Iquitos & the Amazon Jungle

25 - 30 April


I had an early flight out of Lima to Iquitos, a city of about 600,000 people in Peru's northwest, and Peru's gateway to the Amazon. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that is not accessible from the outside by road. While there are roads in and around the city, you can only get in by boat or plane.

The Amazonian Jungle is, quite simply, HUGE.

The flight stopped off in a town called Pucallpa, and as we descended into this little town the expanse of the Amazonian Jungle started to become evident. Everywhere, in all directions, was a flat expanse of trees. The amazing thing is, we then flew for another 1.5 hours or so to Iquitos (which is still a LONG way from where the Amazon enters the Atlantic) - seeing just more flat expanses of trees.

The Amazon rainforest, seemingly going on for ever

There were three rather notable things about Iquitos. The first is the humidity - while I was somewhat expecting it, I've never experienced such a hot and humid climate before, and I was continuously sweating all times of the day and night.

The second is the mototaxis - due to Iquitos' isolation by road, all vehicles are shipped in by boat, making them expensive, and motorbikes (and mototaxis) are much more cost-effective.

Mototaxis in Iquitos - it's often unusual to see a normal car

The third is the floating suburb of Belen. Being adjacent to the river, Iquitos is subject to rising and falling water levels. The residents of this relatively poor neighbourhood therefore built their houses to float with the seasonal water level changes.

The floating suburb of Belen, which might look a lot prettier if it wasn't for all the rubbish floating in the river. The wooden boards are used to walk from the shore to the houses.

My main reason for being in Iquitos was that it is an excellent place to head to a jungle lodge to get a real taste of the Amazon and it's wildlife. There's lots within about 150 km of Iquitos, but the owner of my hostel - Katoo - had a small, simple lodge on his own private land some 400 km away (generally, the further from the city the more wildlife you see). However he has also spent the last few years rehabilitating this land.

As much as you hear about the devastation of the Amazonian rainforest, I didn't really know much about it until I was there. In Peru especially, there are still major problems with deforestation - many communities survive only because of the money they make from selling wood, not helped in the least by a somewhat corrupted government. The law stipulates that any one person or organisation may only take 80 trees per year - so the large logging companies just buy 80 trees off every local they can find, and the government hasn't bothered to do anything about it. The presence of large oil companies looking for oil is also a major issue.

In Katoo's "Reserva Tapiche Ohara", he has now forbidden any logging, or any hunting of bush meat (the locals like to hunt tortoises, birds or anything else they can eat). While this in itself is a start to helping the wildlife and their environment, it also means the reserve is now full or wildlife that have nothing to scare them away. The income he generates from bringing tourists into his land he hopes to use to increase his land and save a wee bit more of the forest. So, myself, Rogier (Holland) and Chris (Canada) set off to see it.

Being so far away, it was a 1.5-hour drive followed by a 6-7 hour boat ride to get to his lodge, mostly racing through Amazonian jungle with trees on all sides and several small villages of thatched huts on the riverbanks. We had a couple of stops for lunch (in a small town) and a coconut (at a little community where all the men walked around with machetes and we sat in a little thatched hut with a little pet bird and drank our coconut juice then ate it from the inside!).

Floating houses just off the town of Requena

Downing some very refreshing coconut juice at the village of Galicia

Being so long travelling, we arrived late in the evening to the simple lodge, with a generator for an hour of electricity each night and sleeping in hammocks. While simple it was perfectly comfortable for a couple of days.

Tapiche Ohara Lodge

We left almost at dawn the next morning in a pair of dug-out canoes. Being the end of the high-water season, much of the forest was still flooded, making a canoe the best way to go searching for wildlife due to it being virtually silent, compared to bush-bashing. We saw several toucans, kingfishers, a sloth way up in a tree, the head of a caiman swimming away, had breakfast with some lovely blue butterflies, and spotted a squirrel and finally a capuchin monkey and a few spider monkeys - but our guides told us this was a pretty "disappointing" collection! On the way back I had a little frog riding on my shoulder for a few minutes too.

