Our flight from Caracas to Lima was delayed by nearly 2 hours, as there was some last minute baggage check by the government. We had already boarded the plane so we had to wait in our seats for the flight to leave. We were sitting at the back of the plane and unfortunately the aircon was broken, and they had a heater pumping hot air next to my seat, so it was boiling. After about an hour we complained and the air hostess moved us to the front of the plane where it was blissfully cool. As our flight was delayed by 2 hours it was around midnight by the time we landed in Lima, and around 1h00 by the time we got to the hostel.
We were shown to our room and passed out soon after.
We had 1 day in Lima before catching our flight out to Iquitos, so we got a taxi from outside the hostel into Centro to have a look around. I have to say that my first impressions of Lima were not great. The area around the airport that our hostel was in was pretty run down, and we drove through some well dodgy areas before getting to Centro. Thankfully Centro itself was better so we felt safe walking around town. We went to the Plaza de Armas (every city seems to have one and the army puts on a parade their on Sunday) and got some lunch, then walked to another square and took some pictures.. On the way we managed to find a supermarket to pick up some dinner for back at the hostel. At this point it was rush hour and the sun was starting to set, so we thought we had better get a taxi back to the hostel before it got too dark, seeing as the areas between us and the hostel were dodgy. So we hailed a taxi and gave them the hostels card with the address on it (includes small map) and asked them how much to take us there. The taxi driver took ages scrutinising the card and then said he didn’t know where the place was! So we hailed another taxi and the next one took a look and then just said No he didn’t want to take us there, maybe he didn’t want to leave centro at rush hour to head out to the airport side. So with bated breath we hailed a third taxi and tried him. Thankfully he conceded to taking us to our hostel! I mean really, do they want our business or not? We were starting to get worried about how we were going to get back. The one strange thing I noticed about Lima is that all the buildings appear to be unfinished. There are usually some walls without a roof on the top of a building, or some metal rods sticking out the top, as though they are about to build another level. I don’t know why this is the case for nearly all the buildings, perhaps some sort of loophole that allows them to dodge their rates and taxes I don’t know. So that was pretty much Lima part 1 for us.
The following morning we took a taxi to the airport and flew out to Iquitos, which is the launching point for a lot of trips down the Amazon. We had prebooked into a small lodge for 5 nights called Muyuna, which was around 3 hours upriver from Iquitos itself. However we were staying 1 night in Iquitos before going to the lodge, as they wanted to collect us at 9h00 and we hadn’t fancied a 6h00 flight out of Lima to make the pickup. On coming out of Iquitos airport we were met by a load of Motokars and some normal cars, so with all our luggage we chose a normal car taxi and went to the Flying Dog hostel. My first impression of Iquitos was that the roads are manic and filled with hundreds of these Motokars which seems to be an Iquitos speciality. A motokar is like a motorbike that has been converted in to a 3 wheeler with a cart at the back that can carry 2 passengers. I guess as Iquitos is inaccessible by road (rivers all around it), it means that there are less cars available (more difficult to get them in by boat) and this had lead to more motokars instead. Our taxi driver was chatting away in Spanish, and I told him that we don’t speak any Spanish (no hablo espanol) but this didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to be our tour guide, pointing out areas of interest on the way to the hostel, although we didn’t understand much of what he said. Along the way he handed us a brochure for an amazon tour company and we tried to explain that we had already prebooked a lodge, but he didn’t speak any English. He promptly proceeded to call someone on his mobile and I didn’t realise he was calling the tour company. When we arrived at our hostel, a guy arrived on a moped at the same time and introduced himself as being from the tour company. The taxi driver had told him that we wanted to take a tour lol. We explained that we already had a booking and left them behind. Once we checked into the hostel we came outside and saw a river just across the way, which we assumed was the Amazon and we took a couple of quick snaps. However we later found out that it was a tributary rather than the Amazon itself. We stopped for some lunch at Dawn of the Amazon, and had a strange experience with a local teenage boy (probably a street child), who asked us for money and when we said no, promptly decided to stand nearby and stare at us throughout our meal. The waitress at the restaurant asked him to stop, so he moved across the road and then continued to turn around and stare at us from there. I think he was a few cans short of a six pack! We then went to an internet café (slowest yet as on dial up) to check the last email from the lodge and whether we needed to buy anything in particular to take along with us - nothing like a bit of last minute shopping. Turned out we needed to take some wellies (or rubber boots as they called them) and some long sleeves, preferably white tops to keep the bugs off. Whilst walking around we saw a man wearing a cayman’s claw that had been fashioned in to a necklace - gross and illegal- and we saw them selling bottles full of eggs on the stalls, and they certainly weren’t chickens eggs, so we saw some illegal trade of animal parts / products in Iquitos, which is a shame.
