The Amazon

Flying into the Amazon was a magnificent spectacle; trees for as far as the eye can see intersected by a network of shimmering veins. Landing was a bumpy affair bouncing past old military planes that look like they’d been there a few decades heavily covered in moss.

 Our hostel was a nice little tranquil place amongst the chaos, just around the corner from the river. The staff were polite and friendly and had arranged for us to meet a guide to take us around the Amazon - Carlos, a man in his later years but as sprightly as a 20 yr old. He later told us his wife is 40yrs younger and he has a 2 yr old daughter!

 After a hot and sticky night’s sleep we met Carlos and headed off to the market to where you can find anything you want, from machetes to socks to batteries to DVDs. Once shopping and packing was complete we headed with Carlos to board the ferry. The ferries in the Amazon are very old consist of two or three levels and infiltrated with rust. Every space available is occupied by a hammock or five! Literally you cannot move, above, below, to all sides are hammocks, with around 100 people and 1 toilet each floor!  Getting onto the ferry was a mission in itself, dodging the hundreds of people, boarding, loading and unloading goods whilst balancing on a narrow, wet and slimy plank of wood.

 Onboard we met our cook and interrupter, and sampled the local delicacy wrapped in a banana leaf. After a sleepless night due to the lights being left on and all matter of noises (luckily the animals were on the bottom deck!), we got awoken in the dark and told to quickly get off. As there are no next stop anouncements as soon as goods and people are swapped the ferry is off, giving you very little time.

 On land we were escorted to a house at the end of the village. The village itself is quite big but very bare to our standards. All houses are made out of planks of wood with mud floors. There are two rooms: the living area with beds and a table, and the kitchen which extends outside for washing and bathing. It was here I got electrocuted! As I reached for my water bottle my arm brushed past a wire that was dangling down - the next minute I shot backwards, thankfully no damage just a little shaken. Toilets are either balancing on a plank of wood over a river outlet or in nature, and as soon as you pull down your trousers bite bite bite from mosquitoes. In some areas of the village are village squares with arranged plants and a bench in the centre. No one speaks English and our Spanish was poor smiles and nods were quite common place, so we had to rely on the interrupter to communicate for us.  After a tour of the village and a bathe in the local river, we visited the village shop which stocked everything and even had a few old games consoles for the local kids to play on. The people here are happy and friendly and the kids constantly play games whilst laughing.

 The next day we hired a canoe driver. The canoes are small and very tight with six people  and  camping equipment onboard. You can’t imagine  how wide the Amazon actually is until you are there, we were like a little pea-pod floating down a Derbyshire stream. Off the Amazon we turned into very narrow rivers, aka streams, where the canopy of the trees was right over us and at times we went through it. Branches had to be chopped down with machetes to clear the way. Fruit trees are everywhere and instead of hearing animal noises, it was in fact very still and quite. “Hungry?” our guide inquired - a fruit tree was found and the fruit removed. Papaya here is the nicest I’ve ever tasted, very juicy and fresh tasting, unlike the ones you buy in the local supermarket. Bananas were also widely consumed, different types and sizes and the smallest strangely tasted exactly like pineapple!

 As well as staying in villages we additionally stopped by small clearings on river banks. The driver and cook put hammocks up in box mosquito nets and made a fire from which dinner was cooked. Food here consists of rice, yukka (stringy potato), plantain(green bananas) and fish. It’s actually very good and goes down well. As the sun sets the amount of mosquitoes becomes unbearable so you have to retreat to your hammock. Even after getting in, you needed to kill, and just as you thought you had got them all... buzzzzzz right in your ear.

 One day we went on the hunt to find some giant lily pads. Weaving through more canopy covered streams, ants dropped on us the size of  a 10p piece, some poisonous. We eventually emerged through a small gap and before us were lily pads 4-5ft wide with spikes lining the exterior rim - impressive by any standards.

 Back on the Amazon, we passed a travelling band going from village to village, which we were informed was for the festival that was on at the time. We watched kids decorate a palm tree with toilet paper and clothes, then standing it upright in the middle of the street. We had to be careful walking around town as part of the festival is to cover people in paint. Luckily for us no one tried.

 Eventually we got on another ferry to Requena, a large town few hours down the river. It was here stocks were replenished and a Peki-peki (motorized canoe) was acquired for the next leg of the journey. Mid voyage a horrendous downpour started ponchos and plastic sheeting appeared like lightning, fortunately it only lasted 15 minutes. Soggy, we passed a large convoy of floating logs on which people were living for weeks until they got to their destination. A family, tents and fires were on these logs with canoes fixed either side. That night we stopped at a house where an old lady, her son, his daughter and son-in-law lived with chickens and a cat. After fishing with a net, the fish were plucked out and cooked. Catfish and piranha are some of the fish consumed in the Amazon, Despite the amount of bones and lack of flesh they are very tasty. The locals find it funny that we won’t eat the bones, skin or eyes, so they do this for us. After a few hours sleep we went off in a canoe looking for caimans around a little lake area.  A few hours of hearing them call, we eventually track down two babies. It’s quite nerve racking moving around the canopy in complete darkness knowing that at any time insects could be landing on you or animal pouncing out at you, let alone the bats swooping down on you from above.

 Another small village we stayed at was with ex-cannibals - Marta and Elios, two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Their house was very organized; bedroom separate from the living area with a walkway to the kitchen with a large bowl to collect rain water for washing the pots, wood carved toilets separated by gender with lids!  One tip when you’re in the kitchen: do not look up from the table. The ceiling is full, and I mean full of spiders! Webs everywhere! They leave them there to catch the flies so they don’t go near their food supplies, a good idea but not ideal for those scared of spiders! After dinner Marta will take you down to the river to bathe, it seems all the villagers do this at the same time, the women are naked but the men keep their clothes on. It was here that my hammock broke and I fell to the floor with a great bang. I was OK and a new hammock was erected for me.

 Typical villages down river are small and half flooded out, with maybe a hospital and/or a school, both of which consist of a one room hut. 

 One of our last days we got lost, something you don't want to do in the Amazon. We ended up rushing through the canopy as it was getting dark, branches swiping at our faces, and my companion had some of his ear ripped off. Peculiarly we bumped into some locals who informed us where a clearing was to camp for the night. Whilst sleeping we got woken up by gunfire! Terrified we stayed in our hammocks waiting for someone to approach us, eventually managing to get back to sleep. In the morning we found out it was our crew who had gone off to a house nearby to get drunk and it was their return we heard! When daylight arose we went piranha fishing, the canoe bumped into a little tree from which black bees flew out and stung my neck. It was so painful and swollen I couldn’t move it for 12 hrs, we also failed to catch any piranha. It was then time to get out of our lost mess, 24 hours lost to be exact. We were informed it was common in the wet season as the river is so high the usual landmarks are underwater. Suddenly river dolphins appeared that look like pink aliens, but unlike their relatives cannot jump out of water, infact, they can only stick their noses out. A quick stop then back to Requena through the night to catch the ferry back to Iquitos.

 Back in Iquitos we travelled by a small boat to the Boro Tribes village. It was here that we got to see the old traditions with dances, meet and stroke an anaconda and hold sloths, one of which was called Maggie Thatcher.

 Then it was over and a flight was caught out of the Amazonian rainforest, a trip I will never forget.