Adios Amazon, Helloo Cusco

To catch up from where I left off:

We went to the local clinic, operated by Dr. Linea Smith, MD.  She is originally from Wisconsin and earned her medical degree in the States.  After visiting as a tourist, she felt that "if she never came back here, something inside her would shrivel up and die."  So she took a leave of absence for three months and that turned into a year and that turned into much more than a leave of absence.  We saw the clinic, which is very basic.  It has sn examining room, a lobby, a place for her assistants to stay the night, an office, etc.  She said they are about to get an ultrasound machine but she doesn't quite know how to use it yet.  She also said that she doesn't like doing obstetrics.  Funny thing is that that is exactly what I want to do (I think), so all I need to do is get an MD and become fluent in Spanish so that I can go work for her!  I hope she is still around by then.

We also visited the local library, which was extremely modest.  Because of the humidity, books with staples rust out and frogs and other animals get into the bookshelves.  To protect against that, they have a screen rolled down in front of the shelves and then glass doors protecting them.  Other than that, the library has very few supplies and is hardly decorated.

After that, we went on a boatride to see sloths!!  We saw three of them up in the trees.  We also passed lily pads that were huge - at least 4 feet in diameter!  We also saw white herons and tucans and other birds that were all black but with green tips on the edge of its wings and a bright orange beak and orange feet.  There was also this really cool tree whose branches grew parallel to the surface of the water and then straight down into the water, like supports.  It spread out over a large surface area, I couldn't see quite how far back though.

The next morning we went Piranah fishing!  Our fishing rods consisted of a stick with a string tied to it and a hook on the end.  We used beef as bait.  I caught the first fish in our boat but it actually turned out to be a catfish!  Later on, I caught a piranah.  They are much smaller than I had expected - only 6 inches in length with brilliant orange bellies and a blue back.  We ate them for lunch!  So yummy!

After that, we travelled by boat to the last lodge we stayed at, Ceiba Tops.  This is the "luxury lodge" and it was very nice compared to the other places we stayed.  It whad air conditioning, running water for hot showers, flush toilets, a swimming pool, concrete walkways and laundry services.  Even still, it was my least favorite place we stayed because there was such a disconnect between us and the jungle.  It felt so unnecessary to have all these things and almost shocking to be back to all the comodities we are so accustomed to.

That night after dinner, high school -aged kids came from the neighboring town of Indiana to perform dances for us.  One showed us about the harvesting of rice and one they danced with a live anaconda!  It was domesticated, though.  Then, we all danced the night away, which was so much fun!  It stormed, so some of us ran out into the night.  I ended up talking to this boy from Samford who told me that men should be the head of the household...yikes.  Then, I sat by the river and watched as lightning lit up the sky and the water.  It was so beautiful, I didn't want to go to sleep.  But I finally did, at 2:30 in the morning.  Then we woke up at 5:30 am to go see the sunrise.  It ended up being a little cloudy, but still beautiful over the Amazon nonetheless.

After that we toured the town of Indiana by motorcart.  Mine ran out of gas so we had to hop in another one, but that was ok.  After breakfast, we went to an animal sanctuary, which was incredibly fun!  When people are caught trying to transport endangered animals out of the country, they take the animals to this place, where they live until they choose to leave and return to the wild.  We saw an anaconda that had just eaten two chickens.  It was about 10 inches in diameter and at least 10 feet long.  Two of the men who work there picked it up and put it around my neck - man, that thing was heavy!  There was a smaller anaconda that we each got to hold on our own.  The monkeys were the most fun, because they climbed down off the tree into your hands and played around with us, jumping all around and trying to steal stuff from our bags.  One kept playing with my nose, which I thought was funny until I realized that he wanted my nose ring!  There was also a baby sloth that we could each hold, that little gal was so cute, always smiling and moved so slowly!  I also held a tucan on my arm but I've decided that I don't really like birds because a macaw attacked me at one of the lodges.  There were also these really strange-looking animals (I forget the name) but they look like racoons with a longer snout kind of like an anteater but not quite.  Oh, forgot to mention that at Ceiba tops, they had baby tapers walking around!

After lunch, it was time to bid farewell to the forest.  I almost cried.  I didn't want to go back to the city of Iquitos, I wanted to stay and run around barefoot in the rainforest!

