Grubs: Slimy yet Satisfying

This morning we woke before the sun. We got ready and walked across the street to the Lima airport. Our flight to Iquitos left at 4:55 am. We sat in the waiting area with the rest of the travelers, jungle junkies. The plane took off and we were able to watch the sunrise over the jungle. It was beautiful. We touched down in Iquitos to a landing strip that looked straight out of a movie; old junky planes covered in vines and jungle around us. The whole airport seems to be contained in one room.

This was not our plane...thankfully

As our bags came out, we met a rep. from our hotel who drove us through Iquitos. The saying here is that the motorcars are the mosquitos of the city. They are everywhere. Our guide later went on to tell us that there are 20,000 motorcars in Iquitos alone.

Iquitos lies on the edge of the Amazon river and is only accesible by plane of boat. It is a bustling little town that was thrown into expansion by the Rubber Boom back in the early 20th century. It lies 8-9 hours by speedboat from the border of Brazil. Our driver offered us the name of his friend to call if we wanted a tour of the city. As we pulled up to our hotel his friend happened to be waiting in the lobby for us. He only spoke Spanish so it was the beginning of a fun day.

Belin and the Amazon River

The weather here is hot and humid. With 5 or 10 minutes our hair turned soft (or in my case huge) with the humidity. The rest of our trip we have been trying to cope with high altitude and the dryness that accompanies it; it is strange to experience the exact opposite while still being in the same country.

After checking in, we grabbed our guide, Armando and he whizzed off in his motortaxi (a motorcycle like rickshaw, like we talked about before) toward the Belin market, a market known for its rare and bizarre finds. The market is not exactly tourist friendly, but with Armando there it was like packing a 357 cal. The market greeted us with new sounds and smells. Things we had never before seen. It´s hard to describe what I even saw at the market. It was the most amazing collection of things I´ve ever seen. We started walking through produce; pinapples, palm leaves, whole bunches of bananas and the fermented juice we had learned about. Natives chew on this root and spit it into a jar and they let it ferment to make a kind of alcoholic jungle juice.

The bustling marketplace

Fresh fish

From produce we moved onto fish. These fish were fresh, straight out of the river. There were piranna and other crazy looking fish with teeth. We saw alligator and armadillo. There were chicken, capyberra, huge snails (live!)...every kind of meat you could imagine. That is until we came upon the grubs. Armando pointed out a bowl of live moving grubs...like something off survivor. The woman also had some that were grilled on a fire. After Armando trying to convince us to eat the live ones, Dad asked the woman how much for a skewer of cooked ones. For 1 soles we got 3 grubs, probably the size of your index finger, around and long. We dipped them in salt and dug in. They actually weren´t that bad (except for when you had to chew their head which was crunchy, like chewing an egg and hitting a piece of shell). We left our grubs and continued on toward the potions we had heard so much about.

Every kind of meat you could imagine...

Me holding a live grub...

The next stalls were filled with potions all made of natural plants and things found in the amazon. There were pieces of Anaconda, boa, turtle; all for curing things we use modern medicine for. There were aphrodisiac juices and love potions. One lady even showed us some juice that she said cured cancer. It was an amazing sight to see. The sad part was that we saw skulls and body parts from all kinds of rare and beautiful animals. It´s difficult, but we had to remind ourselves that this is their way of life here and we cant pass judgement on their beliefs.

Armando shows us potions. with a snake head in his hand.

From the market, Armando took us into the Barrio of Belin. Dad had been looking foward to this the entire trip, so he was pretty much peeing himself on the way there. Belin is a floating town, the venice of south america. The water fluctuates 45 feet at some places in the river, during the rainy season. When the rains come, they all either move to their second story, or their house is contructed to float on top of the water. We got into a hand carved canoe and took of to observe the place around us. It was the most stark and bleak look into people´s lives that I have ever witnessed. Poverty is everywhere and the living conditions were horrible. The houses have no running water, or clean water or that matter. Their bathrooms float on the lake with them and the bathe and wash all of their clothes and utensils in the same water. The governmnt is no help because of the corruption. There are floating mini markets, where a guy pulls his boat up to your house and you can buy water or sugar or whatever you need. And right up dad´s alley, floating roach coaches. Its just a canoe with a lady with a bunch of pots of food to buy straight out of her canoe. Most people fish the river for their food. Armando says that at 13 or 14 kids arent kids anymore; its time for you to grow up and get a job.Prostitution is rampant in the cities at night.

