On the canoe to Iquitos
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2007
1
61
332
Trip End
Jan 14, 2008
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Iquitos,
Peru
Thursday, April 26, 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, traditional ones for the area, and we would not like to paddle with them for even 2 minutes. Back at base camp we got out of our smelly filthy clothes and hung them out to dry. Barb went round with her camera again trying to persuade the butterflies to cooperate. We saw many butterflies during these past days, some of the most beautiful we have ever seen. A huge bright yellow and black one with swallow tails, and a lemon-yellow beauty with orange tips to its wings refused to sit still. The 4 hour upstream journey to the base camp by peque peque shrank to 2 hours downstream, We saw pink dolphins in a large lake, one jumped right out of the water showing its long snout and pretty colour. We arrived at the village of Jenaro Herrera at about 2pm and checked ourselves out with the police. The ferry did not arrive until 5.00 or so; we spent the time watching the world go by in the heat of the day. It was too hot to go far. Herrera may be in the jungle but it has nothing so useful as a shade tree.The tour company had arranged that we had a cabin to go back on as all decks were full, and by full I mean full! There were hammocks above hammocks above mats on the floor, and lots of people. Meals were available, more chicken, more fried (and tasteless) platanos and more rice