But you can't stop time, and I soaked up the Amazon as much as I could and I truly believe that I will be back there someday.  So we spent the night in Iquitos at the same hotel as last time.  In the morning, we travelled to Cusco.  It is a very pretty city and the flight here provided beautiful aerial view of the Andes.  We had the afternoon free so we shopped!  So many, many things to buy.  Mostly jewelry and scarves and sweaters made from alpacas.

We wnt out last night to an Irish Pub called Paddy's.  I met a guy there who was from LA and boy, he talked my ear off.  Also, there was a very drunk overweight fellow from Italy who told me I was hot.  Thanks for the complement, man.  We left there and went to a ostel, which was super fun dancing!  They were having a toga party but none of us had togas on.  Oh well!

This morning we travelled to Chinchera (sp?) to learn more about Andean culture.  We watched and learned about wool from both sheep and alpaca, which is made into thread and then weaved into scarves, blankets, belts, hats, anything you can imagine!  One woman was making a hat and was using five knitting needles at the same time!  The other women used the backstrap method to make bigger things like table runners and such.  We learned about natural dyes and all dyed our hair red!  It was Dr. O's idea - she went first and dunked her whole head right in there!  Well, not quite her whole head because the liquid was just boiled to bring out the color so it was hot.  After that, we learned about some of the medicinal plants of the Andes.  There were so many of them, it wsa hard to keep track.  But we had gotten a lecture from Anna the night before, so we could recognize some of them.  After that, we ate a traditional Andean lunch, which included guinea pig!  Mmmmmm.

We came back to the hotel, then went out and did more shopping.  I actually bought things this time but many of them are presents!  Dad, you would be proud of me - I bargained with every person I bought from even though I don't know Spanish!

That's about all I have for now.  I am so exhausted!  We are at 11,200 feet and it is easy to tell that the air is thinner up here.  Taking deep breaths hardly satisfies your oxygen needs!  We are all adjusting though!

Until next time....

Canopy Walk - the View from Heaven

I was going to write last night but spent about 2 hours trying to upload pictures to preious posts since that's what you all wanted.  This post will probably take me twice that long to write - so much has happened!

The morning we were supposed to look for river dolphins, it was raining too hard so we had lecture instead (it rains a lot here but off and on).  Dr. O told us about her research, on tomato plants.  Tomatoes cause Salmonella outbreaks on the East COast, but never in California.  Why?  Thats what she is trying to find out.  She also is looking at the differences (if there are any) in apples that are farmed conventionally versus organically.  Along with extracting DNA from and studying Amazonian plants.

For all her vast knowledge, Dr.O reminds us that so much of the world is unknown, especially here in the rainforest.  The jungle is full of secrets waiting to be discovered.  She told us not to doubt ourselves, not to think that the world of science is too great for us.  Each of us can make a very significant contribution to the world of science and to the world itself.

After lunch, we hiked to a lodge further in the jungle.  It was smaller than the first, but completely surrounded by the rainforest.  Dr. O and I saw a giant lizard running away - probably about 1 1/2 to 2 feet long.  The TA's gave short lectures:

-blue mormo butterfly - I wrote about this in an earlier post
-leaf cutter ants - carry leaves to fertilize the ground so a fungus can grow.  then they eat the fungus.  The cool thing is though, the fungus can get into one of the ant's brains, making him an outcast.  The other ants carry him far, far away.  He then goes to a very specific location that the fungus tells him, like 20 ft up, 20 - 25o C, 80 % humidity, etc.  Then, the fungus grows out of the ant's head and body!  It can do this to other animals, too.  Today, we saw a spider on a leaf with a fungus growing out of it!
-Sange de Grado - Dragon's Blood.  A healer for all skin ailments, known for its antiviral, antifungal and antiinflammatory activity.  One of the Shaman's, Julio, is saving his money to buy a plot of land so that he can harvest Sangre de Grato and sell it in the market.  The cost for 25 acres is $3,000 (~8,000 soles).  He has been saving for many years and had $2,000.  We each contributed money to make up the rest of the money so he will be able to buy his own farm!  I also bought some Dragon's Blood to bring home!