Notice the second story

The left house has 2 floors, the right floats when the water rises.

on the river.

The floating roach coach

We stopped for a drink at a little shop overlooking the Plaza de Armas. It was nice to sit and rest; with the humidity (at least 85%) our shirts were soaked. From there Armando took us to a dock where we boarded a "tick tick", a little motorized canoe. It has the engine and then a ten foot shaft that goes to the propeller. We took off down the Ninay river, a tributary of the Amazon river, to go visit a local tribe. The trip down the river was peaceful and relaxing. I could hear the birds and creatures over the engine noise and it was like something out of a movie. There were fishing nets set out, with soda bottles for floats. We saw a floating clinic, a huge multileveled vessel that traveled between Iquitos and all the way to the border offering medical help. We docked about a half hour later and got off the boat to hike in about 10 minutes.

The motor.

We hiked in and came upon a native drum. The drum signaled that we were coming to visit the Bora tribe. We walked in some more and were greeted by the tribe. They took us into a large hut where one of the tribesmen (head ball toucher) explained that they would show us one of their dances. About 6 other people came in and began dancing and singing. They pulled us up and made us dance with them. (take a second to imagine dad, petrified out of his mind with a camera around his neck, flocked by scantilly clad natives dancing. priceless). Dad says they were naked when we first came up, and i guess i believe him. Then we browsed their merchendise, bought a few things to show our appreciation, passed out all of our candy to young and old alike and then hiked back to the boat.

our new friends

From here, Armando stopped off at another dwelling along the river. As we got off the boat there was a monkey waiting on the dock. As we past the monkey he introduced us to the owner who took us around and showed us the animals. First up was a sloth. We took turns holding and petting the sloth. Its fur seems like it should be more course but it is actually very soft and his claws were about 2.5 inches long. Next up was an anaconda. It was probably between 8-10 feet long and we all took turns holding it around our necks. Apparently the Jennifer Lopez movie had no effect on us because we just threw it was no biggie and threw a snake around our shoulders. After we saw some huge turtles, a capybarra and a baby alligator. The end of the tour took us up in a tower, again because the water rises during the rainy season, where there were about 5 monkeys and a macaw, all running amuck. One of the monkeys jumped on a womans head, trying to get her glasses and earrings so I was about ready to leave as soon as I saw them. We stayed for a while, and they offered us this crazy jungle juice made out of 7 different flowers. Dad drank it all, I only had a sip...we´ll see what happens :)

Dad with slowpoke rodriguez.

Anaconda.

Jennifer Lopez. Suck it.

After that, Armando took us to the place where the Ninay river and the Amazon river meet up, to look for the pink dolphins that live there. Where the two waters meet is a distinct line; there is no blending at all. It was dark on one side and light on the other. But the water was too rough, so there were no dolphins. We returned back to land where Armando dropped us back at the hotel, telling us that it was the first time he had fun taking tourists around. Dad has a new bestie.

The meeting point

Just us and the Amazon river.

We walked around a bit, to the Plaza de Armas, looking for souvenirs. The heat was horrible and apparently there are no sort of souvenier shops here. This town is like a town out of a movie, maybe an indiana jones or something. There are a mix of crazy people all just hanging out by the Amazon. There are alligator heads and stuffed pirhannas hanging on the walls. Its kind of bizarre. We sat in a restaurant and people watched. The foreign people living here are all a little off. They seem kind of bizarre, our favorites being Mama Cass (ham sandwich) a crazy lady who wore a poncho and a gothic hoochie pushing her baby around. It seems that we are stuck in some sort of time warp. It´s just a town that cannot be described. It has to be experienced. And dad is loving it.

Tomorrow we take off into the jungle. We will ride the boat all day tomorrow and spend two nights 100 miles out in the Amazon. We have no idea what to expect. There will be no electricity and no unning waters. After our adventures today, only a half hour from town, who knows what will await us 100 miles into Amazonia. We wont be able to blog until we get back so stay tuned...

Adios!

P.S. Thanks to everyone for all of the Birthday wishes! It´s great to hear from you all and I really do appreciate it! Sad to say we´ll see you soon...but at least we´ll be able to celebrate ;)