La Selva

Another vacation! Work hasn’t quite picked up yet so a friend and fellow Fogarty Scholar, Devora, and I took advantage of the down time, and Peruvian holidays, to take another trip to see more of the country. We booked a quick flight to Iquitos, the Peru entry to the Amazon jungle.

 As soon as we got off of the plane we felt more like tourists in a foreign country than we do in our daily lives in Lima. The typical mode of transportation in Iquitos is a mototaxi (pictured to the right). It's a small two-person cab hooked onto the back of a motorbike. So even before we stepped out of the airport we were surrounded by mototaxi drivers vying for our business to take us into town. I should mention, that I was towering over all them as they questioned us yelled out prices in a mix of English and Spanish. I'm not sure what the uncomfortable part was, the towering or the decision-making or all the attention, but this was a common scene over the week that I never got use to. 

 We spent the first day exploring Iquitos and also a butterfly rehabilitation center in the area. During this trip I was reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, which is about migration of butterflies. Her imagery of the butterflies is so beautiful and mesmerizing, I had to see it for myself. The Mariposaria provides a habitat for the butterflies to mate and for the next generation to grow. Then they release them back into the jungle. The rest of the trip we were stopping to watch butterflies dance around. 

 The second day we were off for our Amazon jungle adventure. An Italian woman joined, Devora and me, to make up our tour group. We first took a four hour boat ride up the Amazon, seeing many fresh water dolphins and birds. We stopped to chat with a group of carachama fisherman. Five or six guys live on raft for about a week, floating down the Amazon from Pucallpa to Iquitos fishing for carachama, a popular and ugly Amazon catfish. They find the catch the fish and keep them in large water cages attached to the raft (see pictures below). They then arrive in Iquitos to sell thousands of fresh fish. The guys strangely happy to show off their loot and explain to us how it is done.

Jungle Downpour 

We arrived to our lodge just in time to miss a thunder and lightening storm, which I enjoyed watching from our room. This was the introduction to our four day jungle experience. Meaning, it rained everyday, I was constantly dripping sweat and fighting off bugs, and it was beautiful and green! 

Blender

Our guide, Alberto, was from a neighboring pueblo. He fit in with us well, joking around, making fun of our Spanish and indulging our constant stream of questions. We spent the next four days exploring the jungle by boat and by foot. We saw lots of animals, pink dolphins, monkeys, an alligator and lots of birds. Alberto taught us about the medical properties and household purposes of many plants (see the picture of the blender he made on the left). 

Las Renas de La Selva (Jungle Queens) and Alberto

We ate delicious food, fresh fish, plantains, sugary fruit juice; even the instant Nescafé was tasty. We fished for piranhas, swam in the Amazon, and watched the sunset. It was a typical tourist experience and I loved it! I think I will just let the pictures tell rest of the story. 










On one hike Alberto made Devora and I crowns. That machete is his lifeline, trail blazer, eating utensil, blender maker, and much much more.

In Alberto's village

Alberto took us to his village. This woman was trying to give her hen some sort of medicine.

Swimming in the Amazon

We went swimming in the Amazon. It was disturbingly warm, like bath water. But there were pink dolphins swimming in the background!

Piranha fishing.  

Unhooking the Piranha 

Fishing for piranhas. We used expensive chicken meat to fish for small barely edible piranhas, and by fish I mean feed them lunch. It was the easiest fishing I have ever done. It took seconds to get a bite, but you had to be quick to get them out of the water. It was surprisingly entertaining, although I was the least successful in our group.








We ended up throwing most of them back. Unhooking them was part of the fun.

Post Jungle Lunch- Street Food

Baby Ocelot in a Iquitos Hotel

Sunset over the Amazon River

 The primary goal of this experience in Peru is to gain global health research experience, but the secondary one is to get to know a new country and culture. AKA my excuse to travel. Peru is such a diverse country and has so much to offer. I’m so glad I get to explore some of it!

Huacachina

 Winter weather in Lima is tougher to handle than rainy winters in the northwest. Everyday is the same, dense fog with thick overcast skies. The temperature is not cold enough for buildings to have heat or good insulation, but enough to leave a chill indoors that can never be abated. So, looking for some change in weather and daily routine a friend and I took a quick two-day trip the desert. A quick four hour bus ride later we were in shorts, warm and happy.

Huacachina and Ica in back right

Huacachina is a tiny resort oasis about 3 miles outside Ica. There is a small lagoon lined with hostels and restaurants all surrounded by miles of sand dunes. The photo to the left is Huacachina with Ica in the back right.

Dune Buggy 

Although for us it was the sunshine and blue skies, the big draw in Huacachina are the dunes. Activities included dune buggy rides and sand boarding (like snowboarding, but on the sand dunes). We ended up with a packaged deal through our hostel and so gave it a try. I only felt a little sick after the jerky buggy ride over the tops of dunes, it was a blast.

Sand Boarding

The ride took us out of Huacachina to some spectacular views and the top of three dunes for sand boarding. Not being a snowboarder myself I went down lying on my stomach dragging my feet for breaks, just fast enough for fun. The dunes got increasingly larger so I had to talk myself into on to that board each time, especially the last one when I couldn’t even see the bottom. Each time was totally worth it, marked by the amount of sand I later poured out of my shoes.  

The rest of the trip we relaxed in the sun, read books and burned our feet on hot sand. It was so enjoyable to get out of Lima, see blue skies, and be warmed by the sun. We hardly wanted to go back.