Then, we went up to the Canopy walk to see the sunset.  It was a series of tree forts, much like deer stands except way higher (80 - 100 feet up).  They are connected by rickety bridges which are like 1 foot wide ladders with boards on top and nets on either side.  Only 3 people can be on a walkway at a time and 4 people on a stand at a time.  You are not allowed to kill even  mosquitos because everything is so delicate up there.  And you have to wash the palms of your hands if you put on mosquito repellent with DEET in it because the DEET will eat away at the nylon in the nets.  It was kind of cloudy, but seeing the sunset from 100feet above the rainforest floor was still breathtaking.  The variety of sounds you can hear up there is incredible.

We walked back in the dark because the sun had set.  It was super fun!  At one point, Basilio told us all to turn off our headlamps and flashlights.  Below our feet ws another sky of stars!  We each picked up one of these gowing things, wondering what it may be.  When the lights turned back on, it turned out to be a quite boring brown leaf, about the size of a penny.  We saw the tree they come from, but they do not glow on the tree, only on the floor.  Some sort of fungus gets on them and makes them glow.  Why only that type of leaf?  Why can't it glow of the tree?  How does that type of bioluminescence work?  Noone knows.

After dinner, we took a night boat ride through the windiest river I have ever been on.  That part of the river does not exist when the water is low.  We saw a blue mormo butterfly, which Raol caught and I got to hold!  They shine when you see the wings up close.

The next morning, we went back up to the canopy.  Along the way, we saw a leaf toad, which was smaller than a dime and looked just like a leaf.  Go figure.  In the canopy, I saw a lizard, which had an orange head with black spots and a yeloow ring around its neck.  The rest of it was black body.  It was so funny the way it waddled!

We took a boat ride back to the first lodge to visit the ReNuPeRu Ethnobotanical Garden again.  We saw a giant lizard that looked more like an iguana.  The thing must have beenn at least 2 feet long and the top of its head was probably 6 - 8 inchest above the ground.  We also saw a couple really cool black and yellow spiders in the garden.  Oh, and we also saw the tree where the grubs live!  I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I did eat a live grub.  Remeber how I said they were fat and yellow?  I didn't eat the head because Hannah (one of the TA's) said that it will bite back.  The two of us each ate one but I swallowed mine and she didn't.  It was the most awful tasting and terribly textured thing I have ever eaten in my entire life.  But don't worry, I didn't puke and I haven't gotten diarrhea yet.  Yay!

After that, we got back on the boat to yet another lodge, located in the Yanamono region.  Yana Mono means "black monkey."  There used to be lots of black monkeys here apparently.  Along the way we actually got to see river dolphins!  They are gray and pink and super exciting!

We stopped by the Rum factory before getting to the lodge.  We saw how rum was made from sugar cane.  First, it is squezzed through a machine that works by a horse walking around in a circle, then that juice gets put into a hollowed log to ferment.  Then, the fermented liqiod gets boiled over an oven and cooled in a hand-made cooler, which is quite large.  Then it is ready to drink!  We tasted plain rum, which is clear, molasses, which was very dark, mixed rum, which was a mix of the two, seven roots rum, which is exactly what it sounds like and ginger rum.  It was all 18% alcohol but we all only took little sips because it was a very strong taste.  The word for rum is cachasa and the locals all come on the weekends to get drunk while there kids play out in the fields.  There are hammocks for them to sleep in in case they have a little too much!

We hiked from there to the next lodge, which was only about 15 minutes.  Hung out until dinner and then after dinner, went on anight boat ride.  Basilio caught a butterfly.  When its wings are spread next to eachother, the patterns on them make it look like an owl face.  It is called the owl butterfly.  The rainforest is loud during the day but even louder at night and the moon was absolutely brilliant.

Today, we went on a hike along the Bush Master Trail.  We saw poison dart frogs!!!  And a lot of them!!  One was black with yellow stripes and the next three had red bodies with blue legs and a little yellow right by the tush and black spots all over.  Raol could catch each one and then put it on a leaf and some of us could hold it.  The way to hold it is to pin dowm one of its back legs so that you can still see its pattern and colors but it won't jump away.  We also saw a leaf mimic frog, which was about the size of an average toad we see at home and was dark broan with ridges on its head that made it resemble the leaf it was sitting on.  Many parts of the trail were under water, so a few of us took our hiking boots off and trekked barefoot.  At one point, we were in the water up to our belly buttons!  We also saw the biggest trees of my life!  One was called a Strangler Fig because a bird will bring the seed to a tree and it will germinate and grow from there, eventually strangling the tree that it grew from and using it for nutrients.  Also, a lot of trees here only have leaves at the top because that is where photosynthesis occurs.  If the leaves are lower, they have a hard time getting sunlight, so it would be silly for the tree to waste its energy on leaves down low.  On the way back, WE SAW MONKEYS!!  Real, live, wild monkeys who make big leaps from tree to tree and climb all over and have very long tails!!

