The journey today wasn’t too bad as in the last 6 months they have made a proper road and it only took 3 hours. I imagine if we had have come a year ago we would not have been able to have got here as there was torrential rain and there were minor land slides most of the way, with a dirt track it would have been impassable.
When we arrived as usual we were seized by a hoard of taxi drivers (well tuk tuk drivers) our luggage was thrown into two before we could make up our mind what we were doing and we were driven to a posh hotel where a man who spoke good English invited us inside to discuss our options! This was obviously all a set up but we heard what he had to say, we knew the best boats to get to Iquitios were the Eduardo boats and that was who he worked for and who owned the hotel. After much discussion we decided to get a cabin as opposed to hammocks on the deck, it would have been fun to have been sleeping outside on hammocks but we would have had to have slept with all our gear and there is only a couple of toilets for a couple of hundred people, we’d also have to have bought a hammock each and blankets and a mosquito net, so we opted for a cabin. We also negotiated to stay in the hotel for tonight and go on a boat trip for the afternoon, all together for a posh hotel and breakfast, a 4 hour trip on a canoe boat and 3 days and 2 nights with food was £75 each, which is OK. (obviously by our standards it is really cheap but we are getting more used to Peruvian prices now!)
Our trip up the river this afternoon was great. It felt so exciting to be on the river (it isn’t actually the Amazon but a tributary which runs into the Amazon). We saw lots of bright beautiful birds, river fish jumping all the time, a couple of river dolphins and a sloth up a tree! The sun was setting as we came back and the sky was beautiful. We are very lucky to be experiencing this!
Our boat supposedly leaves tomorrow afternoon, although times can and do regularly change, as it is a cargo boat it leaves when it has enough cargo (we were told today that the cargo and the people are only a rouse as the main cargo is coca leaves which are being smuggled in hidden compartments at the bottom of the boats… not sure how much of that I believe!). The trip should take 3 days and 2 nights. I will give a full report when we arrive in Iquitios!
Our trip up the river this afternoon was great. It felt so exciting to be on the river (it isn’t actually the Amazon but a tributary which runs into the Amazon). We saw lots of bright beautiful birds, river fish jumping all the time, a couple of river dolphins and a sloth up a tree! The sun was setting as we came back and the sky was beautiful. We are very lucky to be experiencing this!
Our boat supposedly leaves tomorrow afternoon, although times can and do regularly change, as it is a cargo boat it leaves when it has enough cargo (we were told today that the cargo and the people are only a rouse as the main cargo is coca leaves which are being smuggled in hidden compartments at the bottom of the boats… not sure how much of that I believe!). The trip should take 3 days and 2 nights. I will give a full report when we arrive in Iquitios!
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