We then decided to take our lives in to our own hands and catch a motokar (when in Rome) to the Belen outdoor market to look for some wellies / long sleeve tops. Belen is a village built right next to the river, and apparently when the water is high then the houses float. The motokar taxi took us to the far side of the market so that we could walk back towards the hostel, and we ended up being dropped on the food side of the market which was a bit of an eye opener. There was tonnes of meat / chicken on open tables, uncovered with flies buzzing around / and on them, and piles of rubbish in between the tables. Very grim. So we kept on walking until we got to the clothing side of the market, but alas all they had were strapless / short sleeved tops. I guess because its always 30 plus degrees Celsius there, so there isn’t usually a great demand for long sleeved tops. So we walked back to the hostel along the main road, and were surprised to find that all the shops in Iquitos stock the same strapless party tops and not much else, not one decent outdoor shop in sight, which is rather odd considering that a lot of tourists take amazon trips from there. I was also surprised to find that Iquitos itself is pretty run down. I would have thought that with the amount of money coming in to Iquitos via the tourists, that a certain amount would make its way back into the upkeep of the town but apparently not. We killed a bit of time reading in the hammocks at the hostel, and I managed to fall out of one hammock (it was broken / lopsided) and grazed my elbow a bit, but nothing too bad.
The following morning we packed our bags and Mario from Muyuna Lodge collected us from the hostel on foot (fluent English speaker hooray). Apparently there was a military parade going on (it was a Sunday), so the police had closed off most of the roads. Fortunately it wasn’t a long walk to the tour office with our bags. Mario gave us a bit more information about the lodge we had booked in to, and I was surprised to learn that the lodge didn’t have any electricity and was lit by lamps at night. This also translated in to no hot water (cold showers each day) and of course, no internet connection. Although I hadn’t expected internet in the middle of the amazon jungle, I had hoped for perhaps a generator for some lecky and at a push some hot water. We waited a half an hour or so in the tour office, and then a Muyuna bus arrived for our short transfer to the river pickup point. There we walked down a short incline with our luggage to a small covered speedboat. The sides were open (no windows) and Steve almost chucked one of our bags straight through in to the water lol.
It wasn’t long before we got our first glimpse of the Amazon itself, and it was an impressive site. Boy is that a lot of water, and it is brown water although apparently its all the mud and minerals etc that the river picks up on its course, rather than being dirty. Our boat transfer was around 3 hours in all and Steve claims he saw the top of a pink dolphin on our way. About 2 hours in we stopped somewhere along the riverside for 5 mins for the driver to check the gas level, and he said there were toilets there for us to use as well. Now I have never heard the word ‘toilet’ used so loosely in all my life. There was a cubicle door of sorts, and when I opened the door it was basically 2 wooden planks hanging out over the river and you were meant to go straight in to the river! There was also a local man there that was trying to sell us some sort of round fruit in a big bowl, by showing us a rather explicit pornographic photo that he had wedged in to the fruit. Well at least I think he was trying to sell us the fruit, its hard to say as he was babbling away in Spanish. We just stepped away from the vehicle with a polite No Gracias! Then just before we reached the lodge we transferred to a smaller open topped boat, as the water level was apparently too low to take the speedboat all the way in to the lodge (it is the dry season on the Amazon right now). However the guys had come prepared and gave us some brollys to keep the sun off. I should probably mention that it was stinking hot and humid (around 35 degrees plus) pretty much every day we were there and the heat was a bit overwhelming. However going upriver we were surrounded by jungle trees lining either side, and saw a couple of local people in dug out canoes - very cool. There was also an Iguana on the riverbank that scuttled off in to some Maize crops as we went past in the boat, and that was only a hint of the wildlife yet to come.
