This week consisted of using a different medicinal plant called Berbinzana and retreat in silence in the jungle for one week. All I knew prior to this week was that Berbinzana had the faculty to open the heart, whatever that really meant. I later found out we were required to follow an even stricter diet than the first week. It consisted of plai...

What a relief to be near sea level. We could breathe easily again and felt full of energy. We had good flights from La Paz to Iquitos with a transit in Lima airport. Iquitos is in northeast Peru and can only be reached by air or boat. It is generally considered the most populous city in the world that cannot be reached by road but there is nothi...

Up 615 for a 630 leaving on a (motorised) wooden canoe up to the Amazon river itself (if you are wondering why the lodges aren`t on the Amazon itselñf it`s because there is too much river traffic for wildlife to hang out near the edges) to look for dolphins. They drove slowly supposedly for spotting but I think to stretch the trip out. Felt mela...

This is an account of my interaction with a character I worked with years ago. I hope to develop more stories about Jose and some of what he taught me as I explored the upper Nanay River over 300 kilometers from Iquitos Peru. Jose "Pescado fresco?" Jose brings his fingers to his mouth in the age-old sign of eating. "Comer?" He keeps his canoe st...

Thursday April 26th 2007 After Bush Tortilla (eggs, garlic, onion, tomato, flour, and anything else left over, fried) and (by now) very stale bread rolls we packed up camp and loaded up the canoe for Israel and Alain to paddle us back to base camp. The 4-hour upstream paddle took only 2 hours going downstream. Those paddles are very heavy, tradi...

Von Lagunas nach Iquitos nahmen wir ein Boot, was echt mal gross war. In der ersten Etage waren der Tierstall; Rinder, Schweine, Huehner, ... In der zweiten Etage war der Menschen "Stall" - einfach vollgestopft mit vielen, vielen Menschen. Und ganz oben war die erste Klasse - Kabinen und viel Platz fuer ein paar Haengematten - allerdings auch fu...

Well, if we had any feeling that Peru felt sort of familiar, I´d say those are gone. We arrived in Iquitos today- a pretty amazing descent into the jungle- to be greeted by throngs of taxi and moto drivers rushing us like kids to an ice cream truck. We finally got into a moto (basically a gasoline-powered rickshaw) driven by a jolly guy named Ri...

Met Dave and Elaine, friends from home, in their five star hotel in Lima and spent the most entertaining hour in the lobby watching all the passersby check themselves out in the reflective glass outside! Was priceless, one guy even came right up to the window and checked out his nose-hair, unaware of Elaine sitting directly under him!! Pretty mu...

Hey Everyone, Well, after a really difficult goodbye to Ashley and an amazing flight 3 hours north of Lima, I am in Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos is actually the world's largest city that cannot be accessed by a road. That's right... only boats and planes here folks. So far I am not too impressed with Iquitos. It is really really hot and humid and has ...

Hola Todos, April 22, 2005 It´s a Peruvian Pesach and I´m searching for the afikomen with my friend Suzanne and the help of our pet alpaca, Lupe. We like to say that we are Albacka-packing through Peru. Actually, we are here scouting indigenous Peruvian tribes in order to set up this summer´s trip, on which we will take five high school students...