Lagunas, in the Amazon basin, Loreto, Peru 23-7-2010
We stayed in Tarapoto for 2 days before catching the public barco to Iquitos. We hired a car to take us from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas, the port town on the river Huallaga, a tributary to Amazon. It was the most dangerous part of the trip so far. The old man driving was mostly blind, and was high on something, cut all the inside blind turns short, and kept braking for and swerving around things that were not there. Luckily he only almost killed us 99 times and not 100.
We bought some hammocks for the 3 nights on the boat and a bowl and spoon for grub. The boat pulled out of Yurimaguas an hour early only to get stopped by the port authority for being over loaded. They had to unload sixty 50 gallon drums of alcohol and five-hundred 220 pound bags of grain before we could leave. We left 4 hours late. Normally the port authority does nothing about overloaded boats, but about 10 days before our departure an overloaded public boat overturned killing 8 people and leaving another 225 swimming in the river. This sort of thing is frowned upon in Peru and the port authority is cracking down.
We got off the boat after about 14 hours to take a tour of the national park Pacaya Samiras. We took a two night--3 day tour. We piled into a three-wheeled taxi, stopped for some gas and headed down to the river. We paddled down the river in a dugout canoe, fished Piranhas and poison tipped bullhead, swam with the Piranhas, pink dañphins, and freshwater sting ryes, ate a lot of platanos, drank river water tea and got bitten by malaria carrying mosquitoes. Our guides were an older couple from the jungle. All the cooking was on an open fire. It rained quite frequently and she just kept cooking. All the water used for cooking and cleaning came directly out of the river, and yet the food was really, really good. No one got sick. It was excellent, just the way Beckaboo likes it. Right Beckers. There was also a great number of bugs and crawly things, just the kinda thing Mari likes, right Marmar.
After the jungle tour, we got back on the next public boat heading down river and made it to Iquitos. From Iqiutos we flew back to Tarapoto. It was a great side trip within a motorcycle trip. We are now headed toward the coast to do a little surfing.
can someone pass the sun-screen?
Uncle Walter
Happy Birthday Chulabean!!!!
Happy Bithday Uncle Jerry!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment