If there is one thing that I truly love about Peru, it is how different the landscapes are in each place that you go. Ryan and I went from desert sand dunes, to a quick stop on the coast in Lima, and then over to the deep jungle. Iquitos is about as far into the jungle as it gets, only reachable by a very long and unpleasant boat ride, or by plane. Naturally (and because of time), we chose to take a plane. After a pleasant 3 hour journey, we touched down in the jungle, and were blasted by the heat and humidity upon exiting the plane. Within a few minutes I was drenched with sweat. Welcome to the jungle!
Having been to the pampas outside of Rurrenabaque in Bolivia, and Puerto Maldonado in southern Peru, I had a pretty picture of what Iquitos would look like in my head. In reality, it couldn’t have been much different. First of all, Iquitos isn’t very small. It’s a decent sized city with a population of approximately 500,000 people. On top of that, everyone drives a mototaxi (a motorcycle with a buggy type thing behind it for passengers) or a moped, making it an extremely noisy and exhaust filled city. I had been expecting a quiet jungle town, so you can imagine my surprise and feeling of being overwhelmed when I was slapped in the face by the constant noise and stench of exhaust. After checking into our hostel, we set out to explore the city a little bit. We were staying about 10 minutes away from Plaza de Armas, so we made our way there, looked at the old buildings and admired the river front, before grabbing some groceries and making some dinner.
Most people who go to Iquitos don’t spend time in the city, and head straight into the deep jungle to do a big tour. Ryan and I chose not to do this for 2 reasons. 1) We are becoming quite broke, and 2) we are both very over guided tours. Instead, we took a collectivo out to the middle of the jungle and spent a night at a place without electricity, running water, and with lots of trees and insects around. It was the type of place where you hike into the middle of nowhere for about 30 minutes and then simply be for a day or 2. While we were there, we took a shower in the river, enjoyed the sounds of the jungle, darted around the cockroaches that inhabited our wooden bungalow, ate fairly mediocre food, and got to experience the jungle in its true form. On top of that, I had the pleasure of stepping in a mud puddle and getting my runners very muddy! Thankfully that was the only thing I came away with, as we doused ourselves in enough Deet to not get eaten alive by mosquitoes! All in all, it was a nice experience, and upon returning to the city I was torn about what was worse… bugs in the room, or the constant noise of traffic. I’m still undecided. I am 100% certain that I enjoy the food in the city more though, and was happy to have a delicious meal upon returning from our night in the jungle.
On our last day in Iquitos, we made our way a few kilometers outside of the city to a manatee rescue center. We had the chance to see a baby otter, I got to carry a white mustached monkey around on my head, and then we got to feed the manatees. When the babies are first saved from poachers in the jungle, they are put into individual tanks and are bottle fed a special type of milk 10-12 times a day. Once they get a bit older, they are put in a larger pool together, and eat a healthy vegetarian diet of bananas and leaves. Ryan and I fed 2 adorable 14 month old manatees. Because they don’t have very good eye sight, they use smell and touch to find the food, and the sides of their mouthes have hand like flaps that move the food towards their mouthes so that they can eat. The manatees were extremely calm and gentle, and had the softest skin I’ve ever felt. It was a pretty cool experience to say the least!
From there, we made our way to the airport to catch the plane back to Lima, and although I have enjoyed my jungle experience, I think it’s safe to say that I will be happy to get back to Lima for our last few days in South America. Adios, Iquitos!