We've known Vicky and Dale for 11 years, since the days when Dale and Addison were 4 years old and sharing a cubbie in Ms. Overton's pre-K class. When we all lived in DC, we took several trips together to the beach, and one summer we traveled together in France through the Loire Valley and the D-Day beaches of Normandy. Now we are fellow expats (they live in Qatar), and this month was a chance for us to travel together again, first to the Amazon and then to the southern desert of Peru.
Part I: the Amazon
When most people think of Peru, they picture images of the Andes and Machu Picchu. But Peru is really divided into three distinct regions: the coastal desert (including Lima); the Andes; and the Amazon Rainforest (known here as the selva). And it comes as a great surprise to most of us that the rainforest is by far the largest of those three regions - indeed, it accounts for 2/3 of the country.
Most gringo-tourist-visitors like us head for one of two Amazon destinations: the northern part around Iquitos or the southern part around the Manu National Park.
We picked our Amazonian destination pretty randomly, based largely on an interesting brochure that Vicky had picked up from a travel agent featuring a tourist lodge near Iquitos and various proposed activities. The website looked promising, too, and I'm happy to report that the Amazon Rainforest Lodge (http://amazon-lodge.com/) did indeed offer all the amenities pictured in the promotional materials. We loved it.
We flew into Iquitos, a town only accessible by air or by boat. It's heyday was during the time of the rubber boom, and there are still many remnants of the lovely houses built by local rubber barons. There is even a building that was designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) for one of the Paris international exhibitions. It was dismanteled and moved to the main square of Iquitos, where it stands to this day - a little shabbier for wear, but fun to see nonetheless. There is a boardwalk in Iquitos along one of the tributaries of the Amazon, which is charming.
From there, we were taken in hand by our friendly guide (whose name we were never able to remember). We boarded a small river boat and headed to our lodge, located on the Momon River (another Amazon tributary). On the way, we stopped at a small animal reserve/petting zoo. Here we got to experience some of the local fauna up close, including a VERY friendly woolly monkey named, Pepe, a sweet little sloth (who was much lighter to carry than you'd expect), some spider monkeys, an anaconda (only too happy to wrap itself around us), and some baby alligators (who snapped and wiggled).
The lodge featured wooden bungalows, covered walkways, excellent food, a big pool with water slide, various games (fusball, frog game), and a variety of red and blue macaws (that would say "hola"), one toucan (not very good natured, he bit Valerie), and a tapir named Rigoberto. They also had kayaks that we borrowed to explore the river on our own.
This is the dry season in the Amazon. There was still water everywhere, but less than in the southern hemisphere summer. The greatest advantage is that there are far fewer mosquitos. We got a few bites, but nothing like what you see at other times of the year. We did have some painful encounters with red ants, and a huge black variety with 1/2 inch long mandibles that our guide had to dig out of Valerie's foot. Another difference in the dry season is that you can walk on paths that require a canoe in the wet season. This allowed us to see interesting trees and plants up close, and to try our hands at crossing rickety bridges. Of course, it is the rainforest, so we did get our taste of tropical showers - that warm, soaking rain that features BIG drops of water and only lasts 30 minutes or so. Then the sun would come back out. It was about 75-80 degrees F. Pretty ideal.
Our organized activities included several visits to "indigenous villages". I mean, of course there are real indigenous people in the Amazon, and they have been involved in serious clashes with the Peruvian government lately. But the stuff we saw was clearly directed at tourists. It was pretty clear that at a given hour each day, the bell would go off and all the villagers would trade their t-shirts and shorts for grass skirts to perform for the tourists. Fair enough. Selling their local wares is clearly a main source of money, and we were happy to go along with that. We did get to try out a blow pipe. Though Dale and Addison had no problem, I was glad I didn't have to rely on my blowing skills to bring down dinner.
We did visit one authentic village, where one man has a sugar cane factory, as they called it. Basically, he had a small machine into which he would feed a stalk of sugar cane to extract the juice - a surprisingly large amount for each stalk, in fact. He was very tall and lanky. Everyone in the village was clearly very poor, but there was a school building, and a bridge to the water built by Alberto Fugimori (former president of Peru, now serving a 25 year term for corruption and also accused of other nasty crimes).
We also went fishing for piranhas. This was interesting, not for the catches, but for the experience of seeing how clever they were and quick at retrieving the bait within instants without getting caught on the hook. We managed to fish out only a few very small ones. Luckily, we weren't counting on our catch for dinner.
