Otorongo Expeditions Iquitos

... he took me back to meet his wife and kids, he lives in a wooden hovel in Belen, VERY basic, I became a novelty, all the local kids gathered around and stared at this strange gringo ( they actually called me that) We then got ****** on the local brew, me, Jorge, his missus, his brothers and sisters, the in-laws and just about the rest of the little community... getting into bed late.<br><br>Hasta Luego .... Ronaldo<br>

... already well bitten hands, necks, and faces. What did we have to lose? <br><br> We saw a funky bright colored lizard with a poisonous blue tail. We walked through swamp land and Eric lost his boot a couple of times which put him in a great mood. It was an unbelievable 100 degree day and we were walking around in 2 long sleeved shirts (bugs were able to bite through one layer) and pants. It is amazing people can live in this heat year round and it made us ...

... like a funnel. The fish swim in the wide end, pass through the hole, and don&#8217;t know how to get back out. In the morning, someone comes, plugs the hole, gets the fish, and opens the hole again.&#8221; It was an interesting and very simple concept. The trap we saw was not in use as part of the &#8216;funnel&#8217; side was missing, but the trap was intact enough that we could see how it worked.<br><br> We passed a larger hole in the ground and Falcon took care to ...

... to duck or jump or what. &#8220;You just about stepped on it!&#8221; I looked down to find a tarantula sitting smack in the middle of the trail It had hairy black legs and a brown patch down the middle of its hairy back. Falcon, our guide came over and picked it up. &#8220;The pure black ones are dangerous, not the brown ones&#8220;, he says. &#8220;This one is just a little baby&#8221;. It was about the biggest and hairiest spider I had ever seen. We all ...

... trip would be &#8220;muy tranquilo,&#8221; as most latinos would say. It&#8217;s hard to complain when you are sitting in a hammock floating down the Maranon and Amazon Rivers and just soaking in the landscape of the surrounding Amazon forest- which is literally all you can see in about any direction. The sunsets and sunrises were amazing-we must have taken 200 photos or more. The night was almost as scenic as the day-the sky was filled with jillions of stars ...

... mental state was tested at times, and in combination with the heat (we had been in mountains and altitude and needed lots of layers of clothing for far too long), we were pleasantly surprised to have arrived in Iquitos in one piece!!<br>So the town itself was not anything that special, though it did feel completely different to any of the other towns we had visited recently. It was a nice change. <br>The following couple of days (well it turned into ...

One of the neighborhoods in Iquitos is called Belen and is famous for its market. But what is also interesting about Belen is that much of the city is situated on the Rio Itaya, one of the many Amazon tributaries, with the houses built on floats to accommodate the rise and fall of the river ...

... take a tour. Okay, I'll pick you up at 10. I gave up and went to bed. The next morning I found another hotel and was moved into there by 8:30. So it wasn't a very pleasant introduction to Iquitos but I'm happy to say that the rest of my experiences here have been stellar. I found another hotel - La Pascana - which is a small family run place. It's clean and friendly and has all the basics and is reasonably ...

... is a wooden hut high on slits completely surrounded by the swollen river and thick rainforest. We bought a live chicken on the way to the village which was promptly killed by the family we're staying with to provide lunch. It was defiantly the freshest chicken I'd ever eaten. After lunch we went fishing on a beautiful lagoon just off the Yaraba river. We saw several river dolphins playing around 100 metres from the boat, unfortunately they didn't come any closer ...

... number three was in the making! The fact that brothers number one and two lying right next to their parents during the production process seemed to bother no one. The next morning, Pedro Jr. and Miguel came along for our first early-morning canoe trip. They stared at me the entire time and when I looked at them, they started laughing. But like kids anywhere, they argued about who got to sit in the front of their dug-out canoe. And with ...