Amazonias

Yurimaguas

My river adventure began in Yurimaguas where I was met on arrival at the collectivo stand at 10pm by a tour guide, suggesting I join a group of 4 Swiss people and visit the national parkSamira Pakaya for 3 days.... as that was where I was wanting to go, I said I´d think about it.

The next morning I went for a wander thru the town and market to get myself some breakfast, and found it to be a friendly buzzingly place, with even more moto taxis than Tarapoto! And wander just off the main square and you can see the river... big and brown and a hive of activity at the various port areas. My friendly moto-taxi driver from the night before picked me up, ferried me to the two port areas to check what time the boats leave, helped me buy a hammock and fruit for the journey and took me to be introduced to the swiss group and guide, and then to the Eduardo 1, the boat we were to go on.

Eduardo 1

There are 7 Eduardo river boats, and we got Eduardo 1, the original... A three storey riverboat with the bottom for cargo and the motor, the second level 2nd class hammock space (crowded)and the kitchen, and the top level tourist class with hammock area and also cabins. With my hammock hung, I wandered round chatting with my fellow travellers and watching the loading of cargo, and the hive of activity onshore. Men loading very heavy looking bags (corn?), bananas fruit and the odd chicken. Others dragging then lifting huge wooden logs from the river out and into trucks... manual labour here no machines to help out. Boats coming and going, loading and unloading, refueling. Ladies and kids trying to sell fruit, icecream, hammocks, food and everything else.

We left at about 1pm, and headed peacefully downstream, watching the scenery as it passed. Tourist class dinner was good, and served in our own dining room. As it got darker it got cooler, and the lights attracted large beetles and bugs. Slept for a while, but as our stop was about 2pm, we packed up our stuff ready to unload and waited. Checked out the night navigation (occasional spotlighting of sides to check alls ok), before getting off and mototaxi to hotel. All was pitch black as the towns power cuts out at midnight.

Lagunas and the Jungle trip

Next morning I woke up to find myself in a village of wooden huts with thatched roofs. We (Hans, Leila, Claudia and Freddy) had breakfast, got our intro to the National Park and tour, prepared our stuff and headed off. That was the start of 3 days of being paddled down rivers in wooden canoes, relaxing and watching out for wildlife. And a few hours of very hot humid and unfortable conditions with mozzies, as we followed our guide who macheted a path thru the jungle. And boy do the mozzies come out at dark... ended up going to bed at about 7pm as I couldnt stand being bitten alive any longer! (The buggers may be put off by repellent but find thoses patches you´ve missed, or just plain bite thru your clothes!)

We saw monkeys, a sloth, birds and a croc, and also many types of trees and flowers. We camped in mosquito nets in pretty basic conditions, and our guides paddled for us, cooked, set up camp and of course explained. We ate well with quite a bit of freshly caught fish... yum. And went for a swim braving the pirahnas and crocs - no worries!

Back to Lagunas where we hung out with the guides family in their house, waiting for news of Eduardo and when it left and hence when it would arrive. It was really an eyeopener to see the family house with multiple families living together, a well in the backgarden for water, chickens dogs ducks and parrots all wandering around... Had lunch in town and was pleased to be undercover when it bucketed down. Sampled jungle fruit, observed local life and went on shopping expedition to find coconuts for the boat trip.

Eduardo

Back on the boat at about 4.30am, and had the top deck to ourselves since all the peruvians had fled from the cold and earlier rain. Woke up a few hours later and found we were sharing the boat with a group of Swedes with impressively large cameras. We pulled into various towns and loaded more bananas, fruit and people... all quite interesting to watch with people and goods lined up waiting. More people joined us on the top deck making it quite crowded, we sampled kitchen food (not bad - spaghetti and chicken), had some chats with our neighbours and shared some watermelon, and floated further downstream. Its really quite an interesting mix of people you get on board, and certainly theres no shortage of people watching! And of course you have to duck under everyones hammocks to get past to the toilet or kitchen. Went to bed in my hammock and woke at about 5am to find half the people preparing to get off at Nauta - either a 1 hr bus ride or 8 hours more by boat. We stayed on though, passing the point where the river officially starts being called the Amazon, and arriving in Iquitos at about 2pm.