In many ways, the best part was just experiencing the river and all the sounds, smells, plants, and life of the jungle. One night, they took us up river a bit in a boat and let us drift back down, just so that we could hear the night animals. There was a bright moon and many stars - most of which we didn't recognize, since we have yet to learn our way around the southern hemisphere sky (too hazy in Lima).
On our final day, we took another boat ride to a spot where the Momon River meets up with the Amazon River. The line between the two is very distinctive, as the Momon is very black from the tannin in the plants, while the Amazon is very brown. Here we also looked for river dolphin. We didn't get to see the famous pink ones, they are evidently very shy. But we did get to see some gray river dolphins jumping along merrily.
Our only negative experience came at the end of our trip. We had several hours to kill in Iquitos before our flight back to Lima. We wanted to go for a ride in one of the 3-wheeled motorcycle-taxi things that you see all over Peru (sort of like a motorized rickshaw). So we hopped into 2 of them and asked them to take us to the Belen Market. The market is listed in guidebooks as a place to visit. In the wet season, you go by boat. I wouldn't recommend it either way. We'd been warned in town to be careful there. And sure enough, within minutes one kid stole my camera, grabbed it from my hands as I was taking a photo, and another tried to grab my bag (luckily, I was able to hang on to it). The people on the streets just shrugged and told us we shouldn't be there. So we left. It was frustrating to lose the camera, especially all of my photos from the Amazon. But I also figure that we were lucky. It was more easy to replace a camera than a stolen credit card, bank card, passport, plane ticket, etc. And it was clearly an opportunistic thing. If the locals had really wanted to rob us, it would not have been that hard. We stuck out like sore thumbs.
Back in central Iquitos, we recovered by eating ice cream and walking a bit on the boardwalk, where we were treated to a huge, double rainbow. We also had some interesting drinks, including a cocktail made with a local alcohol called 7 Raices (seven roots), that helped lift our spirits.
Below are some photos from Addison's camera.
Iquitos
Dale and Addison
Dale and Pepe the persistent woolly monkey. Pepe liked being on our heads.
Addison and anaconda
pensive spider monkey
Just before a big storm
Momon River, from our lodge
Valerie with baby alligators and an anaconda
Pepe, the woolly monkey holding tightly onto Valerie.
boats for gringos, like us
Part I: the Amazon
When most people think of Peru, they picture images of the Andes and Machu Picchu. But Peru is really divided into three distinct regions: the coastal desert (including Lima); the Andes; and the Amazon Rainforest (known here as the selva). And it comes as a great surprise to most of us that the rainforest is by far the largest of those three regions - indeed, it accounts for 2/3 of the country.
Most gringo-tourist-visitors like us head for one of two Amazon destinations: the northern part around Iquitos or the southern part around the Manu National Park.
We picked our Amazonian destination pretty randomly, based largely on an interesting brochure that Vicky had picked up from a travel agent featuring a tourist lodge near Iquitos and various proposed activities. The website looked promising, too, and I'm happy to report that the Amazon Rainforest Lodge (http://amazon-lodge.com/) did indeed offer all the amenities pictured in the promotional materials. We loved it.
We flew into Iquitos, a town only accessible by air or by boat. It's heyday was during the time of the rubber boom, and there are still many remnants of the lovely houses built by local rubber barons. There is even a building that was designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) for one of the Paris international exhibitions. It was dismanteled and moved to the main square of Iquitos, where it stands to this day - a little shabbier for wear, but fun to see nonetheless. There is a boardwalk in Iquitos along one of the tributaries of the Amazon, which is charming.
From there, we were taken in hand by our friendly guide (whose name we were never able to remember). We boarded a small river boat and headed to our lodge, located on the Momon River (another Amazon tributary). On the way, we stopped at a small animal reserve/petting zoo. Here we got to experience some of the local fauna up close, including a VERY friendly woolly monkey named, Pepe, a sweet little sloth (who was much lighter to carry than you'd expect), some spider monkeys, an anaconda (only too happy to wrap itself around us), and some baby alligators (who snapped and wiggled).
The lodge featured wooden bungalows, covered walkways, excellent food, a big pool with water slide, various games (fusball, frog game), and a variety of red and blue macaws (that would say "hola"), one toucan (not very good natured, he bit Valerie), and a tapir named Rigoberto. They also had kayaks that we borrowed to explore the river on our own.