Lunch was yummy today, we ate fried plaintains!

Oh!  I almost forgot to write about the woman who talked to us this mornign, Dr. Smith.  She was a doctor of internal medicine in the United States before she came down here and opened her own clinic.  She is quite a fascinating woman and we are going to see her clinic later today.  I will write more about that next time!

Check out the few pictures I could upload to previous posts!  If I don't get anymore done, I will upload them all when I get home! 

Words to ponder:

"I am not afraid to die, but I love life.  I can see, I can smell, I can breathe.  And I can see you."
~Basilio, to Dr. O

How many Americans do you know who would say that?  We have so many things that these river people don't: running water, clean water, microwaves, oven, stove, dishwasher, hot shower, television, telephone, cell phone, computer, internet, cars, motorcycles, game boys, xbox, wii, washer and dryer.  And yet, every year on our Christmas list is something else, something more that we want to make our lives easier or that we think will make us happy.  But it doesn't because the next year, we want something else, something more.  When one of the girls on the trip handed a child a toy truck, he didn't know what to do with it...

Ah we have to go, but hopefully that gives you all something to think about!!  Hugs and kisses from the Amazon!!!

Dyeing in the Jungle

Hola amigos!

I am picking up some really great introductory Spanish.  No wonder living in another country makes you learn another language so easily.  I really wish that I knew more and could talk to all the locals like Dr. O does!  Some of them speak English as well but a translator is always helpful.

Yesterday, we used all natural dyes made from different plants to dye tshirts.  They had very many colors: two shades of green, three shades of red, yellow, purple and a blue.  The blue was super cool.  It is called huito and we also used it to tattoo ourselves!  Giermo (one of the guides, not sure on the spelling) is a very talented artist and drew all sorts of animals and scenes and designs on our skin.  I have a red-tailed boa on my right bicep!!  We all also each painted one of our hands blue and its so startling to see because it almost looks like we are diseased!  The ladies also all painted our toenails bright green, as well as on the hand that is blue.  So cool!

A few of us went canoeing yesterday.  The river is very high, the soccerfield here is about 6 feet under water.  We tried to canoe down this little tributary but as soon as we got in there, Hannah (our TA, sitting in the front) saw a snake in the water and four alligators and she began climbing backwards through the boat!  I think those things were just sticks but it was around 5:30/6 so the sun was starting to go down.  We turned around and sat quietly in the middle of the river.  It was so beautiful and peaceful, being completely surrounded by nature.  ALl of a sudden, we heard a huge splash  next to us!  We when turned to look, we saw a river dolphin!  The myth is that female river dolphins want friends, so at the full moon they seduce girls and then pull them under the water and turn them into dolphins too.  There were four girls in the canoe and a full moon last night.  OOooOOOooOOOooo

Today we are looking for more river dolphins (noone else on the trip hs seen one) and then we hike deeper into the jungle and stay at a different lodge.  We won't have internet there so adios amigos!

In the Jungle

So many, many things to write about!!

Yesterday mornign, yoga at 6 am.  I was very bad at it.  It was so cool though because we did it in the hammock room, which is right by the dock and so peaceful in the morning.  It's all open so we can still hear all the animals, especially birds.  The is one bird in particular who has a very distinct sound, almost like a pebble dropping into water.  They live in nests that hang from trees with very few branches and look like a softball in a green sock.

After breakfast (which was again delicious) we went for a walk through the jungle.  There is no way I can possibly describe the beauty of it in words.  And it's not even beautiful for only its looks; it is beautiful in every sense - the way it feels, so humid, yet bearable even in long pants and long sleeve, the way it sounds, a harmony of bugs and leave and birds, the way it tastes, every fruit so unique, and the way it smells, so fresh and clean and completely invigorating.

