Iquitos part dos

On Friday we woke up at 5 am to go on a canoe float and bird watch. We saw a lot of birds and even a pack of monkeys swinging around in the trees! After watching the sunrise on the river, we went back to the lodge and napped in hammocks until breakfast at 8. You know you're having fun when you have to take a nap before breakfast...

Sunrise

Moon still full

After breakfast we went on a boat ride to another little spot in the rainforest. On the way I spotted an Iguana just hanging out on a branch. It was so pretty! Then Leon scooped up a snail we saw floating in the water.

Iguana

Snail

We got out and started our long hike about medicinal plants in the rainforest. First we saw a huge tree with big buttress roots - these are some of my favorite things in the forest. They are sooo big and old and make you feel less significant.

Me, David, and Keeley in front of the monster tree (and threatening David with machetes)

Tarzan-ing on a vine

The tree is so tall! And said to be about 250 years old

Had to do the classic bug in my hair shot.

Fruit

David and Leon's hands on a termite home - if you rub them around on your hands it's one of the best natural mosquito repellents. 

Leaf-cutter Ants: A bunch of them chew parts off of a leaf and carry it to their home in a cute little marching line

a video:

Getting some natural face paint from Leon

Source of the tribal face paint

Keeley and David's markings mean they're widowed, mine means I have an enamorado (boyfriend)

Bright fungus

I love this flower

After walking for a while we walked through a little pueblo back to the river. Keeley and Leon saw a poor baby anaconda stuck in somebody's fishing net and tried really hard to get it out but it was too tangled. The owner of the fishing net granted permission to cut the net so we got the Anaconda out and set it free in the water!

All tangled up :(

Finally free!

On the boat back to the lodge

We took a boat back to the lodge and had capybara for lunch - it's like this mini pig looking thing that's the biggest rodent in the world. It was pretty tasty! Afterwards we went on the canoe to where the Amazon River meets the Yanayaku River - and you can see exactly where they meet because of the change in water color. We saw grey river dolphins on the Amazon and then docked the canoe near the intersection to look for pink river dolphins and lay in the sun for a while. It was very relaxing!

Yanayaku on the left, Amazon on the right

After our float I took a shower - cold but refreshing. There was no electricity at the lodge besides a generator that ran for like a half an hour a day just to charge batteries and electronics. The water for the shower/sink was from the river. I felt clean for a whole 10 minutes until I had to load on the mosquito repellent again! We had lomo saltado for dinner (my favorite Peruvian meal) then drank some homemade sugar cane rum that smelled really bad but didn't taste horrible and wasn't very strong. We sat around the dinner table with lanterns and shared stories and listened to the symphony of insects and animals singing in the rainforest around us. Then went to bed by 11! 

Somewhere in the Amazon...

This weekend I returned to the Amazon Rainforest - exactly 2 years after I went there when I was studying abroad in Ecuador. It was truly amazing. I forgot how spectacular the rainforest is in itself, along with the river, the calmness, the animals, birds, plants, and even the insects. I ended up taking over 500 pictures so it's very hard to choose which ones to put on here, but I will try to do my best. I'm going to do it in parts because loading pictures takes forever!

David, Keeley, and I flew to the city of Iquitos early on Thursday morning. Iquitos is said to be one of the largest cities in the world you can't reach by road - with some 400,000 people living there, everything/everyone must come by plane. It was so exciting to look out the window and see billions of trees cut by the huge brown Amazon River and it's many tributaries. We had a taxi driver take us from the airport to a travel agency, where we negotiated a price down from 180 soles per day all the way to 100 soles a day - quite a deal! The guy at the agency called a guide and he arrived to pick us up pronto. We really lucked out with our guide. His name is Leon (like Lion but in Spanish) and he was so great! Very knowledgeable and fun, we're recommending him to our other friends who are going to Iquitos in the coming weeks. 

The four of us loaded onto a motorized canoe with our backpacks and big black rubber boots that we borrowed from the agency - the same ones I had used to hike all over Ecuador! About 5 minutes into the trip Keeley saw pink river dolphins. The first animals of many we were about to encounter. 

Riding along the Amazon :)

Our first stop was at a place unofficially named Monkey Island - it's a sort of reservation for rainforest animals with injuries who are recuperating. It's the opposite of a zoo. The animals still get to roam around freely as they please, but they are watched over and fed by locals living in a house on the reservation. This means the animals are INCREDIBLY friendly! Never before have I had a monkey crawl all over me and try to eat my earrings and take off my bracelet. It was so fun!

This monkey "Pepe" hopped on our canoe to greet us at Monkey Island

Great to be able to get so up close!

Pepe

Getting some monkey love

He's trying to take my water bottle/earrings

A three-toed sloth! SOO CUTE

Baby monkey

...that didn't want to let go. 

Monkeys apparently love nose rings.

:)

We got to hold the sloth. It was so slow. 

Toucan that can't fly because somebody plucked its feathers to sell :(

Parrot

Huge snake

Spider monkey

Turtle

After some time at Monkey Island we went on a short walk through the rainforest along the coast of the river. It was really muddy so it was good that we had our boots on! We would stop periodically along the way so Leon could point something out to us... or just for a snack on the go.

Banana tree

Citrus fruit we found on the ground and had to try!

Flowers

Adorable kids in a village we passed through

After walking a bit more we got to another boat that had our stuff in it and set off along the Yanayaku River (a tributary of the Amazon) for the lodge...

David, me, and Keeley on the boat

Me and Keeley happy to be in the AMAZON!

A pair of birds we spotted along the river

We were really happy with the Yanayaku lodge - it was very nice and only one other person was staying there! After taking a dip in the river (yes I swam with the piranas and alligators) we had a late lunch - rice, beans, fried plantain, and fish. It got dark around 6 pm and we went back on the canoe for a night float to try to look for caiman (sort of like small alligators) and other nocturnal creatures. We didn't see much besides these cool glow in the dark bugs, but it was still fun!

Main lodge where we ate all of our meals (no electricity in the whole lodge)

A look into our triple room

Night float

Almost a full moon!

The next day was also full of activities which I'll have to share on my next post :)