Canoeing through the flooded jungle

After lunch, we headed into a small lagoon and went for a bush walk. Our guides told us about the rubber trees (a huge industrial boom in Iquitos around 1880-1910), spotted a tree iguana and a very well-preserved recent jaguar footprint. Then, as we were coming back, our guide Hector, just behind me, suddenly spotted a snake.

It seemed that the other 4 of us had just walked within a metre of an Amazonian Bushmaster, one of the most dangerous snakes in the rainforest. It had slithered away a few metres just after I walked past, which made Hector see it. It was some 3 metres long, a sort of light brown with dark brown stripes - and Katoo cheerfully told us that if it bit any of us they'd be performing an impromptu amputation as we wouldn't have enough time to get to the hospital. Eventually we retreated back a bit and the snake shuffled away, but for 3 or 4 minutes, there were 3 very nervous tourists!

The Bushmaster!

Jaguar footprint

As it grew dark, we heard some howler monkeys nearby. These are the loudest animals in the world, and just 2 or 3 of them can make a noise that sounds somewhat like a row of motorbikes revving up at the startline of a race. They can be heard a long way in every direction. We managed to creep up on them and spot them up in the trees, although they heard our clumsy bush-crashing and went dead silent and still until we retreated. We stumbled back through the gathering darkness to our boat and back to the lodge.

Howler monkeys roaring nearby

The next day we were again up bright and early, and motored off to a nearby creek. As soon as we turned off the motor, we saw some spider monkeys, a very small variety that was playing around at the edge of the creek and watching us. It was the start of an incredible morning of seeing wildlife - in total, we saw 8 varieties of monkey (spider, squirrel, howler, and a number of different capuchins, one crossing the creek near us and some spider monkeys playing in a tree above us), an awesome anteater, a South American racoon, a huge number of great egrets and other birds, including babies, at a nesting area, swam in a lagoon (where piranhas were also, apparently!), saw an impressive large falcon, and heard the rather frightening grunts of another caiman very nearby.

Spot the toucan (difficulty level: 2)!

Spot the brown capuchin monkey (difficulty level: 3)!

The same brown capuchin monkey clambering around the trees to cross the creek

Spot the anteater (difficulty level: 4)!

Going for a swim to relieve the sweat!

The bird nesting area

Baby birds in their nest

We'd put out a net and caught a few fish for dinner (one of which had it's eyes eaten out by a piranha while still alive - ick!), and headed back for lunch. In the afternoon we wandered around a bit in the canoe, theoretically fishing but without much success. Instead, we were visited by some of the famous river dolphins, known locally as bufeos. They have a slightly different build to a sea dolphin, and come in two varieties - the smaller, more common grey dolphin, and the larger, rarer pink dolphin (yes, they do exist, as bizarre as it sounds!). The Amazon water is very dark, but we were lucky enough to have a group around us play around a bit and come up to the surface for some air. Unfortunately they were almost impossible to get a photo of!

We also got a bit of a fright when paddling into a little backwater to try another spot for fishing - a tree viper, maybe "only" 2.5 metres long this time, sitting in the tree we were passing under. Hector cheerfully told us this one would also be doing a fair bit of damage if he attacked too, and when the viper climbed a bit higher, continued to paddle the boat under the tree! After a minute of protesting, we retreated to the main river.

Then, the jungle downpour hit! We waited it out for 30 minutes at Hector's house before returning to the lodge for another excellent dinner and an early night. We were up at 5.30am for the return trip to Iquitos and were rewarded with a stunning dawn over the trees as we headed back along the river.

Dawn on the Tapiche River as we headed back to Iquitos

We had the afternoon off to catch up on emails and grab a beer with Katoo, Rogier & Chris, and I sorted everything out for the next journey - the speedboat to the Colombia/Brazil/Peru border, a full day trip leaving at 6am. It was my last day in Peru, after 89 days my visa was due to expire and I was ready for some new adventures in Colombia. Bring it on!

