Sunday, March 21, 2010

Busy part 2

We followed up on the weekend getaway to Paracas with another weekend trip to the Amazon, via Iquitos.
Iquitos is interesting. It is only accessible by air or by boat. It's heyday was during the rubber baron era. Today, it has the feel of a frontier town. It's just a little bit wild, and you sort of expect Fitcaraldo to come walking down the street.
These photos are from a sort of petting zoo. The sloths were the favorites, hands down, especially the baby one.
These Boro Indians were displaced from their original communities. The regional government of Iquitos invited them to settle here. They perform traditional songs and dances for tourists and sell their hand-made crafts in a very large hut. Their real village is further into the jungle. Though it all feels very staged and artificial, the argument is that this is a way for them to preserve and share their traditions, not to mention a way to make some money off one of the main local industries, namely tourism.
These photos are from a walk in the jungle, where our guide pointed out interesting plants and their uses. It was raining pretty hard, so we were quickly soaked. Some parts of the trail were muckier than they appeared. at one point Britt ended up in mud up to his thigh, so high in fact that it filled his wellies.
This is Valerie climbing a giant ficus tree, known as the anaconda for it's huge roots.
Trying out blowpipes with another group of displaced indigenous people. These were originally from Ecuador.
The chickens were remarkable for their long, strong legs. And this one really reminded us of the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn.
These are views of the pool and one of the rooms in the lodge where we stayed.
These fish were in a sort of farm in a village along the Amazon river. There were also giant Victoria lilypads, caimans, and a big litter of very small puppies.
From our boat on the actual Amazon, we were able to see severl gray river dolphins. There were also some pink dolphins, known for being quite shy of boats and people, normally. Some people on the boat saw them, but I only saw this one painted on the side of a little shop.
Dinner in Iquitos, sampling the local river fish and the local brew.
The mighty Amazon.

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