I'm back in Cusco with my sister. Sorry I have been so quiet, but haven't had much internet connection in the jungle. Hee hee. Anyway, here's the intro to my weeklong jungle trip. I will post more specifics about my activities and impressions of jungle culture in the next few days.
- H
What a crazy week I had in the jungle! I arrived in Iquitos on Sunday and was whisked off to a motorboat that took me an hour and a half down the Amazon River to the lodge where I would begin my jungle tour.
The Amazon is huge. I mean, of course it’s one of the longest rivers in the world (there are debates as to whether the longest is the Amazon or the Nile), but it’s ridiculously wide, too, at least to me someone who grew up on the West coast of the US where the big rivers probably aren’t even a third as wide as the Amazon (I’m guessing).
Pretty wide, huh?
The sun was about an hour from setting and there were lots of white puffy clouds that slowly turned orange and pink. It was truly fantastic.
On the boat ride, I started thinking about the fact that I was visiting the rainforest, a dream of mine since I was eight years old reading the kid’s version of the National Geographic magazine and obsessing over tree frogs and the environment. So we’re speeding downriver and I start to think about how wild the jungle really is. Anything can happen there, more so than at home, where life is predictable. Maybe because I keep it predictable, or maybe because routine just keeps it that way. But I could sense there would be an openness, a freedom in the jungle that I really looked forward to, no matter what came my way. (Though, luckily, I did not get bitten by anything worse than a mosquito, I didn’t get attacked by jaguars and I didn’t get any bad parasites from the water - I hope). But I fell in love with it. I haven’t slept as well as I didn’t when I fell asleep to the sounds of insects, frogs, nocturnal birds and the rain (because it is, after all, a rainforest, which means always expect rain). I didn’t even mind the cold showers. I felt at home with the green things all around me, the ferns and mosses, which reminded me of Seattle and the Olympic National Rainforest. There was something about arriving there that was like coming home, even though nothing was really familiar.
I had booked a tour that took me to three different lodges in seven nights. The first two nights, I was in a lodge where all of the buildings were open air (bar and dining area were screened in, everything else was not) and covered in thatched roofs. There was very minimal electricity that they only used for the fans, the blender at the bar and the power cords for charging camera batteries. My room was open - no individual ceiling, no window, no screen - and my bed had mosquito netting.
My room at the first lodge
At night everything was lit by kerosene lanterns, even the pathways leading from place to place. It was incredibly romantic. I had a private, attached bathroom with a flush toilet, but no hot water. My mom would have viewed it as her own personal hell. I loved it and felt like I was at summer camp for adults.
Since I had arrived so late (I got in just at 6, which was right as it was getting dark and starting to rain), there was only time for an orientation of sorts by my guide, Cesar, who would be with me the whole week, and some time to unpack and unwind before dinner, where I would meet the others in my group. We were a group of six, including a father, Jack, and his two kids, both in their early 20s - Sarah had just graduated from Lewis and Clark and this trip was her graduation present, and Nick had just finished culinary school. Then there were Russ and Rebecca, a married couple my age from England on vacation while Russ was back from Afghanistan. And me.
We had our dinner, which was fantastic - the food at this place was so good, always some kind of protein, rice and beans and veggies, always locally grown, fresh fruit and juices. Every lodge we went to, it was as good as before. After dinner we all wandered to the bar for a drink, beers and pisco sours. It was such a strange feeling, it being 8:20 pm and way too early to go to bed, but not having any electricity, television or internet to entertain us for the night. Russ made a joke, “What did people do before television? They went to bed at 8:20.” We actually did have live music - our guide and other staff were jamming, playing Peruvian and other Latin songs on the guitar, maracas, cajon (a Peruvian box that is beat like a drum). It was nice to slow down a bit - I felt much less overwhelmed than usual. And when I did get to bed, man, did I sleep well that night in the pitch black with the jungle sounds, especially with the soothing sounds of the rain outside.
Next post: itinerary, notes and more photos!
You can also find some photos on Facebook - http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57768&l=43bb6&id=622011179
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