Here are some of the really cool things we saw:
-a moth whose wingspan was as long as my palm
-blue morpha: a brilliantly blue butterfly
-wooly spider: which looks much like a tarantula, about the size of my palm
-sparrow-tailed moth: black with tealish green stripes and white along the back of its wings
-fer de lance: the second most vdeadly snake in the jungle here (there are four kinds deadly snakes here) half the group walked right by it and ne girl spotted it , so we got to watch our guide catch it.  And we all got to touch it -so cool!
-pigme marmoset: a monkey, very little and a light tan color
-secropia: a type of tree that if you don't have a clean water source, you can cut the root and drink water from that.  Our guide that one section of the root that was maybe 5 feet long and 8 inches in diameter (that's a guess, I'm not really sure how big the section was that he showed us) would provide 2 gallons of water!  He cut one small part of the root and we each got to drink from it.  It tasted like wood.

After lunch, we met two Shaman, who are medicine men.  There used to be more than 65 tribes here in the Amazon and each had their own Shaman.  After the Amazonians were enslaved during the rubber trade, many of the tribes got mixed up.  Their languages all intermixed with Spanish.  Now there are about 17 tribes (if I remeber correctly) and not all of them have a Shaman.  Some people still speak the native language but tribes communicate with eachother through a slang version of Spanish/  The two Shaman we met both spoke the Native languages of their respective tribes and one of them spoke English as well.  They taught us about some of the medicinal plants.  One that was really cool is called Dragon's Blood, which stops itching for bugs bites, heals wounds and is very good for your skin.  It is deep red and I may buy a bottle to bring back!

We also learned about Iowaska, a very powerful hallucinogen.  In order to become a Shaman, you have to drink this.  It comes from a plant called Ayahuasca, or Vine of the Soul.  he vine is mashed up and put into a bpot of water, where it boils for 12 hours.  Different Shamans may add different leaves to enhance the visions, but those leaves are not necessary for the experience.  The liquid itself looks like brown milk.  The effects begin about 20 - 30 minutes after you drink a shot of it.  When you hallucinate, you see rainbows and stars and pretty things for the first hour or two.  The drug also makes you very sick.  It is a laxative that helps clear out any intestinal parasites and it also makes you throw up.  After that, you see scary images like anacondas and jaguars and other jungle animals attacking you.  Then, you gain knowledge.  What type of thing/ plant you see or learn about it different for each person and can be different each time you drink the iowaska.  It is a type of spiritual journey; the effects of one shot last about 6-7 hours.  One of the Shamans told us that when he was learning to become a Shaman, his dad took him into the jungle for 4 months and he drank iowaska every Tuesday and Friday during that time.

We also got to see two different types of tarantulas, each about the size of my hand.  One lives in trees and one lives in the ground.  Soo happy I finally got to see not one, but two!!

After dinner, we had music and dancing!  I heard rumors that there will be more of that tonight.  Yay!

This morning I decided to skip yoga and sleep in til 7.  We had starfruit juice with breakfast - absolutely delicious.  We then travelled by boat to Raol's village, which is a 20 minute boatride.  The houses there mainly consist of a small living room, a very small sleeping space (everyone sleeps on the groud, there are no matresses) and a cooking area, which conatins an open fire, no oven, no refrigeration.  They drink the water straight from the river because they think it tastes better when it is not boiled, even though that kills the parasites.  There are only a few houses with electricity.  Raol showed us his house, which was very big and two stories.  They do have running water and even cable tv.  He said when he was younger, the families were much much bigger because it made men feel more macho and they had more workers.  Raol is the 13th of 16 children.  His father had three wives.  The first had 2 children, but was killed after being bitten by a fer de lance.  The second wife had 7 children but died in childbirth with the 7th, who also died.  The third wife had 10 children.  Raol said that the elementary school only went to 3rd grade so his brothers and sisters had to go elsewhere for more education, usually to Iquitos.  When he was older, he stayed with them and earned a college degree studying tourism.  Raol tried to sell his big empty house to a librarian but she decided that she was too frail to live in the jungle and sold it back to him.  If anyone is interested, or knows someone who is interested in buying a beautiful home down here in the Amazon, you may be in luck!

