lima and we lucky enough to be able to explore it without a guide... even into the underground catacombs where thousands of human bones were piled messily or sorted into various compartments or arranged in patterns... spooky chills down there. Today we caught a bus out to Pachacamarc - a pre-Incan ruins site... and that`s when it hit me that Lima is surrounded in desert. Real sand-dune desert! Its incredible, I've never seen anything like it... its unbelievable all the thousands of shacks built there don`t come sliding down! We leave Lima tomorrow bound for Nazca to see the mystery of the Incan lines. I fear I have written WAY too much for anyone to be bothered reading… but just wanted
to tell you all that THE AMAZON ROCKS! :)

I have put some photos up here: http://wedged.showcard.co.nz/gallery/album37
(there are 3 albums here).

Hope everyone´s all good and not working too hard ;)

Love d xxx