Amazonian River Travel

The next day in Iquitos, I decided to go to the Belem market, a huge market filled with stalls selling anything and everything you can imagine. There was turtle meat, capibara legs, crocodile legs, huge snails, chicken, many different types of fish, all sorts of medicinal herbs, hardware, local handmade crafts, animal pelts, all sorts of fruits, icecream, prepared food, and I even saw a stand selling live animals! This stand had several different types of monkys, birds, and it also had two kinkachoos. I was SO close to walking away with about five monkeys. I felt so bad for them. The vendors didn´t handle them with too much care, and they were kept in tiny cages and boxes. After the market, I went to a place called the ´Serpentario´ via a collectivo in boat form. It was really cool. This place had a bunch of animals and I got to handle all of them. There were numerous types of monkeys, HUGE anacondas, something called an ancient turtle, sloths, and a capibara (the largest rodent on the planet, it is basically just a giant guinea pig). So, I left Iquitos and caught a 9 or 10 hour speed boat to the triple frontier between Brazil, Columbia, and Peru. It was an interesting but for the most part unenjoyable ride. The night before, I woke up and got really sick from food poisoning. Then, right as I was ready to fall back asleep like a brick, I checked the time and saw it was time to pack my bags and head over to the dock! It was not exactly a nice wake up call. I caught my boat no problem, and wanting a nice view of the river, chose the seat in the very front of the boat. Bad choice. I got slammed up and down for the first two hours. Not only this, my seat was right next to the door that was at a 45 degree angle, and I got quite wet from water spraying up on the boat and dripping down through the cracks at the sides of the door. I got my exit stamps no problem, and got to Leticia, Columbia at around 6. Leticia was a pretty cool place, but I didn´t spend much time there. The next day, I left Leticia and went to Tabatinga, a town in Brazil within walking distance of Leticia. Cool thing is, the first time I entered Brazil I did it entirely by foot! In Tabatinga, I found the cargo boat I would be taking to Manaus, Brazil. The boat wouldn´t leave for two more days, but I bought my ticket and strung up my hammock and slept there because it was free. I didn´t do too much over the next two days. I was still feeling slightly drained from the food poisoning, so I took it easy.The night before the boat left, I experienced a true Amazonian storm. It started pouring rain, and did not let up for a couple hours. The thunder and lighting was crazy, and I heard two consecutive blasts of thunder that were definitely the loudest I´ve heard in my life. The four day boatride was a crazy experience. I was in my hammock in a big, open floor that was absolutely packed with people doing the same thing. I had been expecting small portions of boring food, but surprisingly, the food was really good. My typical day on the boat consisted of Portuguesse practice, reading, chatting, writing in my journal, and Capoeira. Capoeira is a Brazillian martial art/dance, and I met a Columbian guy named Alex who is travelling throughout Brazil to train in Capoeira. Every day, he, an 11 year old kid named John, and I would go to the top deck in the morning and in the night and have some fun. I was by far the worst one there, and both of them took time to teach me some of the basics. I also met several other interesting characters. There was Lloyd, a 30 year old Australian guy travelling with his surfboard who works in consulting under half of the time and travels the other half. Another guy was Dustin, a 25 year old guy from California that just got his Masters degree in teaching and is taking some time off to travel. Another nice guy was Keneji, a Brazillian guy who is in the army. Not only did he tell me some crazy army stories, he insisted upon giving me a pair of his military issue camoflage pants. Yesterday, we arrived in Manaus around 8:30, and I decided to sleep on the boat one more night to yet again avoid paying for a room at a hostel. I haven´t yet seen much of the city because once again I´ve been sick, but tomrrow I will definitely get out and see some of the sights!

