Base Camp

We were not too successful sleeping in our hammocks last night, swaying on the cargo boat. And it was hot. But there were not any mosquitos, so we were happy about that. We got up just as the sun was rising over the river--a beautiful site to see. We packed up our beds and dragged our stuff to the bottom level of the boat to get ready to get off at a town which we can't remember the name of. It was settled by the Swiss back in the day, and the locals still make cheese.

Actually getting off of the boat was an adventure in itself. As some passengers were waiting to get off, a bunch of locals were waiting to get on to quickly sell their piping hot food and cold drinks to those still on board. And there was no civilised way about this. We had to stick our elbows out and struggle just to stay upright and not get knocked over. Of course there was only a skinny plank of wood to cross from the boat to the shore as well. Safely on land, Gary took us to a small restaurant for breakfast before we met up with our boat driver for the morning. We loaded our gear onto his motorised dugout canoe and set out for 3 hours upriver, turning off of the Amazon and down the ever-narrowing tributary of the Rio something-or-other (will look it up later). This put us over 330km upriver from Iquitos, and the further we went, the thicker the jungle and the less people we started to see.

It was quite hot sitting in the boat with the sun beating down, but we hardly took notice as we enjoyed the jungle. Just all of the sounds of birds and animals made the trip worth it up to that stage. We saw TONS of kingfishers and other birds, a turtle, and a few small monkeys. At one stage we pulled up to the side for a toilet break and Gary just happened to pluck a baby anaconda out of the water. It was so beautiful, but still managed to give us the chills despite being a 2 foot long baby. But Nigel put his fears aside and held it. There are 2 types of anacondas in Peru, the yellow (like this one) and the even more dangerous black anaconda.

After about 3 hours, we arrived at our base camp, where we would be staying for the night. We were pleased to be greeted by 3 very excited and friendly dogs, running down to the water to greet us. They followed us from the river into the jungle where we met Mitchell, a buff old Peruvian, and a small family, all staying at this base camp working. There is a huge screened common room built up off the ground, as well as another deck area with a toilet. They have randomly growning gardens like chili plants and jungle fruits. In addition to the 3 dogs, there are 2 resident parrots who wander around with the chickens and never fly away. I guess you could say the camp is semi-permanent. All I know is that the mosquitos definitely live there!

While Gary and Mitchell cooked us up a delicious lunch, Nige wandered around and played with the dogs while I tried (all in vain) to escape the mossies. After lunch we went traipsing through the jungle, accompanied by 2 of the dogs. At first I was worried that the dogs would scare off any wildlife before we had a chance to view it. But after walking for only 10 minutes, I realised that with all the noise the three of us made, we couldn't even sneak up on the dead. We had galoshes on our feet because of the mud, and since the ground is covered by about 3 feet of leaves, we couldn't have been quiet if we tried. We walked for about 2 hours, enjoying the thick, lush jungle. At times Gary had to hack our way through the vines and trees with a machete. We didn't see any animals :( but we enjoyed having the dogs with us.

After our walk, we desperately needed to cool off so we 'bathed' in the river. I refused to get in completely because of the piranhas, so we just splashed ourselves off while sitting in one of the boats. We then made some bait with flour and water to try and catch some fish. We caught a few small ones. Gary cooked us up a great dinner, then we went to bed to escape the mossies.