Not in this part, though.
Our jungle safari started from Iquitos, a big town far inland in Peru, roughly at the place where the Amazon turns from flowing North to flowing East. Roughly, at the place where the Amazon becomes really big.
Iquitos is located 4 degrees south of the Equator. As expected, it was hot and humid. And different. It's "rustic charm" is a combination of a cultural mix, and of a feeling of a greater days gone by a long time ago. It has a bizarre ethnic character, drawn from many indigenous tribes and European and Chinese immigrants who began to populate the area in the mid-1800's.
The economic heyday of Iquitos was the era of the rubber boom from about 1880 to 1912. During this time vast fortunes were amassed because the Iquitos region was the world's foremost source of raw rubber. Great injustice was perpetrated upon the indigenous people during this time by foreign entrepreneurs who ruthlessly exploited them for labour.
Rivers and rainforests surround Iquitos for hundreds of miles in all directions.
We took a boat from Iquitos, and stayed in a lodge on one of the tributaries to the Amazon. For the next four days our only means of transportations was a small wooden boat.
Local children row to school. Families are large, but still, I imagine that life can be a bit lonely.
This man is pressing bamboo for alcohol production. We tried fishing piranhas from one of these boats. We were not very successful -- must remember to make a note for myself not to believe everything I see in those James Bond films.
Everyone has a friend here.
We went for several walks in the area. There were lots of mosquitoes, but there were also beautiful forests and lots of wildlife in every direction, so it was worth it. My favourite was this sloth mother with a baby sloth on her tummy -- she was very slow and very ET-like, but if someone tried to touch the baby, as someone did, she moved *fast* and her long claws were *dangerous*.
Perhaps the most interesting natural experience here was the night safari we did. The sounds were amazing, and there were lots of insects that prefer to venture out at night. This tarantula lived in a palm tree close to our bungalow, and her (or his, I am not sure) partner lived in the palm tree next root. We saw some rare poisonous ants, stick insects, and many more crawling creatures.
But the best bit was the rain. As we returned home, just before midnight, the skies started rumbling. This was at the very end of the rainy season, so the days were dry and sunny, but it would still rain very night at midnight. And how it would rain! Bucketing down does not begin to describe it. It was painful to stand outside when it stared pouring down, so hard were the rain streams. But it was warm and it was thunderous and it was just so very beautiful.
And, for the end, my favourite two photos from the area.
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Silvija Seres