Bienvenidos a Peru

The first weekend after arriving at the second animal rescue center, I decided to try some ´street meat´ for the first time. I asked a woman what type of meat she was cooking and she said ´carne de res,´ beef. I got some, and I noticed it was tubular and I thought this was strange but did not think much of it. I ate some, and it was extremely chewy and rubbery and tasted very fatty. I asked a local what it was, only to find out that I was eating intestines!
My time at Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia was gone before I know it, and I was sad to say goodbye to my fellow volunteers, the animals, the center, and Gloudina. I left Santa Martha on Saturday around noon, and did not stop moving until around 4 or 5 the next day in Piura, Peru. In total I took 4 buses that were 2, 3, 11, and 9 hours long.
The next day I left Piura because it was not very nice and went to a city called Chiclayo. I got to Chiclayo in the late afternoon, and decided to check out the nearby beach. The hostel manager told me the best economic way to get there was via ´collectivo.´ The collectivo experience was an interesting one that I would have many times in the next couple days. Collectivos are basically just large minivans run by two people. One is the driver, and the other collects the fairs and constantly screams the collectivo´s route out the window to passerbys. People get PACKED into these things. Once or twice I was one of twenty-three people crammed into the small space. I was also once in a collective that had two many people in it, and we got pulled over by a cop. The guy that collects the fairs just gave the cop ´una propina,´ a tip, and we were on our way. I thought this was hilarious, and everyone started cracking jokes and making fun of the cop, who started to say something about how the police are not controlled by money. Haha. The beach was nice but cold, so I did not stay for long.
The next morning I headed out early to go to the Museum of Senor Sipan, a pre Incan ruler who is called the ´Peruvian King Tut.´ He was ruler of the Machica culture that was prevalent from the first century AD until the seventh century. The museam was really cool, but, unfortunately for me, lacked English translations. This guy was buried not only with tons of riches, but tons of people were killed and buried with him. After I saw this museum, I went to the ruins of Tucume which consist of twenty six pyramids. These ruins were incredible, and totally by chance, I met two girls from Denmark there that I had met on the bus from Ecuador to Peru two days before.
The next day I saw other ruins, the ruins of Sipan (the actual tomb of Senor Sipan), and then caught a 10 hour bus to a city called Chachapoyas that night with a guy from Holland I met the day before. During this busride, we were delayed for about an hour because it rained throughout the night and the road was blocked because of a landslide! This did not make me feel to good or confident in Peru´s public transportation, and I was somewhat uneasy later when we were driving over a muddy part of the road without a guardrail next to a steep hill with a raging river at the bottom.
In Chachapoyas the next day, we did a tough four hour hike up to some more ruins, called Kuelap. Kuelap is a pre Incan fortress located in a crowd forest, and it is not touristy at all. While Machhu Picchu gets hundreds of tourists per day, there were only nine people at Kuelap on the day of our arrival. That night, we stayed up at Kuelap in the house of one of the guards, and it was quite the experience. The house was extremely simple, for example there was no lighting, the bathroom was merely a hole in the ground outside, and the walls separating rooms consited solely of plastic hanging from the ceiling. The only problem with this excursion was that I got quite sick from the altitude, and I was also suffering from some serious diarrhea. My head was throbbing, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
The next day I left Kuelap and that night I got a collectivo and then a bus to a town called Tarapoto. I got to Tarapoto at around 6 in the morning, and I flew out of Tarapoto to Iquitos at 3:30 later that day.
Iquitos is an awesome city, and it holds the title of the world´s largest city that cannot be reached by road! The only means of getting there are by air or by boat. When I left the airport, I was asked by about fifteen different guys if I wanted a taxi. It was crazy how persistant these guys were. I checked into a small hostel near the center of the city, and didn´t do much that night because I was sick.
The next day, I went out with the hostel´s receptionist, Gerson. He took me to his neighbourhood and we walked around, relaxed, played lunch with some locals, and ate a delicious meal cooked by Gerson´s mother. I was DEFINITELY the only gringo in the area. It was kind of annoying, everyone was staring at me as I walked down the street. I literally saw a couple people turn around in their seats to watch me. It shows that they obviously don´t see foreigners very often. I was extremely to surprised to hear from Gerson that he was thirty years old and his wife was only sixteen, and pregnant! When I asked him why his wife was so young, he said that it is very normal for young girls to marry men that are much older in the jungle. That night I went out with another guy to the center plaza, where a clown would be performing. It turned out to be much more than that. There were tons of people there, many different types of acts, and many stands selling various items. I also found a little shop that I both loved and hated at the same time. It sold all sorts of things made from animal parts. Some of the items included masks made from turtle shells, big smoking pipes with attached monkey skulls, the pelt of some sort of large cat, various animal skulls, a toucan´s beak, and a dragon made entirely of animal parts. The stuff was so cool, but it was also very sad to see these things. I´m not sure when, but in a couple days I will be catching a speed boat down the Amazon river to Leticia, a town on the boarder of Brazil, Columbia, and Peru! It should be pretty cool wish me luck!

Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia

So I left Banos early on the morning of the first of October. I took a bus to Puyo, which was about 3 hours away, where I had to find the bus that would take me to Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia, the second animal rescue center. I got there no problem, and waited about 45 minutes to get the bus. The center is located 35 km into the Amazon, and it was pretty crazy getting there and seeing where I would be for the next two weeks. The center coordinator is Gloudina, a women in her mid-twenties who was born in South Africa but grew up in Barcelona, Spain. She is really nice and excited about what she is doing. This center is MUCH different from the first one. For starters, its located in the rainforest as opposed to the mountains. Secondly, where there were many big cats at the first center, there is only one small cat here called a Margay. Thirdly, the second center has 15 or 20 monkeys, where there were only 3 at the first center. We also have 2 kinkachoos (viscious, nocturnal animals), 1 coati, 6 peccaries (a type of pig), 3 tortuses, 3 macaws, and many parrots. The schedule at the second center was much more relaxed than the one at the first center, and as a result I had much more free time for reading and spanish practice. Most days, we would work from 8 until around 10 cleaning cages and feeding the animals. Then we had a half hour break, after which we would work until 12. During this time we would either improve cages, dig out fish ponds for the community, or chase escaped pigs back into their pen. During lunch time after I ate, I would usually rest up in a hammock with my book or just sit and hang out with the other volunteers. We would start work again at around 2:20 and finish at about 4. One thing this place had in common with the first volunteer center was the diverse group of volunteers. When I was there, there were two Americans (including myself), two Australians, one swiss girl, five Brits, one Italian women, a french girl, and a girl from New Zealand. Most of them were backpacking around South America like me, but some of them were working at the center long term.
On the first Thursday I was there, we all took the bus to El Triunfo, a nearby town, and played some of the locals in game of soccer. We were initially up 3 to 1, but in the end we fell apart and they beat up 6 to 4. Afterwards, we, the losers, followed customs and bought a crate of beer for ourselves and the winning team. Everyone enjoyed a beer together and then we caught the first bus back to the center.
During the first weekend, I decided to stay at the center to save some money. On Saturday, I went for a jungle hike with Armando, a man in the family that works closely with the center. After about a half hour of walking down a path, Armando cut straight into the bushes, hacking a path with his machete. We climbed down steep hills, walked through chest high grass, and walked down a river surrounded on either side by high, natural rock wall. He also took us to a small waterfall and, after being assured by Armando that the water was safe, I stripped down to my boxers and jumped in the small pool underneith it.
I have more to say, but I have to catch an 8 hour bus to Piura, Peru, in 15 minutes. In the next couple days I will write another post, and, as long as I can find an internet cafe with fast internet, I will put up some photos.

The Hellish Volcano and More

So, as you can probably guesse from the title, cotaopaxi was very difficult. We had a one hour hike to the refuge, and that alone proved to be tough. then we chilled out all day and got in bed at around 7 or 8. At 11:30, we were woken up by our guides and knew that the ascension would soon begin. We ate breakfast (the earliest ive ever had) and left the refuge by 1 in the morning. It looked like a movie. 12 figures, all with headlamps, slowly hiking into the darkness. Once we got to the glacier (the majority of the hike was over ice) we strapped on our cramp ons (basically just spikes on the soles of your feet) and started up. the guides taught us a couple different techniques of walking with the cramp ons and split us up into groups. after an hour or so we started on a steep part that lasted for ever. we finally made it to the top of that, and continued on. The wind picked up, and soon it got a lot colder. The last hour was the hardest part of the upward half of the climb. I felt like my legs were on fire and my lungs would explode. All I wanted was a nice, full breath of oxygen, but could not get one. Once we got to the top, I just fell over and continued my panting. A couple minutes later I started to appreciate the view. I could see so far into the distance. It was incredible. We were well above the clouds, and could see mountains poking through them. We only stayed for five or ten minutes because it was too cold and windy. The was down was by far, the worst part of the day. We were all exhausted, but we had to keep goign and get back down. We had to break every ten or fifteen minutes we were so tired. Our exhaustion also made it slightly more dangerous. I did not fall over once on the way up, but on the way down I fell over at least three times. All in all, I am glad I did it but I don´t think I´ll be doing anything like it anytime soon. Our last week at the animal shelter was fun. It was Merle´s birthday on thursday, so everyone at the shelter celebrated that night in the ¨party room.¨ The Ecuadorian tradition of whipping the birthday boy as many times as he had years of life was carried out. We left Santa Martha fully satisfied. We were sad to go yet ready to move on. We spent this weekend in Banos, a small town about 3 hours south of Quito. It is such a sweet place, but quite turisty and full of gringos. On our first day, we spent the evening in one of the town´s hot springs, that supposedly, are heated completely by a near by volcano. Yesterday, we watched the Ireland v. Argentina World Cup Rugby match in the morning (it was a slaughter by Argentina) and then went white water rafting. Last night, we decided once again to hit up the hot springs. It was much nicer last night because there weren´t half as many people as there were on Saturday night. While there, we were each given plastic cups by two little girls, who then proceeded to get cold water from the shower and dumped it on our heads. A water fight resulted, and the two little girls were sad to see us leave. This morning, I will go to Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia, the sister animal shelter of the one i previously volunteered at. This one is thirty five kilometers into the Amazon, and should be just as good as the last shelter. Merle and John are going to a small village deep in the Amazon to learn the Amazonian way of life. I don´t think there is internet at the animal shelter, so I will probably be out of contact for a week or two. Adios!