The Beach

Yesterday we took a little trip to the beach. The colonel let us borrow his speed boat and we went with a few friends on the Nanay river in search of the perfect sandy spot. The interesting thing about our journey was getting an up close look at how unusually low the water level here is. This is not only too early in the season to see the water go to its low level, but this level is the lowest its ever been. Yikes. Needless to say we had plenty of sandy spots to choose from and our group even found our very own private beach. It was a super relaxing day filled with lots and lots of sun.




Here´s some pictures to give you an idea of how low the water is.

The houses you see in the distance are usually floating when its not dry season.



We had to walk plank bridges to get to our boat.




This metal dock is usually entirely underwater. The locals are using this time to reconstruct it.



We did have a brief rainstorm today. And this is dry season, but I think we still could use a little rain around here.

My Gringos Came to Visit

I am so happy that my dearest friends Tim and Jolene came all the way to Iquitos to visit with us and experience the Amazon first hand. These two people are great and we all met in college. Jolene was my roomate of five years and has been like a sister two me. These two are also amazing travelers as they have been all over and even served two years with the Peace Corps in Niger.




We showed them all the must-sees here, and you may feel a bit of dejavu from the blog I wrote about Rachel´s visit back in December. But I don´t care if the pics are repetitive I just want to document their visit because it was so special to have them here.

We went to Quistacocha of course.




We made sure to show them all the animals (the monkeys were their favorites), the lake, the lagoon, the beautiful trees, the beach, the garden, and of course the restaurant. There they had their first taste of regional food...cocona, maduro, cecina, fried alligator.....I think they liked it.







































We took them to see the big gentle manatees.





Tim and Coco were quite the spectacle on the moto.





We spent one day going out on a boat to the butterfly farm....but I didn´t take any pictures of butterflies because they never posed for me.







Coco made causa of course.




We often crammed all four of us into tiny mototaxis to get where we needed to go.



Here we are headed to Al Fria Al Fuego, the floating restaraunt in the middle of the Itayu River.











These two ate alot of ice cream while they were here. But I think that was a smart move not only because you should eat whatever your heart desires when you are on vacation, but the ice creams here are amazing. And in Iquitos there are tons of regional fruit flavors to try.




Then one day we headed out onto the Amazon for a jungle excursion.










This is dry season in the Amazon and the river was extremely low. At one point on our journey the water level was so low, that we had to transfer from our small boat to a tiny boat. And the tiny boat was barely wide enough for my two gringos to sit next to each other. We carefully rowed in about 5 inches of water/mud to get to our final destination. I´m glad my friends are well traveled.












We visited the Yaguars Tribe and they painted ¨welcome¨ paint on our faces. And of course they let us play with their dart gun and Jolene proved to be the best dart blower.














We visited the special place that houses the monkeys, the sloths, some birds, some snakes, and a giant anaconda. The last time I was in this place a very friendly monkey named Pepe, came and greeted my friend Rachel and wanted to nibble on her ears. We thought he was bit forward then, but this time around he was a little much. He was climbing all over, nibbling on faces, trying to steal from our backpacks, and we all believed he put his face way to close to the Anaconda pond. (He´s pictured below.)

















Part of journey took us once again to the place with the giant fish, the giant lily pads, and the alligators.
















Tim had his chance to be star briefly in a game of volleyball as we passed through a small village. I think they found Tim´s height to be quite funny as he towered over the net barely moving his long arms to block or hit the ball.



And one day Coco took us all to the port of Nanay to get a tour of the Twin Otter planes. The only problem was, the river was so dry they had to move the planes to the other side of the river. So we just watched the planes take off and land. I have to say it was nice and peaceful to sit there on the hot pavement with people I love watching planes and boats come and go.



Thanks for coming Tim and Jolene!