IQUITOS

Arrived in Iquitos in the heart of the Amazon early in the evening and as soon as the doors opened we knew that we had hit the jungle .... the humidity was huge! Definately a different kind of heat to that which we had been used to. Had a great time waiting for our bags in the airport as the only airport baggage conveyor had broken down so after looking at all the bags on the cart for half an hour the staff simply picked one bag up and shouted something out (presumably "who's bag is this") ... could not get my head around why they simply did not just lay them in a line along the ground and let people help themselves. Anyway, their chosen system created anarchy with about 80 people all rushing to the cart and pointing to their bags and screaming to the luggage attendant sitting on top of the pile! Actually quite a funny sight ... especially as we managed to get our bags relatively early on.

Took the bus to the hotel which was interesting in that it had no glass in the windows .... out of the space where the windows should have been we saw much of Iquitos .... pretty poor (well, very poor actually) with a definate 'frontier' feel (if only they weren't in the middle of a vast wilderness). The contrast when we got to the hotel was unbelievably huge ..... we stayed at the only 5 star hotel in the Amazon and it was so bizarre to step from poverty to luxury in a few short steps. Nice hotel but I was irritated by the American business men / tourists who were there (having said that there could only have been around 10 of them with the hotel only having 30 odd rooms anyway). Would have been nice to experience a 'local' hotel but it felt SO good to get back to the sanctuary of the room after the heat and the tension of the streets.

On the first evening we wandered down to the river where we stumbled upon a Capoira demonstration which was simply amazingly beautiful and put the other demonstartions that we had witnessed in Brazil in the shade. The atmosphere in Iquitos is quite tense and you can feel an undercurrent of resentment against the big companies exploiting the locakl resources without putting anything back into the community. That said, we had no trouble and most people were polite enough.

Spent 5 days in total in Iquitos which gave us a good feel for the place. Visited the museum which was interesting for the life size plaster casts of the local Indian tribes, saw the house that was designed by Eiffel and shipped out in the early part of the century and generally just wandered the streets soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the food.

One thing stood out though .... the local market ..... truly unlike any other market we had ever visited. Watched a butcher cutting the arms, legs and heads off turtles and then cutting the tongues out and occassionallly popping them raw into his mouth and then wandered down to see a little girl of about 43 or 4 years of age sitting on a table slapping a dead pigs head before sticking her finger into it's eye socket ....... mmmmm, lovely! Actually, Emma could not quite cope with the smells and started to feel sick (can't say I blame her) so we had to get out into the relatively 'fresh' air.

Have to say that we glad to be leaving to head 100 miles deeper into the Amazon at this point.

I cannot begin to describe the overwhelming vastness that is the Amazon Rainforest that we saw as we came into land in Iquitos.

AMAZON RAINFOREST