I must say my first impressions of Muyuna Lodge on arrival were fantastic, this is a lot more upmarket than we’d anticipated after hearing there would be no electricity. Moises, our guide for the full 6 days, met us at the river when we arrived and took us up to the lodge to talk us through how things work. The lodge had some lovely little grass roofed bungalows overlooking the river and a communal restaurant were they made all the meals. Frankly it reminded me a lot of a safari camp in South Africa.
The format for our days at the lodge basically looked like this:
06h00: Wake up and meet Moises at 06h15 for a pre breakfast boat trip down the river for bird / animal spotting. The good thing about this time of day is that there are plenty of birds around and it is a bit cooler.
07h00: Come back and eat a three course breakfast;
08h00: Excursion of our choice, returns around 11h00. Cold shower to cool down.
11h30: Eat a three course lunch;
15h00: Excursion of our choice, returns around 17h00. Cold shower to cool down.
19h00: Three course dinner
20h00: Night time trip down the river, or in to the jungle with torches.
21h00: Get back to lodge and collapse in a heap.
As we had 5 nights at the lodge we had a fair amount of time and managed to get out on the following excursions (in between the three course yummy meals):-
- Piranha fishing;
- Trip to see pre historic birds (or Watson birds);
- Day trip to see pink dolphins and swim in the Amazon;
- Trip to see the giant lilly pads;
- Long walks in to the jungle in the day time;
- Walk in the jungle at night to see the nocturnal animals;
- Boat trips down river in the daytime and the night time spotting animals;
- Canoe trip down the river (Steve has the blisters to prove it);
- Stop at a local villagers house to meet them and buy some souvenirs (necklace of lucky beads).
Although it was the dry season we did have rain one night, so we had to stay in that night and decided to play Uno to keep ourselves amused. Steve had won the first 5 games in a row and thought it was in the bag, however I asked to play to the best of 10, and then went on to win the next 5 games in a row, so the 11th game was the decider and I managed to win that game, so I am now the official Uno champion of Peru! Lol I revelled in my victory. Steve on the other hand is the official fishing champion of Peru as he caught a load of fish including a large Oscar (very tasty) and was a far more successful fisher-person than me. Basically the staff cook whatever you catch and you can eat if for dinner that night. I can tell you that Piranha is actually a very tasty fish, although it does have a lot of bones in it so you have to try and eat around them.
Our guide Moises was fantastic and managed to spot animals that we would never have seen on our own. Whilst walking in the jungle we managed to see a number of different kinds of monkeys (kapuchen, squirrel monkey, noisy night monkey etc), 2 different types of tarantula, a number of sloths, a coral snake, a pygmy rattle snake, a scorpion, a family of tiny long nosed bats, some night fishing bats, another iguana, and not to mention the hundreds of different kinds of birds, butterflies, insects and other spiders.
Not only could our guide tell us about the animals, but he was also an expert on the plants and insects in the jungle. There was one vine that he cut open, that water runs out of and the local people use to get a drink, so we tried some of that (tasted just like clean fresh water). He also offered us some ‘jungle candy’, which William, an English tourist in our group (there were only 4 of us in the group) decided to try, we weren’t that brave. Basically the fruit of the palm tree has a couple of nuts in it. One type of insect lays its eggs inside and the grubs grow inside and live on the nuts. Moises cracked open the palm fruit with his panga (which he used to clear parts of the jungle as we walked along) and took out 2 fairly fat white grubs. He popped one in his mouth and gave the other one to William which he bravely ate. Moises also showed us a tree that produces cotton, and it lies all over the ground around the bottom of the tree. The amazing thing is that Moises knew the sound that every bird and animal makes in the jungle, and he would whistle to the birds and they would answer him back. He would also find the monkeys based on their sounds. We did see a couple of jaguar tracks in the mud, but unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn’t see one in the flesh.
The piranha fishing was pretty exciting, and Steve and I both enjoyed it. We had a simple fishing rod made of a flexible tree branch with a line and hook on it, and you could feel the fish nibbling on the line as soon as you got it in the water. I have a feeling that fishing in the Amazon is a bit easier than fishing in the UK as there are just so many fish in the river to catch.
The amazon really is a bird watchers paradise and we saw so many different kinds of birds its hard to remember all the names. However a lot were fishing birds like Herons and Kingfishers, and we also saw a number of hawks and eagles along the river every day. There were so many catfish in the river by the lodge, that we could see them making circles in the surface of the water as they came up to breath.
