Jungle trip Day 1

Writing up this entry quickly.. will update later with more details...

Left Iquitos at 7am. Joined by a Portuguese-Canadian guy called Emmanuel who was going to be my roomate for the next 3 days. We first drove a 150km trip to Nauta in the south, which cut out a lot of the time required for boating down the river from Iquitos. Arrived 10am and had brekkie in an "affiliated" restaurant. The huge indoor market across the road would have been much more fun though as the place was packed with people selling anything and EVERYTHING "edible" that the Amazon can produce (and that's a lot).

From Nauta, took a motor boat up the Yarapa river to a point a small landing zone where we disembarked and crossed over to a paddle canoe waiting on the other side for the last leg to Delfin Camp arriving around 12pm. It felt so "Amazon-ing" (sorry... jungle-humour) to be finally on the Amazon river (or it's tributaries at least, the actual Amazon river would be crossed on my last day in Iquitos!).

We had lunch then took the paddle canoe up to a track in the rain forest about 20 mins upstream. Travelling in the leaky paddle boat with murky brown water literally one inch from the top on either side of the boat was a little disconcerting at first. The slightest jolt or movement of your legs would have the whole thing wobbling side to side! Quickly enough I could relax and enjoy travelling down the river admiring the beautiful trees and birds flying across our path.

When we went for the jungle trek, the mozzie onslaught began. Despite doing all the "right" things like wearing white shirt and covering myself in jungle perfume (repellent), the bastards showed no fear and were so big that they could even bite me through my cotton shirt and socks!! I can't believe how many bites I got on my feet despite wearing socks all the time! Be warned.

Anyway, apart from the mozzies, the jungle treks were really cool and educational. We saw Tamarin monkeys + hawks + the largest tree in the Amazon. Saw various medecine plants and even a white-chocolate fruit that tasted delicious! They even had a plant that could cure a type of cancer.. plus many other cures were waiting to be discovered. Nature's pharmacy this truly is (I even got some antiseptic from a nearby tree put on my mozzie bites to stop the itching... it worked a charm and my bites cleared up within 2 days!)

Back for chicken (again!) dinner (the lodge we are staying at is owned by a lovely family who we ate with).

Forgot to mention we also saw red dolphin jumping about the place as we came back... the river is so full of life!

Sweaty night with heavy rain and lots of mozzies... it seems that I know now why I never saw any insects in other parts of South America.... they're ALL HERE!