Big City on the River

Hola todos,

I'm back in the city again, and man does it feel good! I've waded through swamps; bathed with dolphins and electric eels; ate rice, bread, onions and tomatoes for days on end; gotten enough bites from mosquitos, ants, and other insects to make me not care anymore; spent days on a cargo ship listening to blaring bad music starting at 5 in the morning, and watching random Steven Seagal movies until 12 at night (and been fed more rice). I had a pancake this morning once I got into town, and it was like I'd never tasted a pancake before, it was wonderful. But enough with the stream of cosciousness summary, let's start from the beginning.

Once upon a time, I got upon a cargo ship and travelled to a village along the big river in Northern Peru (not yet called "rio Amazonas") called Lagunas. I arrived in the night, and began making preparations the next morning to set out with a guide in a canoe into the wilderness of Pacaya Samiria. We took a motortaxi as far as it would take us (like the other areas I've seen around here, they like their motorcycles), and then set off.

Now, unfortunately I'm going to have to break down some images you all may have had of me ruthlessly cutting my way through the rainforest with a machete like Crocodile Dundee. In actuality, my guide Javier was doing all the paddling for us while I was laying down in the back of a canoe for 4 days. To be honest, it was more relaxing than adventurous. We did see some animals though, let me see:

We saw a number of little monkeys swinging around in the trees;
Sloths which you could whistle at and they would slowly turn their heads to look at you;
Lot's of different types of birds - hawks which would swoop down and grab fish, mccaws which would all talk with each other in the trees, great big cranes which would fly across the river and make mooing sounds like a cow at night, bocholochos which would make the coolest noises while swinging from the trees like pendulums, and all kinds of others;
We came across an electric eel that was vcry long and I actually lied, I was told not to go swimming with it;
Lot's of river dolphins which were pink and would pop up from time to time alongside our boat;
Tarantulas, iguanas, all manner of insects, lots of colorful butterflies, etc.

And we heard, but didn't see, the howler monkeys which another American who we met along the river described as "the sound of the world ending."

Pictures of animals are unfortunately practically nil since I don't have much of a zoom on my camera, and I was pretty preocuppied with trying to spot the animals which my guide had no trouble seeing.

There were places along the river called refugios which were basic places to find shelter (and land, with recent rainfall there was hardly any land to be found). I met and talked with other travellers, including the aformentioned American, a couple of Europeans and their guides. We caught fish to eat, and the rest of the time ate the aformentioned rice, bread, tomatoes and onions with tea from heated up river water.

We went on a walk into the woods (or rather, the swamp) at one point as well where I climbed a tree and got bitten to shreds by some ants. My Peruvian guide climbed it too, and didn't get bitten at all. Figure that one out. There was another type of tree that you could swing a machete at it, and a white liquid would come trickling out of it which is apparently used for medicine for children. Lot's of cool flora, and vines you could swing on and such. We didn't see very many animals, but apparently one of the Europeans and his guide enountered a group of wild boar that they tiptoed very carefully around.

I had some interesting conversations with the Europeans about American culture and my harmonica playing was a major attraction for the Peruvians who had never seen or heard one before. I gave a concert at each place we stopped for the evening.

We had blistering sun every day on the river, but the second we got back to dry land at the end of the trip, it began to rain. Shortly after we'd arrived back in Lagunas it was raining cats and tapirs, complete with thunder and lightning. I spent the day in my room relaxing from all that relaxing I'd been doing on the river, and listening to the storm. The next day, which would be perfectly sunny, I'd need to wait until nighttime to be able to catch a cargo ship down the river to Iquitos. I walked around the town a bit with one of the river guides, and stopped in at a church service which again being in Spanish was a little difficult for me to follow. I'm still no Peruvian. Got to play some music with some kids a little bit, which was cool.

The boat as I mentioned before was very noisy, but I was able to meet some people. I talked with an older Peruvian gentlemen named William about Blues and Jazz music, and let him listen to my ipod a bit which he really enjoyed. I talked with a tatooed Peruvian artist about God. And I met a guy from California and a guy from Germany which I'm now staying with in a hostel in Iquitos.

All in all, it's been a week without many comforts, but it's been a good time to be able to relax and contemplate. Not a lot of distractions, just a great big open jungle. Sometimes staring out into the expanse of it it seems empty. Of course, listening at night you realize it's full of life and noise, but somehow I think it's noise that makes sense. It doesn't clog up the mind like it does in the city. Having spent some time there, the jungle doesn't seem as intimidating to me anymore. It's just a place with some solitude, and some real nature to see - not like what you'd see where there's motor traffic and smog and clubs and markets. I tell you though, I think I'm ready for some pollution if it comes with pizza and Coca Cola. :)

Hope you're all doing well. It's nice to be writing to you all again. I'll be here just a couple days and then I'll hopefully be able to catch a plane back to Lima where I'll begin my journey south.

Cheers,
Stephen

PS: If you'd like to see more pictures and bigger pictures of my trip, well you'll just need to become my facebook friend!