Día 1 en la Jungla

All of us would agree that this past weekend was a trip we have been wanting to take for a loooong time. We flew out of Lima on Thursday night heading north-east deep into the Amazon Jungle. We stayed the night in Iquitos, which is a town of about 370,000, although it seems much smaller. When we stepped out of the airplane we were hit in face with the hot humid weather of the tropics. After being in Lima, where the weather is constantly cloudy and around 65 F., it was a nice change. The airport had all the feelings of a small town in a developing country. As soon as we walked out of the airport gates there were dozens of cabbies calling to us, arguing amongst themselves over who should have the right to the group of gringos. Unfortunately for them, we already had a ride set up. Brady, our team lead, had taken care of this the day before. Carlos was there waiting with a sign for Ready Johnson (Brady’s name seems too difficult to say in Spanish so people refer to him has Ready. We, obviously, have started using this name as well and have even translated it into Spanish which we use often: Listo Johnson).

We gave our bags to the 12 year olds waiting to help us (for a small propina of course) and headed to the minivan. After about a 15 minute ride through some very interesting traffic (for details, view Rob’s entry below) we arrived at our hotel. On the way to the hotel we learned about the best restaurants, the best foods to eat (turtle, crocodile, jungle spaghetti, and Piranha), and the best places to go out dancing. We didn’t have much time in Iquitos because our boat left early the next morning to take us 4 hours deep into the Amazon. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we checked in, dropped off our bags, and hit the streets. We strolled up to the river walkway and tried one of the restaurants Carlos had suggested. Mike, Rob, and I had river bass while Alex and Ready Johnson dined on crocodile.

When we finished dinner we started searching for some night life. When we hit the main road, we went up to one of the motorcycle taxis and asked for some suggestions (these are motorcycles that have been rigged with a two seater trailer and the locals call them mosquitoes—there are 16,000 of them in the city). We ended up jumping in two mosquitoes and told them to take us to the best place to be on a Thursday night. We ended up driving down some dirt roads and ended up at an open air concert hall (more like an open warehouse) where there was a 15 person band playing and 300 Peruvians dancing the night away. Needless to say, we were the only gringos at the concert. We stayed for a few hours trying out our salsa moves and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next few days deep in the jungle.