Archive for the ‘Peru’ Category

We’ve spent nearly 3 weeks all told in the Amazon region, half in Colombia and half in Peru. I have lots of notes and photos that will one day find themselves onto the blog, but at the moment by and large I’m limited to public internet access or my iPod when there is wifi (which is not very often at the moment), so you’ll have to bear with me.

Overall however it’s been quite an experience, it’s so goddamn big and remote and didn’t really go anywhere off the beaten track but even so.

The river itself is mind-boggingly huge, on the bits we saw it was a good half a mile across, and this is 2,500 miles from the Atlantic. It just dominates everything.

Spent 10 hours of yesterday bouncing (that’s on a boat not a spacehopper) up the river Amazon to get to Iquitos in Peru, a town of 370,000 people, that has the honour of being the largest city in the world only accessible by boat or air.

It’s a chaotic sort of place, the streets full of motorbikes and mototaxis (tuk-tuks) which make any sort of crossing the road into an interesting challenge, although getting a lift anywhere is easy.

As to getting away, well, we’re limited to air or boat – the plane costs a fortune so boat it is. We’ve been asking around today and it looks like the Henry II is our baby which leaves for Pucallpa on Friday, arriving there 4 days later. We’re going posh and are going to get a “cabin” which is a metal box with bunk beds, but at least we’ll be able to lock it, something you can’t do with the alternative which is stringing up a hammock and holding tightly onto your things for 4 days…

A quick update from Leticia – got back here last night from a few days in Puerto Narino, which is 70km up the Amazon towards Peru. Tomorrow we’re getting a fast boat from Santa Rosa (an island across the river in Peru) to Iquitos (also in Peru). To buy the ticket we had to go by taxi to Tabatinga (in Brasil) and then back to Leticia airport (in Colombia) to get our exit stamps in the passports. Before getting on the boat we have to go to Peru to get our entry stamps otherwise we’re not allowed back into Colombia and will have to go to Brasil.

All clear?

But on a less bureaucratic note, this really is an incredible region – the jungle is all around and it’s very simple to take little excursions away from the town to get a taste of what the jungle really is like. There is life everywhere, lots of it creepy and crawly, but the air is buzzing with birds and the rivers are full of fish. And pink river dolphins, we even got to see a few…

More detailed accounts will follow when I have a little more time, but now I have to dash to Peru, or maybe Brasil. I’m not sure.

Was in a bookshop today and saw one of those 1000 X to Y Before You Die books. You know the ones, Places to See, Wines to Drink, Products to Boycott, Hotels to Feel Smug In, that sort of thing.

So seeing as I’ve done some pretty cool things in the past few months, and in my life, even if I say so myself here is my Top 10 Things I Have Done (So Far) Before I’m Dead:

10.  Had dinner and been to the house of an astronaut (twice). OK, so it’s the same guy, Jeff Hoffman, but I’ve been to his house in Houston and Paris and been out to dinner with him both times. He’s been up 5 times, including going up with his space spanners to fix the Hubble Telescope back in 1993. Basically, my mum went to school with his wife, that’s how we know him. It’s a very cool thing to tell people, but I kinda wish it had involved more of actually being in space myself rather than talking to somebody who’s done it, if you know what I mean.

9. Seen both sunset and sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Yup, the big one. The BBC got into the Before You Die thing and The Grand Canyon was the Number One place to see. Well, I don’t wish to sound ungrateful but I wasn’t overly impressed. Well, OK, I was. You are, after all, stood on the edge of a 10 mile wide, 1 mile deep, 250 mile long hole. But then that’s all you do. You stand there. Admittedly I could have stayed a little longer and hiked down it, although that would of course entailed hiking back up it which is not so much fun. But I didn’t, I stood there and stared. For well over an hour I promise. Both in the evening to watch the sun go down and again at 515 in the morning to watch it come back up again (I didn’t sleep very well in my tent).

8. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower so drunk I couldn’t remember having done it in the morning. True story. Don’t judge me.

7. Seen the Milky Way. Stars, lots of stars, like a cloud of stars. Seen it twice, both times freezing my bits off, unable to sleep. First time at -20c at 4300m in Bolivia, second time -3c at 2500m in Yellowstone Park. Suitably extreme I feel.

6. When we did the Machu Picchu 4 day “hike”, day 1 was cycling down a mountain. There were 9 of us, 3 Canadians and 6 people in my group. The Canadians seemed OK, all big and outdoorsy, but nice enough. That was until we got onto the bikes and one of them shot off and got all showy, doing little kicks to get rocks out of the way and that sort of showy-off stuff we Brits frown on. Got talking to one of his friends later and turns out he’s the Downhill Freestyle Mountain Bike World Champion. Seriously, he does this, and was a thoroughly nice chap! And I went cycling with him!

5. Seen a 2-metre-long whale’s penis. Well, what do  you want? Pictures?

4. Hitchhiked in the back of a pickup truck. There’s more info and a picture of this in my Tierra del Fuego post, but it was one of the highlights of my trip so far. Nothing beats the feeling of a climbing into bed, dusty and cold after a day trucking across the southernmost landmass in the world. Was fantastic.

3. Stroked a tiger. It was Grrrrrrreat! Sorry.

2. Been fishing for salmon in Alaska. Again, lots more salmon-related stuff in earlier posts, but being out there in a 14ft skiff with newly-found family-members, in Alaska, with a fishing rod and beer in my hand, was  great moment. Made all the greater by the eagle. In fact the eagle is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

1. But it doesn’t beat…

..What you think I’m going to be able to pick one event from all the fantastic things I’ve seen and done just to bundle it up into a neat Number One in a list? Ain’t gonna happen. 10 months, 20,000 miles, 8 countries, that’s your number One right there ;o)