The sprawl of Lima

April 21 - 24

After 4 days on the coast of Peru south of Lima, I took one of the every-7-minutes buses from Ica to Lima. We seemed to drive for ages in the city before getting to the bus terminal - Lima is a city of about 8 million people, or roughly twice the number of the whole of New Zealand.

The historical centre of Lima has been abandoned by many of the large businesses and hotels/hostels, which are instead centred around Miraflores to the south of the city centre, so this is where I booked into a hostel and went to find something to eat. Immediately it felt different to anywhere else I'd been in Peru - it was very obvious this was the rich part of town, with malls, expensive restaurants & hotels, tidy well-kept streets, and high rise apartments. It all felt very Westernized - and I can't say I liked it much after Cusco.

There aren't too many activities to do in Lima, but I headed into the historical centre the next day for a day of sightseeing. There was a reasonable amount of national pride evident in the centre of Peru's capital, and I watched the very pompous, ceremonial changing of the guard at the government palace. There were a large number of churches, small plazas and government buildings. Next to the Congress building I visited a small museum with some interesting exhibits on the Spanish Inquisition in South America as well as Peru's first constitutions after declaring independence from Spain.

Cathedral and Plaza de Armas

Band playing before the change of guard

The pompous change of guard ceremony

Congress building with statue of Simon Bolivar, the "Liberator" who fought for South American independence from Spain

In the middle of the river encircling the city, they were undertaking a large-scale construction of a tunnel under the Rimac River, to take the Pan American highway. The information panels described how they would build April to December, then forget about it during the rainy season* for 3 months, spend a month repairing the damage, then continue again. It looked like an interesting process - and the first time I'd really thought about anything from a civil engineering perspective for quite a while!

*(When I say rainy season - it barely ever rains in Lima, but the river takes a lot of rain from mountains further inland).

I got my lunch in one of the markets, which might be a little less safe for eating, but I've had very few problems with "street food" and it's a lot cheaper. There's often heaps of these places, all serving the menú del día, usually sopa y segundo (soup &  second course) with a refresco, a sort of cordial-type drink, for about 4 soles (less than $2). I love perching on the little stools and eating at these sorts of places, and grabbing a freshly prepared juice from a jugueria afterwards.

The sort of "menus" on display in the street and in the locals markets

Unfortunately, the Miraflores area seems to be too "upper-class" for any of these sorts of places. I struggled to find dinner for anything less than 13-15 soles, and was actually a bit frustrated at how Westernized the area was.

I took a "tour" up Cerro San Cristobal, a hill looking over the city. The short bus trip passed through a much poorer part of the city and clarified the massive disparity in wealth in Lima. The views from the top where interesting - there was a lot of city to see - but would have been much more impressive without the inevitable blanket of smog.

From Cerro San Cristobal looking down over central Lima

A lot of Lima was quite nicely landscaped. In particular there were lots of tropical-looking palm trees and some big wide avenues (unfortunately full of honking cars and old smoky buses). I liked some of the little quirks of Lima, reasonable typical of any large South American city - the food stalls, the locals markets and the streetside money changers...

Avenida Arequipa, which runs between Lima central and Miraflores

Food stall on the riverfront - Arroz con leche is a dessert-type dish of rice & milk

The street-changers - always gesturing to you with their calculators, they're notorious for hand tricks and fake notes

The next day I went for a walk down to the Miraflores beachfront. It wasn't much of a place, and despite being a hot sunny day in the main Miraflores area, within 1km or so of the coast it was draped in a gloomy sea fog - which can apparently get a lot worse later in the year. Otherwise, there were just more high-rise apartments, casinos and expensive hotels. However, on the way I walk through Parque 7 de Junio (7 of June), which I thought was a bit of a novelty (it's my birthday)!

