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!!