We got really lucky the night before we were going to leave the lodge, as we went out on the boat at night spotting wildlife with the big searchlight, and Moises managed to catch a cayman. This was our third time out on the boat trying to catch one, and it wasn’t looking good as he’d already tried twice and the cayman had dived under the water and disappeared when we got close. However on our way back to the lodge, just before we got back, he spotted another cayman (their eyes glow red in the beam of the light, when they are above the water) and he managed to catch it. Fantastic. Surprisingly it didn’t thrash about much once he got it out of the water. He offered to hand us the cayman and when we felt its skin it was surprisingly soft and warmer than we expected. That river water is pretty warm even at night.
Swimming in the Amazon was also an experience we will never forget. Moises assured us that the local people swim / drink the river water every day and we had nothing to fear from the anacondas, piranhas and cayman as featured attacking people in all the Hollywood movies, so in we went. The water was relatively warm and its just as well the creatures didn’t attack as you couldn’t see your hand a foot below the surface of the brown water!
I feel I should also mention that the insects in the jungle bite first and ask questions later! Basically pretty much every animal and insect bites (has large teeth) and is either poisonous or trying to get a piece of you. Besides the scorching heat, which pretty much soaks you about 10 minutes after you get out of the cold shower, the only downside about the jungle is the biting insects. Even though it was really hot, whenever we went in to the jungle we wore welly boots, long pants and a long sleeve top and applied insect repellant before going in and then during the walks. Regardless a visible cloud of misquitos followed each one of us around in the jungle, and at times it really did feel like you were under attack. I also managed to get a bad bite on the leg from a nasty horse fly while we were canoeing, so I am nursing the bites on my legs at the moment which are a bit nasty. There were loads of horse flies on the boats and after I got bitten (and realised they do bite you and were not just normal flies), I killed 20 of the evil little buggers, so in the end they messed with the wrong chica! Steve managed to get off more lightly with his mosquito bites as his skin hasn’t reacted the way that mine has. Ive got the tube of gerrmoline working overtime. We have been and continue to take our Malarone tablets for the malaria though, so hopefully that’s one thing we shouldn’t have to worry about. I think before we went in to the jungle I had a pretty romantic idea about what it would be like, however once you actually get in there and the insects start biting you, you realise that without the guide you would be lost / eaten alive within 2 days or less, and the jungle really isn’t a very hospitable place for humans (five hours at a time is enough for anyone before you want to get back to the bungalow with its mosquito nets)!
So after an amazing five nights and numerous excursions and animal sightings, we then caught the boat transfers back to Iquitos. On our way in to the dock we did see a number of large vessels containing large pieces of chopped trees, which reminded us that the amazon is being cut down, despite us being sheltered from the issue completely at the lodge where we were staying. We got the transfers straight back to the airport in Iquitos, to wait for our flight back to Lima.
Last night we slept in a hostel in Miraflores (the touristy bit of Lima) and today we went to see a Lima (pre Inca civilasation) pyramid, which was very interesting. We then took a taxi to the Cruz del Sur office in Centro, to collect our bus tickets for Cusco. We had already booked and paid for the tickets on line and printed out the voucher, which we handed to the lady, and asked for our bileto (tickets). However they clearly were not set up for dealing with this type of request and the woman proceeded to call someone else on her mobile to talk her through how to process the voucher and print us our tickets. In the end we got the tickets and the address of the bus embarque point, so tomorrow at 14h00 we will catch the night bus to Cusco. Its one of those 20 hour night buses, so weve got our books at the ready, and will need to get some snacks for the road tomorrow morning. We have booked some cama VIP seats though, so hopefully we will be relatively comfortable and be able to get some sleep this time.
So one more night here in Lima, and then we are on our way to Cusco. Our next stop is the Inca Trail, which I have some mixed feelings about. On the one hand I’m super excited about seeing Machu Pichu which I know will be impressive, and on the other hand I know its going to be a really hard push to hike for 4 days, never mind at altitude. Fingers crossed we will both make it all the way to the sun gate! We do have 5 days to try and acclimatise in Cusco before we start walking on the 4th September - wish us luck for the big hike!
I think that’s all for now, love to all at home and don’t forget to email us your news.
Kirst x
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