Parque 7 de Junio - named after the date of Battle of Arica in 1880 between Chile and Peru, where the Peruvians battled "valiantly and with dignity in defence of their country"

My hostel I'd originally been in was booked out by a tour group, so I moved to another place that was very obviously catering for the gringo - and in particular the non-Spanish speaking gringo. It was nice there, but I really felt that people staying in these sorts of places really aren't experiencing what South America is actually like. It made me even more grateful for the awesome experiences I had in Cusco with a host family and the volunteering project.

However, they did have a rooftop bar with the Champions League on - so I took an afternoon off doing touristy things and had a quiet beer, checked some emails and just relaxed.

My last day in Lima, I headed for Huaca Pucllana, an archaeological site discovered under a small central city hill just 40 years ago. The Lima (300-700 AD), Wari (700-900 AD) & Ychsma (1000-1470 AD) cultures, all pre-Inca, lived in the area. The site was a pyramid-type construction of mud bricks, with each layer of the pyramid believed to be constructed over the tombs of each high priest when they died.

The pyramid of Huaca Pucllana

View from the top with the city surrounding it on all sides - more of the site is buried under some of the surrounding buildings

The guide described the mud bricks as being in a "bookshelf" type formation, which was believed to be developed as effective under earthquake shaking. The mud bricks - which used crushed sea shells to act as a kind of cement - work perfectly fine in construction, because of the year-round lack of rain in Lima.

The "bookshelf" type construction of mud bricks

After that, I walked back towards the main historical centre - which really was a long way - and managed to find another locals market for lunch. I walked through the Gran Parque de la Exposicion and past the massive national stadium, but what I really wanted to see was the Parque de la Reserva. Only open 3-11pm 4 days of the week, it's there for the Circuito Mágico del Agua (Magic Water Tour), containing some 13 massive water fountains, accompanied by some music. They really were quite impressive...

Fuente Mágica

Fuente Túnel de las Sorpresas
(Tunnel of Surprises)

Fuente de la Fantasia

Unnamed - but I guess it could be called The Teapot?

The fountains were definitely my highlight in Lima - the only disappointment was that I couldn't go later at night - when the fountains are decorated with lights as well - but I was heading to yet another hostel, this time one within a few blocks of the airport on the other side of town. I had to be at the airport at 5am for my flight to Iquitos and didn't want to be taking a one-hour long taxi ride at that time of the morning.

So, thus ended my travels around Lima. It was more interesting to observe some of the differences to the rest of Peru, rather than being generally enjoyable, so I wasn't too sad to be heading off for one of the long-awaited highlights - the Amazonian jungle!

The Peruvian Coastal Desert - Nazca, Paracas & Huacachina

17 - 20 April

Nazca

The overnight bus left Cusco at 4pm on the 16th and arrived in Nazca almost 15 hours later, at 6.45am on the 17th. The trip was pretty boring - mostly in the dark - but they had 2 movies in Spanish with English subtitles and a decent dinner, and I managed a good sleep on the full cama seat/bed.

Someone from the hostel met me at the bus station and they let me into my room, at 7am in the morning. Then I headed to the airport for a flight over the famous Nazca Lines. I got shuffled into a little Cessna 206 with one other tourist, a pilot and a co-pilot and off we went!

The patterns were pretty incredible, and somewhat unbelievable. There's also a lot of straight lines, some of which go for a long way, all perfectly straight, between patterns. The views of the township and across the desert were also pretty impressive.

Our little plane just before we took off

The Astronaut (in the far left of the dark hills)

The Monkey (upper left, with a big curly tail) and some other lines

The Hummingbird, on the plateau in the foreground, with the background view 

The flight was pretty uncomfortable, with some tight turns to look at the patterns better and a bit of turbulence to boot.

One last tight turn to land back at the airport

All in all, it was pretty expensive but still kinda worth it - although it only lasted just over half an hour!

