WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: On the Ucayali River

This is the Maniti Lodge, home base for our jungle exploring. The wee turret has excellent hammocks for sitting and watching river dolphins (grey ones and pink ones) and boats go by.








The flooded jungle - photos don't really do it justice.



This is where the Amazon animals tried to hide from us. But they were no match for our little sightseeing boat and our guide Ashuko, who had an uncanny way of heading straight to the right spot almost every time. We think maybe he planted the animals early in the morning before we left.







We couldn't really get good photos of most of the animals as they were a bit too distant for our lenses and you wouldn't have the benefit of binoculars such as we had. So here's a wee list, and a few photos from the internet, of some things we saw.

• Monkeys - Brown capuchin, White-fronted capuchin, Dusky Titi, Saki, Pygmy Marmoset, Kinkajou, Squirrel Monkey
  
  Here's the Squirrel Monkey (one of my favs)

We watched as a baby Squirrel Monkey almost got eaten by one of these guys (a Plumbeous Kite):













Don't worry, the cute wee monkey got away.



We saw a lot of birds. We stopped counting at 70 species.

A few of our favourites include:












The Little Hermit Hummingbird
















Cuvier's Toucan

Iquitos: Gateway to the jungle

Today it rained. I fear it is becoming a habit. The long-range weather forecast is doing it's best to dampen our spirits but we shall soldier on regardless. I don't mind too much as it reminds me of home. Thanks for the umbrella, Mum, probably the most useful jungle accessory in my pack so far. We went for a walk along the river - not the Amazon, I have discovered, but the Itaya River which is a tributary.

We spotted some exotic wildlife. Well, technically, a local spotted it, called us over to show us and then Justin spent the next five minutes trying to help me spot it. Can you see it in the picture below?

Justin says there's no way that anyone will find it and I'll just end up alienating my readers if I don't give you the payoff - so, here is what, we think, is a Green Iguana (the largest lizard in Peru). This little guy is not yet fully grown at just over a metre long.

The local that just happened to be helpfully pointing out wildlife then ushered us into a museum to give us a guided tour of some fibreglass statues of indigenous Peruvians from various tribes that a Peruvian Swedish man had made after travelling around taking photos and making moulds in various villages around Peru and Brazil.

The further north you go the less clothes you need, apparently, so here's a wee taster of what Justin should be wearing after a couple of weeks in the jungle.

Tonight we dance. Carlos, a friend of my Spanish friend Ruben, has very kindly taken us under his wing and this evening he's taking us out on the town for a wee cumbia hoe-down.

El Peru: The Return

I'm back. It's quite an odd feeling actually, being back in Peru, four years on. I'd forgotten how much I love the madness. It's nice to be able to introduce the place to Justin too, and he seems to be enjoying it so far and doing his best to embrace the craziness. We stopped off in Santiago, Chile, on the way, which was nice, but was all European charm and not nearly enough random Peruvian flavour for my liking.

We've just arrived in Iquitos - the largest city in the world inaccessible by road, and a port on the Amazon River. It's raining. It seems tropical downpours are going to be a daily occurrence while we're here, and while we're in the jungle...camping. Apparently there is no "rainy season" in Iquitos though. I think perhaps the term "rainy season" implies some kind of predictability that Iquitos doesn't buy into.

We head out on our 12-day jungle expedition the day after tomorrow. Hopefully we should have some good photos to share on our return.

LAS VISTAS (The sights)

I've just arrived home today so I'm just gonna whack some photos up of the last couple of extremely hectic weeks and then I might work on some kind of reflective, what-it's-like-to-be-home, what-I've-learnt-and-how-I've-grown-as-a-person, closure type rambling tomorrow or the next day when my brain has arrived off the plane.

LAKE TITICACA: The Floating Islands

They're totally made of reeds - the islands and the houses on them and the boats the inhabitants travel in.

It sounds like it's very cold. Locals live off tourists and whatever fish they can sell, but they don't have to pay taxes (I guess that's a bonus).

LAKE TITICACA: Amantani Island

We (Julie, my German travel buddy, and I) stayed overnight on this island and these two lovely ladies were our hosts. They were great but very...professional. These islanders also live off tourism and I think the format of a stayover is pretty much the same every time (same menu, same wee dance party) and they host visitors at least once a week.

