Welcome to the Jungle

I am truly at a loss for where to begin with this—let’s start here: Iquitos was by far the most amazing place I have ever been to in my life.

With my buddy, Elope, the sloth! (Yes, we named her.)

Yeah, that’s a good start.

Okay, so bright and early Monday morning, Dave, Erica, Katrina and I hopped a plane and headed to Iquitos. I’d been told that as soon as you land in Iquitos, you can just feel the heat coming off the ground; it was hot when we landed, but it wasn't an inferno, so I was hopeful. 

Erica, drinking from a tree.

When you plan your trip to Iquitos, you have two choices: summer (dry season) or winter (rainy season.) If you pick summer, all of the mosquitoes are DEAD. Nothing is flooded, so you can walk everywhere. On the downside, it’s miserably hot—over 100 degrees and you have to do a lot more walking, since parts of the river are dried up. We chose to come at the beginning of winter. A few things were flooded, but not many, and the temperatures were in the lower 90’s. The air was thick with humidity and I have truly never seen more mosquitoes in my life. All the same—if you’re going to plan a trip to Iquitos, I still say winter is the way to go. I couldn't imagine it being any hotter.

Anyway—getting back to business, as soon as we landed, we hopped a van and traveled south for two hours to a small port, and from there we hopped a boat for two hours to head to our lodge. Just before we got to the lodge, we saw the place where the two major rivers, Nanay and Itaya combine to form the Amazon. We continued on down the Nanya and arrived at our cozy little lodge in a pueblo called Libertad. Our lodge was simple and only had power from 6:15 p.m. to 9:15 p.m.--but it was perfect for us. 

The angry anaconda, and Victor nursing his wound.

We settled, ate a quick lunch and then it was immediately off to task number one: sloth hunting. We trekked through a village on the outskirts of the jungle, looking up in trees for the little fellas. Our guide, Victor, had this amazing ability to see animals in trees from far away, that we couldn't even find close up. He quickly spotted one, then our boat driver shimmied up the tree with a machete in his hands (how he did this, I still have no idea.) Our guide explained to us that eagles eat sloths (which is simply insane to me) and that when a sloth sees one coming, it simply rolls out of the tree. He’d seen them fall from ridiculously high distances and be okay. All the same, when our driver started chopping off the branch with the sloth on it, we were all a little scared that the sloth would get hurt. However, the branch fell, sloth included, and everything was okay—and I got to be the first person in our group to hold a sloth. If I thought I liked sloths before, now I’m completely convinced. It’s neck range is huge, when you held it, it spun it’s neck all the way around to look at you—then it slow motion swatted at you with its claws. After a few minutes with it, we put it back in a tree, and once again it began to slow motion shimmy upwards.

Sunset on the Amazon--nothing like it. 

Day two was our first day deep into the jungle—and let me tell you, the mosquitoes were incredible. You’d look down and there would be twenty on your thighs. You’d swat them, then realize there were now twenty on your arms. It was a constant battle that no amount of repellent could help you with. So—swatting and slapping ourselves we got our first jungle experience. Our guide cut up a tree that we all drank fresh water from and we all had the weird experience of letting termites crawl on our hands. When you smash the termites, it gives off a sent that wards off mosquitoes (supposedly...) Day two was also our first encounter with a snake—we stumbled upon a fisherman on the river who had caught an anaconda in his fishing net. The snake promptly bit our guide and with bleeding fingers he showed up our first wild anaconda. Then he asked if we wanted to hold it. I looked at his bloody fingers and said, “No, thanks.”

Me and the red piranha I caught! 

Day three started and ended on great notes. We started by going piranha fishing, which was surprisingly easy.  Our fishing poles were simple strings attached to sticks, and we baited our lines with little pieces of chicken. As soon as you felt a piranha tug, you had to fling it out of the water and into the boat before it flipped off the line. This resulted in Erica getting “fish slapped” multiple times. After fishing, we spent a little more time in the jungle, looking at different plants and huge trees, and by night we went alligator hunting. It began storming right before we left, and it was something like a horror movie. Thunder clapping, lightening illuminating the water and reeds, the sound of rainfall, and our guide Victor’s poncho billowing with the wind of the boat. But he plucked a baby alligator out of the water to show all of us, then returned it later because they’re an endangered species.

Erica, with the catch of the day! 

Day four was MONKEY day. We drove our boat up to this little cove where all sorts of moneys were playing in the trees: spider, capuchin, howler, etc. We threw them all banana and they LOVED them; turns out monkeys don’t just eat bananas in cartoons. The best part was when one of them launched itself into our boat and proceeded to eat all the bananas it could find. Our night event was a little less cute—looking for snakes in the jungle. Victor told us time and time again: NEVER walk in the jungle at night. It’s when all the nasty things come out—alligators, jaguars, poisonous snakes, etc. Yet, all the same, he led us into the jungle at night. We found a multitude of tarantulas and the banana spider, which is the world’s most poisonous spider. We also encountered a poisonous viper swimming in the river, which Victor simply plucked out of the water with his t-shirt. Our night ended with us chatting and swinging in the hammocks in our lodge, and later star gazing... in the freaking Amazon.

Monkeys are messy eaters--go figure. 

Our last day was mainly spent travelling and saying our goodbyes. We got our last fill of jungle stories from Victor—which were one of my favorite parts of the trip. Seriously—Google the demon of the jungle—he has some amazing tales about it. Perhaps one of the greatest parts of the Amazon is that there is still so much we can never understand or tame, it is simply fantastic. 

And now, here we are, back in Lima. Church flew by last weekend, with us getting in late Friday night, then whisking off to church for the rest of the weekend. I taught a kid’s class that went well and we hammered out some details for next weekend, when we’ll have church on the beach. After that, we’re spending the following weekend back in Huanuco, and words cannot describe my excitement. I’m starting to think that maybe February is my new favorite month. Until next time!