This is the dry season in the Amazon. There was still water everywhere, but less than in the southern hemisphere summer. The greatest advantage is that there are far fewer mosquitos. We got a few bites, but nothing like what you see at other times of the year. We did have some painful encounters with red ants, and a huge black variety with 1/2 inch long mandibles that our guide had to dig out of Valerie's foot. Another difference in the dry season is that you can walk on paths that require a canoe in the wet season. This allowed us to see interesting trees and plants up close, and to try our hands at crossing rickety bridges. Of course, it is the rainforest, so we did get our taste of tropical showers - that warm, soaking rain that features BIG drops of water and only lasts 30 minutes or so. Then the sun would come back out. It was about 75-80 degrees F. Pretty ideal.
Our organized activities included several visits to "indigenous villages". I mean, of course there are real indigenous people in the Amazon, and they have been involved in serious clashes with the Peruvian government lately. But the stuff we saw was clearly directed at tourists. It was pretty clear that at a given hour each day, the bell would go off and all the villagers would trade their t-shirts and shorts for grass skirts to perform for the tourists. Fair enough. Selling their local wares is clearly a main source of money, and we were happy to go along with that. We did get to try out a blow pipe. Though Dale and Addison had no problem, I was glad I didn't have to rely on my blowing skills to bring down dinner.
We did visit one authentic village, where one man has a sugar cane factory, as they called it. Basically, he had a small machine into which he would feed a stalk of sugar cane to extract the juice - a surprisingly large amount for each stalk, in fact. He was very tall and lanky. Everyone in the village was clearly very poor, but there was a school building, and a bridge to the water built by Alberto Fugimori (former president of Peru, now serving a 25 year term for corruption and also accused of other nasty crimes).
We also went fishing for piranhas. This was interesting, not for the catches, but for the experience of seeing how clever they were and quick at retrieving the bait within instants without getting caught on the hook. We managed to fish out only a few very small ones. Luckily, we weren't counting on our catch for dinner.
In many ways, the best part was just experiencing the river and all the sounds, smells, plants, and life of the jungle. One night, they took us up river a bit in a boat and let us drift back down, just so that we could hear the night animals. There was a bright moon and many stars - most of which we didn't recognize, since we have yet to learn our way around the southern hemisphere sky (too hazy in Lima).
On our final day, we took another boat ride to a spot where the Momon River meets up with the Amazon River. The line between the two is very distinctive, as the Momon is very black from the tannin in the plants, while the Amazon is very brown. Here we also looked for river dolphin. We didn't get to see the famous pink ones, they are evidently very shy. But we did get to see some gray river dolphins jumping along merrily.
Our only negative experience came at the end of our trip. We had several hours to kill in Iquitos before our flight back to Lima. We wanted to go for a ride in one of the 3-wheeled motorcycle-taxi things that you see all over Peru (sort of like a motorized rickshaw). So we hopped into 2 of them and asked them to take us to the Belen Market. The market is listed in guidebooks as a place to visit. In the wet season, you go by boat. I wouldn't recommend it either way. We'd been warned in town to be careful there. And sure enough, within minutes one kid stole my camera, grabbed it from my hands as I was taking a photo, and another tried to grab my bag (luckily, I was able to hang on to it). The people on the streets just shrugged and told us we shouldn't be there. So we left. It was frustrating to lose the camera, especially all of my photos from the Amazon. But I also figure that we were lucky. It was more easy to replace a camera than a stolen credit card, bank card, passport, plane ticket, etc. And it was clearly an opportunistic thing. If the locals had really wanted to rob us, it would not have been that hard. We stuck out like sore thumbs.
Back in central Iquitos, we recovered by eating ice cream and walking a bit on the boardwalk, where we were treated to a huge, double rainbow. We also had some interesting drinks, including a cocktail made with a local alcohol called 7 Raices (seven roots), that helped lift our spirits.
Below are some photos from Addison's camera.
Iquitos
Dale and Addison
Dale and Pepe the persistent woolly monkey. Pepe liked being on our heads.
Addison and anaconda
pensive spider monkey
Just before a big storm
Momon River, from our lodge
Valerie with baby alligators and an anaconda
Pepe, the woolly monkey holding tightly onto Valerie.
boats for gringos, like us
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