Interesting courtship fact: Girls from this island go for the guy with the biggest stereo. 80s ghettoblasters are 'in', millenium ipods are 'out'.

LAKE TITICACA: Taquile Island

I was really looking forward to visiting this island cos I'd heard that the inhabitants dress differently depending on their marital status. This is of course very practical and makes it much easier to work out which guys to start chatting up. This was, however, the most commercial island and people would charge you if you wanted to take their photo and everything was ridiculously expensive for tourists. It just felt odd. The guide had warned us that the people were a little cold. It wasn't so much that they were cold as that the relationship between islanders and tourists felt a little odd. They were really only keeping their traditions going entirely for the sake of tourism.

The guy on the left is married (completely red hat) and the guy on the right is single (half white hat). The woman in the background is single (she has pom-poms on the end of her head covering).

Interesting courtship fact: In Amantani Island young (like mid-teens) couples fall in love in only three days or so. Boys have collections of small stones in their pockets that they use to throw at the object of their affection in order to win her over. This, of course, is a technique employed by lads the world over but I love that it's actually a formal, bonafide, cultural tradition on this island. I expect the boys' success relies, as in other cultures, on a surge of pity from the young women at the sheer stupidity and endearing gaumlessness of the young men.

A couple lives together for five years unwed, in which time they must have a child to formalise their relationship, or separate. It is possible to stay together without child, if they so choose, but they have to move off the island.

MACCHU PICCHU

Awesome. Surprisingly quiet (we got there quite early in the morning) and peaceful. A guy on the train on the way back was saying that the whole mountain is full of a kind of quartz rock that emits good vibes and makes it even more of a feel-good experience. It was his 7th visit to MP. I think much of our feel-good experience came from the sheer beauty of the place, helped along by the fog that rolled in and out of the picture, giving it a spiritual quality. We also felt rather good after we made it to the top of Wayna Picchu (the big pointy hill in the next photo).

Julie's guide book warned us that it was not for the unfit or acrophobic and that tourists had fallen off in the past. We were gonna not and say we did but it feels even better to be saying we did knowing that we actually did. Now you probably don't believe me. But we really did.

LA TURISTA (The Tourist)

You know you're a tourist when you keep seeing the same gringos in all the different towns you visit. It's a bit strange after being one of about a dozen white people in Tumbes.

It's hard work all this tourism. We seem to be constantly on the move, fitting in as many sites as possible. My trigger finger is starting to ache from all the photography.

Here are some of the highlights so far:

• Las Islas Ballestas in Paracas (South of Lima, near Pisco on the map), often referred to as the 'poor man's Galapagos', were rather cool- I've never seen so many birds in my life. Not surprisingly it's famous for it's guano (bird droppings used for fertiliser) production.

• Nazca Lines - who made them? when? why? ooh, mysterious. We checked them out by air but all my photos sucked so I'm afraid you're just gonna have to check them out yourself. Have fun in the wee plane - it's a bit of a roller coaster. The pilot circles around the figures in both directions and tips the plane to point out the patterns with the wing.

ALTITUDE TRAINING

• Arequipa (the White City). 2325m above sea level. Many of the buildings are made from sillar (volcanic rock) and they look very cool. We also visited a convent that was like a little city. Apparently all the well-to-do Spaniards used to send their daughters there until some church head honcho came and told them that nuns shouldn't really have a lifestyle that included having three slaves each.

A confession box for nuns at the Santa Catalina convent.

• Colca Canyon - I think it's the world's second deepest canyon (the deepest is nearby but we didn't see it, and yes, the Grand Canyon is behind both of them on the charts). Gorgeous green hills covered in Inca terraces and lots of llamas, alpacas and vicuñas hanging out around the place. We stayed in Chivay - 3700m above sea level and stopped in one spot that was almost 5000m.

All I need now are some llamas.

CIAO TUMBES

I leave town tomorrow. It feels really weird at the moment. I don't want to leave. Luckily various married women have plans to introduce me to their relatives or neighbour's cousin's brothers tonight at our farewell party so that I can fall in love with them, get married tomorrow at mass and stay in Tumbes. I don't care how good-looking and professional they are, I here Macchu Picchu is very sexy and I'm quite keen to see it. So I reckon I'm gonna go ahead with my plan to travel around for two weeks and then I'll probably stick to the plan of returning to NZ on 5 Feb. I love it here but I'm also ready to see my family (especially the new additions) and friends again.

