As we have seen the gems of these areas it was time to get a taxi to Ica at 10am and a bus from there to Lima. 5 hours later we got a taxi from the bus station to the airport and got on a flight not too long after (5:30pm) to Iquitos (Amazon jungle feeding town). We arrived at 9 and got a 3 Soles taxi ride to a travel agency that doubled up as 10 soles accommodation per person for our private room. We listened to all the options and decided to go with the Amazon Journey company who didnt have a website and later we realised didn't even bother to take our names never mind our passport numbers.

10:30 our taxi arrived with our guide (Lobo - which can mean wolf and sea lion - don't ask me how but it's true). We drove an hour and half to Nauta and then got a moto taxi to the harbour where we embarked on another 2 hours journey by boat taxi to the home of Lobo. The house was on stillts and there were 2 long boats parked next to the house. The house had a very open style patio living area, open kitchen as not open style but open looking onto the river. Likewise the 2 bathrooms did not have a roof and was home to a Anaconda visitor only 4 days before we arrived. There were 2 rooms created for tourist. Our room had 3 beds with what looked like personal pods/cages - a flat and hard bed with a square already in place mosquito nets. We learned the value of these nets and returned to our cages often for refuge from these killer mozzies.

We started off on our long boat which would also be our mode of transport for the remaining days to come. Off we went to the big part of the river which is about 2 min from their home and home to grey and pink dolphins which we swam with. These waters are also home to piranhas and Caimans alegators and anacondas so was a tad of an adrenaline rush. Not sure why, but was comforted by a rainbow in the backdrop of our picture. We went on to the local dry land where it's the like a local community centre where the local kids come to play, football, volleybal and even a local night club which comes alive at night (we missed that experience). We saw some local monkey pets held by the local kids and different types of fruit, my feet also got acquanted with the fire ants...if the name doesn't say it all...it burns!!

Went back home and had dinner on the open patio that is surrounded by the river view. Local birds fly over and we even spotted a tiny allegator swimming across which made us understand the reality of what we had just done, swimming in this river.

Did an evening boat ride to spot the night life, mostly monkeys, birds and Iguanas. The mozzies became rather irritating, not even deet that says "lasts for hours" worked on these creatures. It was Lobo's daughter's 13th birthday so the generator came on wich meant spanish music videos over the 12" screen was possible. The 3 boys between ages 6-10 years asked us 3 girls to dance...pretty much all the time. Was so exhausted and completely eaten up by the mozzies. We had the cake Lobo picked up from the Panadaria (bakery) in Iquitos, absolutely gorgious. It was finally time to retire to the safety of our "pods".

Day 2 had us up by 5:30, breakie and on the boat and ready go by 7am to go bird watching. This was on the way to the deeper part of the jungle where we were going to camp and learn survival skills that night. On our long boat it was Lobo his son and us three chicas. We went for a while down the river stopped off at his brothers stilted house to swop boats. Off we went in the bigger long boat a bit further down the river, where we got to a tree that had a sloth (oso perisozo - directly translated as lazy bear) that Lobo just took out the tree to show us and casually remarked that butterfly worms live in its coat and would we like to hold it...um it's a wild animal with really sharp nails and stuff crawling around in its fur...no thanks. So we smiled and politely declined the offer. We then started going through parts of the river completely covered by small lillies which was the first time the machetti came out to cut the boat free as it was Hplacing strain on the motor. We then got to a part that was completely overgrown and seemed like we hit a dead end and that Lobo did not actually know where we were going. Out came the machetti again and the branches quickly got cut loose ad through we went to a different world of the river. This happened a few times and seemed like we were searching for dry ground to camp on in vain. However, we finally arrived at dry land (greeted by an entire colony of mozzies) and to our surprise the wooden branches that were stood up straight in the ground made us think maybe someone was here before. He then confirmed that he always comes to this peace of land. So there we go our guide unlike us knew exactly where we were. We then got a plastic cover that went over the 2 woodeen poles to form a waterproof roof. I helped cut some wood with the machetti. We went for a walk to explore the surrounding and identify some useful plants that can serve as medicine or sting/bite antidotes. When we got back the mozzie net was set up, which we were grateful for. In order to escape the mozzies again braed the Piranhas and went for a swim in the lake that was so isolated and had so many wild birds mostly large white Herons. When it got dark we went for our night walk and almost stumbled on a very venomous red orange and black snake, two step further there was a huge frog which I was tasked with to kill and gravely failed to do. A few steps further we hear rustling in the bushes followed by our guide living us alone I the dark. He came back to say the guineapig took his spear...he apparently speared the guineapig and then it swam away with the spear. We went on to look for fish which we were supposed to kill and was supposed to be loads of, however we could not find more then one. As we could not face any more rice which was the only food which was now on offer we went to bed without food that night.

Day 3 I woke up with a black spider jumping off my face, ants had dug into my peanut stash and the mozzies would just not let up. So by 6am we all had enough and packed up to go bird watching and head home instead. On the way we went to look for the speared guineapig, which true as Bob was floating on the water. With a proud smile Lobo fished out the guineapig, cleaned his spear and placed the deceased guineapig at my feet. About 3 hours later we arrived home. |The famly greated the proud dad with joy when seeing the guineapig. So the operation began to prepare the pig. I helped with some of it which I would not go into in order to save the appetites of sensitive readers. We had the most amazing barbequed guineapig for lunch and probable the best meal we had in the amazon. We tried to go fishing with spear and bow and arrow the afternoon, however because the water was so high the fish were lower down and dispersed so hard to catch. More bird watching and animal searching to get home and chill again with the mozzies for the evening.

Day 4 last morrning of bird wathching o the river and a not very succesful attempt to line fish paranhas For lunch we again had a full plate of plain spaghetti (no wonder all the females here seemed overweight). The boat taxi was waiting for us and off we went at just after 1pm to the Amazon mouth part of the river and on to Nauta mainland side. After 3 hours on the water we were making our way to Iquitos where we arrived at 5pm. Onwards to Iquitos airport we managed to catch our 7:20pm flight to Lima. Arrived in lima at 9pm (hour time change). We didnt have any accoodation booked and happen to be easter weekend. This meant all the cheap accommodation was booked out and our taxi driver recommended a hotel which he could get us discount on. So we stayed at Stefanos 4 star hotel in Miraflores and where all not to upset with the fact that tonight we were staying in a really nice room with the most comfy beds. It was quite evident when all of us just fell down on these beds with fits of giggles, we were clearly roughing it in the Amazon, so a bit of spoiling ourselves was totally in order.