After a long hike through the woods looking at homes and chickens and cows (the people here are farmers and sell there meat ad fruit in the market in Iquitos for a living), we got to play soccer with the little children!  It was absolutely wonderful.  I can't even think of a single moment in my life where I felt happier.  A light rain began to fall but we played on, the children laughing a smiling and high-fiving us the whole time.  It's amazing how we couldn't communicate through words but we all fell completely in love.  When we were getting back on the boat to leave, the children ran down and jumped in the water next to us.  Dr. O was the first one back out of the bost and into the river.  Many of us followed suit and frolicked about in the Napo River with the village children.  They were climbing onto my shoulders and jumping off and we all just had a wonderful time splashing around in the water.  It was the most fun I have had in a very long time.  When we finally did have to leave, the children called out to us.,"Don't go!  Don't go!"

I know that some of you may be horrified at the thought of me swimming a river that is teeming with parasites and other unpleasant organisms.  I have heard that the water makes you very sick.  But I have decided that getting sick with diarrhea or a bellyache or vomitting or even malaria would not be the worst thing that could happen to me.  What would be the worst thing, I have decided, the absolute worst thing I could do, is to come here and not take advantage of every single opportunity I am given.  That is why I eat grubs and walk barefoot and pet snakes and swim in the river.  I want to experience all of it, everything, so that I may begin to understand a culture so different from my own.  I want to live in the moment, each moment, and experience it so fully that if I died right then and there it would hardly be a tragedy.  Nobody knows how many moments I have left, nobody knows how many moments you have left.  The world is at our fingertips, we can change it, make it better, love and preserve it.

Holy Smokes Iquitos

I ATE A WORM TODAY!!!!

I don't even know where else to begin......

< The airport in Iquitos.

I suppose chronological order would be best.  We flew to Iquitos, about a two hour flight.  Dr. O told us that there are no roads in or out of Iquitos.  You can only get there by plane or by boat.  We got off the plane through the back door and down the steps then walked across a barren runway and into the humidity.  After grabbing our bags (Dr. O was so excited she forgot to grab hers haha), we piled into a wooden bus (see picture our tour guides are in front - Raol on the left and Basilio on the right) with no windows to drive to the city of Iquitos.  All the men smiled and waved at us, whistling and catcalling and blowing kisses.  We all waved back.  The buildings were pretty rundown, the sidewalk were dirty and there were so many stray dogs.  Noone drive cars; everyone instead drive motorcycles.  Family vehicles look like giant tricycles - they have the front of motorcycle and the back is like a cart-type thing.  Almost like a horse and buggy but it's all connected.

< motorcycle carts

The driving in Iquitos is crazyyy.  Roads are all one way (except super busy ones) but they have no dotted white lines, so it's basically a free-for-all.  And there are no crosswalks but they do have stoplights, except I don't think there are any rules about turning, so walking across the street is so scary!  I'm so used to walking on campus; this was a whole lot different.

After checking into the Hotel El Dorado, we had the night to do as we please.  We walked around, took pictures by the water, and looked at all the shops/ stands.  We ate dinner at a restaurant owned by an American, the Yellow Rose of Texas.  So much paraphenalia covering the wall's!  I ate an alligator sandwich - delish!

< the water in Iquitos, see the canoe?

< so many cute children

< another view of the water, everything is built on stilts

We also went to a karaoke bar.  "American Pie" got cut off after a few minutes...but I was doing a duet, so it really wasn't totally my fault.

In the morning, we went to the market.  Ohhh my goodness, it was sensory overload!  First, everyone speaks rapid-fire Spanish.  And there are fruits and vegetables I have never seen before.  We ate camucamu, which is a sourisj fruit, it looks like giant cherries.  Fish are sliced down the middle and laid open; some fish are still flopping around and alive!  We saw a pig head and the torso of a cow.  Nothing was refridgerated.  It all just lays out for people to buy.  I ATE A WORM!!!  They are actuallt called grubs, just like they ate in The Lion King.  It was yellow and squirmy when they are alive, but then they roast them and put four on a skewer.  You can see from the pictures, I ate the last one (the group shared) and you can also see the pot where they were cooked!  There were also medinicines for sale and animal hides, which are illegal to both sell and buy because so many animals are endangered!  There is noone out in the rainforest to regulate those laws, so people still do it.

< bowl of roasted grubs

< fruit called ubia, you peel the skin and eat the inside - watch out for the giant seeed!