I explored the town a bit for the rest of the morning - it was a pretty small, dusty place really, though there were lots of locals going about their business. In the afternoon I went on a tour of a couple of other historical places. First were the Cantayoc Aqueducts, constructed by the ancient Nazcans before the Incan empire in about 500 AD. They passed water (and still do) from the underground aquifers for agriculture, since the coastal desert gets just 2 cm of rain per year. They consist of a number of stone spiral holes used to aerate the water.

Down inside a Canayoc Aqueduct spiral

After that we visited a viewpoint of a couple of other symbols drawn in the earth, and the Paredones ruins. That night, I visited the Maria Reiche Planetorium, named after the German woman who dedicated her life to the study of the Nazca Lines. They had a very interesting presentation about the potential meanings of the lines, and also let us use their telescope, which got us cool views of Jupiter and Saturn, but in particular of the half-full moon...

A photo of the moon taken through the telescope

Paracas

The next day I'd wanted to go to the desert oasis of Huacachina, but the hostel a few friends had recommended was full, so I booked for the next night and went instead to Paracas. My very helpful hostel owner in Nazca described for me how to get there on the local transport - two buses, a collectivo and then another bus and I eventually arrived in Paracas, seeing the sea for the first time in almost 3 months.

Paracas beachfront

I managed to find a cheapish hostel with an empty dormitory with a sea view, and got myself a beer on the rooftop balcony to watch the sunset. Being by the sea, I thought I should eat fish, so tried ceviche, a Peruvian specialty consisting of raw fish and a lot of lemon juice. While it was nice to try, I didn't enjoy it much... I enjoyed more having a drink in an empty bar and talking to the barman - in Spanish - for about an hour about the vagaries of the world!

The next morning I joined the hoard of tourists doing just about the only thing there is to do in Paracas - a tour of the Islas Ballestas. Considered one of the best places in the world to see marine birdlife, it's absolutely covered in guana (ie. bird poop!) and literally thousands and thousands of birds, and a few sea lions. It all seemed a bit touristy, but was quite interesting with an informative guide.

Massive rock arches covered in birds (and bird poop)

A mother sea lion teaching her new-born to swim

Birds everywhere

A lazy sea lion with a bird-covered islet behind

In the afternoon I did the only other thing to do in Paracas - a tour of Reserva Paracas. For some reason - I think there were only just too many people for one bus - I ended up in a private car for the tour with 2 others and a Spanish-speaking guide. He talked slowly for me and I managed to understand most of it! There wasn't too much to see - a lot of sand dunes, a few fossils and some interesting coastal cliff formations. Lunch was at a tiny overpriced fishing village, where the Peruvian pelicans were the star highlight.

The road in the desert stretching off into the distance

Peruvian pelicans and a couple of other birds perched on a guana-covered rock

Huacachina

After the tour I backtracked my way to Huacachina. Centred around a tiny lake, this desert oasis, 5 minutes out of Ica, is all hotels, hostels, restaurants, tour agencies and souvenir shops. However, it was an awesome place to chill for a few days, reading in a hammock, drinking a beer by the pool and just relaxing.

The stunning desert oasis of Huacachina

The second day, later in the evening when it was a bit cooler, I joined a dune buggy trip up into the sand dunes. They're huge and stretch on for ever...

Dusk on the sand dunes

The dune buggy trip in itself was pretty exciting. As the driver dropped it down steep slopes it felt almost like a rollercoaster ride - a couple of girls in the back screaming like it was one! The also brought some sandboards and everyone had a turn at hurtling down massive sandy slopes on a bit of wood...

I never did try snowboarding...

As we came back we got some stunning views of the sunset. The colours in the sky with the foreground of massive sand dunes was quite impressive.

I didn't really want to leave the next morning - the pool was so inviting - but had decided to spend a few days in Lima before my next big adventure, a flight to Iquitos and the Amazon jungle. So I headed back into Ica, from where I caught a local bus from a company called Soyuz to Lima. They have so many people taking this route, or part of it, that they have a 60-seater bus leaving on the 6-hour route every seven minutes during the day! I'll be posting about Lima and Iquitos in a few days.