Also, incidentally, the streets are getting more and more dangerous here. It seems there's a mid-summer custom that involves throwing water balloons at girls. Only at the girls, mind (as if they didn't have enough to deal with with the whole machismo/subjection thing, the guys gotta throw things at them too) and gringa girls seem to be an especially popular target. It was kinda funny until I got hit with a balloon that didn't break and it just hurt. It's been banned in many cities cos there have been injuries.

I was starting to feel especially harassed the night I got bitten by a dog (completely unprovoked) and then hit by a water balloon on the way out of the hospital. After that I felt like hiding away in the house for a few days. I'm out and about again now, though. Don't worry it was just a small dog and it's been vaccinated against rabies. I contemplated getting the rabies vaccination anyway, just to be safe, until I found out it wasn't just one injection but a series of ten, into the stomach muscles!
A man in the hospital asked me if it was a black dog, and when I said it was and asked him how he knew he said that, "los hombres negros les gusta la carne blanca" (black men like white flesh)!

After that info you're probably wondering why I don't want to leave, but really I do love this place. I've been trying for the last 15 minutes or so to upload some images of the people and places I'm leaving behind but the computer is not co-operating. So here is the black hole of sadness that represents all the things I'm going to miss about Tumbes, e.g. the people, the community feeling, the food, the dancing, the music, the cars, the warmth, the easygoingness, the chaos, the life in the streets, the beach, the celebrations every five minutes, the dulcerias (sweet shops), being able to buy everything really cheap, the language.












Ciao for now. I'm travelling to the Nazca Lines, Puno (Lake Titicaca), Arequipa, Cusco, Macchu Picchu. Hopefully I'll be able to do some blogging on the way but if not, I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.

LAS CASAS (The houses)

I've had a request from one of my loyal fans to give a bit more information about houses and, having recently had the chance to view and photograph a few more dwellings, I feel better placed to provide more detail. So, here you go Mum, Peruvian houses...

Thought I'd start with my house. It's probably one of the flashest in our street. It's three storeys, has five bedrooms, running water all day (we also have a water filter on the tap), electricity, a flushing toilet and a shower. There's tiles on almost all the floors and glass windows. All the walls are made of brick and concrete and are freshly painted. I'd put it in the middle class range and would go so far as to say that it's really rather flash for Tumbes.

Most of the houses I've visited in Tumbes have been similar but usually a little bit less classy. All have had indoor, flushing toilets but some only have water for part of the day or run out often.

People that can't afford bricks use mud, old cans and whatever else they can find to construct their walls. The frame is provided by thick cables of iron(?). You can see them sticking up in this photo, ready for when the homeowner decides to add another level.

For a while I was trying to work out why there weren't any houses made of wood. I thought maybe it was something to do with the climate - maybe it keeps the house cooler if you use mud or bricks. This may, of course, be true but I also realised lately that there really aren't any trees here which quite likely means there's not a lot of wood around and bricks are just easier to come by.

There are also quite a few houses below road level...

I asked Frinetd why they're like this recently and she said that when it rains a lot (still to see any real rain) the mud piles up around the houses. So this is a house that was built a while before the proper road was constructed and i'ts been surrounded by a few years of mud. In the areas without sealed roads the houses will eventually completely disappear.

I've also visited some very basic houses. Some without electricity (they go to bed early), some with internal walls made only of woven flax-like stuff, some with great indoor/outdoor flow - animals inside and toilet outside. I also now understand why some people looked confused when I tried to explain what a bbq was by saying that it's when you cook outside over a fire. For lots of people here that would just be called 'cooking'.

In Tumbes you can have a fancy house like my family's right next to a much more basic one. Our house started off much more basic and they've gradually been improving it, which I think is a great way to go about it. In larger cities (Piura for example) there are much more obvious rich areas and poor areas. Some houses have full-time segurity guards in little cages. I hear that in Lima the difference between the rich and poor areas are ridiculously large and getting worse.

"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."

- Plato