Welcome to the Jungle

We arrived in Iquitos on Friday 13th, a great day to fly. We even sat in aisle 13. A shifty Japanese man bailed out of the aisle as soon as the plane took off. He seemed superstitious. Iquitos is the world´s largest city inaccessable by road. It´s a little larger than Halifax and they serve peaches on their Hawaiian pizzas.

After a Coca Cola breakfast we hopped into our vessel with two environmentalists from Lima, and our guide Juan Carlos, for the four hour trip down the Amazon River to the lodge where we would spend the next six days. The Amazon River is big and brown, and goes up and down- depending on the season. Most folks in the villages (pueblos) use dugout canoes and big bottom slapping paddles to cruise the river. Our speedboat waves were a little aggressive. We kind of stuck out like palm trees in the arctic, but there were a few other tourists around, most not so far down river. White folks in the jungle look strange, but what are you gonna do?

There were two German tourists at the lodge when we arrived, and with our neophyte enthusiasm we asked them how long they had been, and how they liked it. They appeared dazed and listless, like people who wanted off a Survivor show. They said they´d been four days, and they described it as "hot." We thought their description lacked imagination, however we lunched with them, and pitied them a little. In the end their description was apt, terse, and accurate. The best way to describe the jungle is "hot." Hot like a summer attic, or a Saturday night at Tribeca, with big Timmy bussin - "Uno, dos, tres, quatro!!"

The lodge had adopted two monkeys, a baby sloth, and two macaws. Poncho, the little capuchin monkey stole the show. His best trick was XXX, so we won´t go into it, however he was adroit at picking termite nests from the palmed roof in our room and smashing the dry clay abodes on our hammocking heads to uncover and dine on the unsuspecting insects cuddling in their combs. Juan Carlos buys animals in Iquitos who have been captured, and brings them to the lodge to freedom. Apparently tourists buy the animals, as well as skins, claws, teeth, bones, etc,. Often people buy these items in jewelery and don´t realize the impact.

Believe it or not, we tented in the jungle one night. Our guides, Paco and Hitler (yes, Hitler, that´s his first name given to him by his godfather -- we suggested changing it to Mitchell or something less controversial) told us the hike to camp would be two or three hours. It was FIVE hours through rough jungle brush, Paco literally clearing the way with a machete. We felt like we were in Nam. We were drenched in sweat within 10 minutes and the heat didn´t let up. Don´t even get me started on the humidity or the mosquitos and biting ants.

Paco and Hitler also took us piranha fishing (our lunch) and caiman catching. To see caiman from the canoe, you shine a flashlight and their eyes glow red. It was eerie and beautiful to be in the little canoe at night. The sky was brightly speckled in foreign constellations and the lake lettuce shone with phosphorescence.

Just when we thought the jungle didn´t have any more surprises, our cook Henri turned out to be the winner of the Miss Jungle Drag Pageant. He even showed us a photo of the contest. The photo was almost ruined by Poncho´s antics... he had gotten into the eggs and broken them on the photo. Maybe he was jealous.

And we´re back, Mike and Kristen