< aji, used to make a spicy sauce

< cayman for sale

< that's some big meat!

< this is called achiote, the seeds are mashed and used for makeup

<this is leche caspi, or a milk tree.  after sliced with a machete, a white liquid comes out, which you can eat right then.  after it hardens, it can be used as a putty to plug holes in boats.

After that we rode the bus to the Instituto de Medicina Traditional (IMET) and learned about a lot of the plants and there uses.  The man who talked to us is a professor at the University of Iquitos and he also showed us the lab where he and his students conduct their research.  The coolest thing was a fruit we ate, called limon chino, which is a cousin of the starfruit.  It was a little sour, but soo delish!

After that, we took the bus to the river.  Oh, forgot to talk about the water.  You can't drink it from the tap.  But every lodge we stay at on the river has a water refilling station.  So then we got on a boat and sailed down the Napo to our first lodge!  The boat also did not have windows and we drove so fast!  We ate lunch on the boat and had Inca Cola, which tastes much like cream soda.  Yum! 

< on the boat to our lodge!

The rainforest is absolutely amazing.  That word is an absolute understatement; I can hardly describe how much awe I am in.  The sounds, the smells, even the humidity in the air is just unbelievable.  I love it here.  Love it.  I've only been here for 3 hours and I don't ever want to leave.  It is so comfortable, so welcoming.  The huts we stay in are so cute, connected by boarwalks with railings of treebranches.  Electricity is limited but there is running water albeit its all the same temperature of the river.

Dr. O took us to see the ethnobotanical garden that they have started here and we could recognize a lot of the plants that we saw earlier in the day.  One of the men who works here caught a snake - the Fer de Lance, which is very poisonous.  He had it in a plastic bag to show us and dumped it out onto the ground!  It was a baby but they babies are more poisonous than the grown ups because they can't control their venom.  He also caught an anaconda, which he puts around my neck!  The third snake he caught was a red-tailed boa, which happily coiled around my arm for a while.  And he caught each of these snakes (which continued to grow in size) with his bare hands!!  The way to do it, he says, is to put a stick over their mouths and then he grabs them right behind the head.  Unbelievable!

Dinner was big - served buffet style.  Russian salad, lemon rice with onions, cabbage, mango...ah!  Flavors are so different from back home, but so rich and wonderful.

Tomorrow we are waking up for yoga at 6 am - one of the girls on the trip is a yoga instructor.  Breakfast is at 7:30 and then we are venturing into the jungle!!

Alive in Lima!

We arrived safe and sound last night in Lima around 11:30 pm.  The plane we flew on had three sets of seats; I'd only ever seen ones like that in the movies!  When we got into the airport, I got my passport stamped for the first time!!!  Then we had to get our luggage and go through customs.

Papers to fill out for customs.

Airplane food!

We took a bus to the Hotel Melodia, where we stayed last night.  The city of Lima is dark at night, and spotted with brightly lit stores, including many American chain restaurants: Pizza Hut, Friday's and Chili's. There are 9 million people living in this city, which is actually a desert.  The reason it is so cool here (in the 80's) is because it is on the coast.  We walked to a 7-11ish type shop to buy agua sin gas (water without bubbles) since we can't drink the water from the tap here.

After breakfast this morning, we walked the streets near the hotel.  Houses come in so many colors here, spiral staircases outside and flowers along the fences.  We went to a store much like a super-Walmart and it was just like being home - except everything was in Spanish!  Except corn flakes. 

We saw a some of the fruits which are atypical in our grocery stores.  We had a little intro lecture and today we fly to Iquitos!!

In the Airport

Safe and sound at Gate 12, three hours before takeoff!  There are two old ladies and one old man to keep me company....

The woman who helped me check my bags and get my boarding pass is from Peru!  Very nice lady, very helpful.  Word to the wise, she said: be careful.  Asked me if I knew any Spanish.  I told her no, not a thing.  She said the word for police is policia. 

Haha.

Oh, another old lady just showed up. So many new friends to make!!

17 Hours til Takeoff

Tomorrow is the big day!  Flight leaves at noon.  I'm almost ready...  I bought new hiking boots today.  Last thing to do is finish packing all the little things and spend the evening with the fam.  Can't wait!!!!