Beer at 9

Waking up early this morning, we packed up our hammocks and gear and waited to reach Iquitos. As we approached the city, longboats full of guys sped up next to our big cargo ship and all the guys jumped on board, Miami Vice style. Apparently they do this so they can have first pick of the produce for sale before the boat even gets to port. Some boats even hovered right next to us and loaded their bananas right off the cargo boat while cruising along. At port around 7:00, it was pure chaos. We waited on the top deck for things to calm down a bit, as people scrambled to get on to buy stuff, people scrambled to get off to sell stuff, and passengers were just trying to get off. Gary told us to take everything out of our pockets as it´s not unusual for foreigners to have stuff nicked while trying to squeeze their way through the hordes.

Finally off the boat, we caught a motocarro into town and were dropped off at The Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant. Gary departed to take a shower. We enjoyed a great, cheap breakfast of pancakes and Colombian coffee before using the free shower Gerald provides for travellers. I think this was one of the best showers we´ve ever had. Not because it was some fantastic feat of the shower engineers of the world (it was just a cold tap) but because we needed a shower SO BAD. I had made the mistake of ´washing´ my clothes in the Amazon a few days ago, and from then on they just smelled so bad. The river water combined with the fact that we were never actually dry became a leathal combination for our noses. We scrubbed up nicely though, and took our laundry to the lavandaría down the street, where the little lady promised it would be ready by 10:30 for us to leave to catch our flight.

After all the effort of eating, showering, and taking care of our soaking wet laundry, we thought we deserved a nice cold beer...or two or three. The great thing about Iquitos is that no one cares if you´re drinking beer at 9:00 in the morning. And Gerald assured us that his fridge was currently at minus 4 degrees C, so our beer was perfectly chilly, and went down smoothly.

Sure enough, at 10:30 our laundry was done, we packed it up, thanked Gerald and his wife profusely for all of their help, and headed to the airport. We dutifully paid our departure tax and waited for our TANS Peru plane to Lima. The Iquitos airport is a bit funny. There is only one runway, used both for takeoffs and landings, and it doesn´t matter which way the planes go. And seeing as how it´s completely surrounded by thick jungle, it´s a wonder the runway is even paved. As we walked out on the tarmac to board the flight, we took a few photos of the broken down, deserted planes strewn along the side of the runway, practically overgrown with foliage. Very funny.

It was a short ride to Pulcallpa, then a quick trip to Lima from there as we chatted to a young 15 year old from Delaware who had just been in Pulcallpa for a month with his missionary group building a church. Back in Lima, we caught a taxi to the Hotel España, headed straight to the post office to get rid or our accumulated gear (we had decided we´d rather pay the high price to ship it home rather than lug it any further), ate some churros, used the internet, played some cards and drank more beer, had a Tear Gas burger for dinner and headed to bed early, excited for our early start tomorrow to a new country.