From Iquitos we were colected by the lodges' taxi and taken to the jetty where we boarded a speed boat powered by twin 150hp yamaha engines which the 'captain' took great relish in thrashing .... probably the fastest we have ever travelled on water which is just as well as the trip upriver still took around two hours.
Halfway up we droppped several people off at the companies 'luxury ' lodge which is basically a 3 star hotel in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon .... seemed to be the ritcher, older American crowd. We carried on and took a small side turn off where we slowed down and went past a small vilage where people moved on the water in dug out canoes that literally looked as if they would be swamped by a ripple let alone the wash from a speed boat, Literally a different world with naked children swiming and playing in the rather murky river whilst their mothers washed their clothes. Many of the children here have distended bellies from drinking the river water which contains several parasites - apparently they have to reach a minimum of 4 years old before they can be given a herbal medicine to kill the parasites (too strng to give it to them any younger).
Reached the camp lodge and were shown to our 'room' which was basically a thatched hut seperated from the other rooms by wooden boards that did not go all the way up (to allow air to move through and cool the room). It had all mod cons such as a plastic pitcher to collect river water for washing in the morning, a basin for same and most importantly a mosquito net! The toilet block was lovely ....... big pit and ummm, toilet paper. Shower block was a pleasant suprise although the water was brown (pumped from the river) and cold. No electricity which gave the place a lovely glow by oil lamplight. Sounds disgusting but the place was truly beautiful. Discovered that we had a personal guide for the 5 days that we were to be in the jungle whose name was Jose. Bit surly and clearly jaded by having to show tourists around the jungle hewas nevertheless a very knowledgible guide.
Cannot write her of all the things that we saw but here are a few .... bats, tarantulas, giant 1" long red ants, poison dart toads, pink dolphins, grey river dolphins, sloths, birds too numerous to mention and piranha fish (which we actually caught and ate ... very tasty).
Highlights have to be the late night dugout canoe rides on the river as well as the sunrise river ride. As interesting but not as pleasing was the visit to a local indian village .... got to use a blowgun at which Emma proved to be very adept! Our guide told us that he thinks the villagers traditions will only last another 20 years at most as the young are moving to Iquitos to seek work .... quite sad really and we feel priviledged to have witnessed some of their traditions.
Jose also took us to visit his 'friend' on several occassions .... I was quite happy as his friend ran a jungle rum factory ...... unbelievably simple affair where the sugar cane is crushed, the juice extracted, heated in a big pot then put into a still ...... all completely filthy with no sense of hygiene of course but the result was a VERY strong liquor which resembled incredibly bad, very cheap Vodka which has had petrol added to it. Hate to say this but I developed quite a liking to it and returned to the lodge with a few Coka Cola bottles of it! Emma was not so keen but I felt it helped to wash down the raw snails and onions that accompanied it as a snack! These, actually were not that bad. I still maintain that it was the rum that stoppped me becoming violently ill as Emma did on the second to last day ......... thankfully the Ciproflaxin cleared the problem up pretty quickly but not before Emma had n horrendous night of vomiting and diahhorrea.
The realisation that we were to be leaving South America in a few days hit us on the last night in the lodge whilst we swung in the hammocks ..... it had just been an amazing, fantastic and wonderful 4 months and we were sorry to be leaving (although the prospect of being able to understand the language was greatly appealing). We left the Amazon feeling sure that we would return if not to the amazon at least to South America.
Halfway up we droppped several people off at the companies 'luxury ' lodge which is basically a 3 star hotel in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon .... seemed to be the ritcher, older American crowd. We carried on and took a small side turn off where we slowed down and went past a small vilage where people moved on the water in dug out canoes that literally looked as if they would be swamped by a ripple let alone the wash from a speed boat, Literally a different world with naked children swiming and playing in the rather murky river whilst their mothers washed their clothes. Many of the children here have distended bellies from drinking the river water which contains several parasites - apparently they have to reach a minimum of 4 years old before they can be given a herbal medicine to kill the parasites (too strng to give it to them any younger).
Reached the camp lodge and were shown to our 'room' which was basically a thatched hut seperated from the other rooms by wooden boards that did not go all the way up (to allow air to move through and cool the room). It had all mod cons such as a plastic pitcher to collect river water for washing in the morning, a basin for same and most importantly a mosquito net! The toilet block was lovely ....... big pit and ummm, toilet paper. Shower block was a pleasant suprise although the water was brown (pumped from the river) and cold. No electricity which gave the place a lovely glow by oil lamplight. Sounds disgusting but the place was truly beautiful. Discovered that we had a personal guide for the 5 days that we were to be in the jungle whose name was Jose. Bit surly and clearly jaded by having to show tourists around the jungle hewas nevertheless a very knowledgible guide.
Cannot write her of all the things that we saw but here are a few .... bats, tarantulas, giant 1" long red ants, poison dart toads, pink dolphins, grey river dolphins, sloths, birds too numerous to mention and piranha fish (which we actually caught and ate ... very tasty).
Highlights have to be the late night dugout canoe rides on the river as well as the sunrise river ride. As interesting but not as pleasing was the visit to a local indian village .... got to use a blowgun at which Emma proved to be very adept! Our guide told us that he thinks the villagers traditions will only last another 20 years at most as the young are moving to Iquitos to seek work .... quite sad really and we feel priviledged to have witnessed some of their traditions.
Jose also took us to visit his 'friend' on several occassions .... I was quite happy as his friend ran a jungle rum factory ...... unbelievably simple affair where the sugar cane is crushed, the juice extracted, heated in a big pot then put into a still ...... all completely filthy with no sense of hygiene of course but the result was a VERY strong liquor which resembled incredibly bad, very cheap Vodka which has had petrol added to it. Hate to say this but I developed quite a liking to it and returned to the lodge with a few Coka Cola bottles of it! Emma was not so keen but I felt it helped to wash down the raw snails and onions that accompanied it as a snack! These, actually were not that bad. I still maintain that it was the rum that stoppped me becoming violently ill as Emma did on the second to last day ......... thankfully the Ciproflaxin cleared the problem up pretty quickly but not before Emma had n horrendous night of vomiting and diahhorrea.
The realisation that we were to be leaving South America in a few days hit us on the last night in the lodge whilst we swung in the hammocks ..... it had just been an amazing, fantastic and wonderful 4 months and we were sorry to be leaving (although the prospect of being able to understand the language was greatly appealing). We left the Amazon feeling sure that we would return if not to the amazon at least to South America.
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