Heading to the Peruvian Jungle

January 12^th-13^th, 2022

More than half of Peru is covered in jungle, and it amounts to about 13% of all of the Amazon’s total territory, so I couldn’t finish my trip in this wonderful country before visiting the jungle.  Most tourists either visit Port Maldonado which is east of Lima and quite close to the Bolivian border.  It is accessible by road whereas the other common destination, Iquitos, is a city of half a million that can only be reached by boat or by plane.  I decided to go for Iquitos, so I had a 2-hour flight from Lima to get there.  I was lucky as near the end of the flight, a young woman offered me her window seat so I could check out the jungle from above before landing.

The curvy Amazon River.

Loved the big cumulus clouds.

The jungle looks to go on forever.

Iquitos Airport

I knew that it was going to be hot in Iquitos, but it was the humidity that was something else.  Often close to 100%.  Even on cooler days there, it is hard not to feel all sweaty and sticky.  Not surprisingly, the airport was pretty small and since I’d left my paraglider in Lima.  I had no checked luggage, so I was out the door in five minutes and grabbed a taxi to my hostel.

 

I booked a room at the Amazon Dream Hostel which was owned by a local lady, Jessica, and her soon to be husband, Chip, who is originally from Maine but has been down here for 3 years now.  They were super friendly and Chip even gave me a 20 minute walking tour of the local area so that I could get the lay of the land.  I was only staying for one night and then off on a 3 night jungle tour with Maniti Expeditions.

The view from my room at the hostel.  That's all water, even under the greenery.  In the morning, most of those floating plants had moved away.

The owner of Maniti, Guido, came by the hostel a short time later.  I had booked to go on a camping trip in tents, deeper into the jungle reserve than you can do if you stay at a lodge.  He explained that they currently weren’t doing the tenting trips due to the heat and my option was to stay at a lodge.  I would still do one night away from the lodge, but still not as far into the jungle as I would have been.  I was a bit disappointed but also contemplated how difficult it would have been to try and sleep in a tent in this humidity.  It is what it is.

My location for a few evening beers.

Craziness of Iquitos.

The next morning, my guide and another tourist showed up at my hostel as I was just finishing breakfast.  The guide’s name was Segundo (meaning: second) and he seemed like a nice and knowledgeable guy.  The tourist was Theresa, a 29 year old woman originally from Brazil but whom has been moving around most of her life from South Africa to Germany and many more places in between and speaks 5 languages. 

 

We walked about five minutes from the hostel to catch a ferry which would take us 30 kilometres down the Amazon River to the lodge.  It was a bit chaotic getting to the pier as we had to weave our way through a busy morning market of fruits, veggies and fish sold from carts or on tarps laid out on the side of the road.  The boats were being loaded and unloaded with goods going to or from the jungle.  We walked along a few precariously placed wooden planks to get on a dock and then onto our boat, which was a slow, old, workhorse of the river.  It was fairly filled up with locals on both decks, but we found a spot for the three of us near the back of the upper, covered deck, although we were near the loud exhaust of the boat’s engine.

This guy was carrying four large chunks of ice to a boat...must have weighed 80 kilos!

The ferry terminal...nothing pretty, that's for sure.

The upper deck of the boat, looking towards the front.

The boat cruised about a kilometre along the Itaya River before joining the Amazon.  The official beginning of the Amazon is only about 70-80 kilometres upriver from Iquitos, where the Marañón and Ucayali tributaries meet.  This was my first time on the Amazon…and it’s huge, 2-3 kilometres wide near Iquitos and almost 7000 kilometres long!  Oh, and awfully muddy too. 

There were lots of abandoned boats on the riverbanks, but this was one of the bigger ones.

A new bridge under construction.  Segundo stated that it will be the longest bridge in Peru.

Enjoying the ride...

The mighty Amazon!

Water buffalo.

It was less than a 2 hour boat ride, flowing with the river, until we hopped off at what seemed to be a nondescript section of the river bank.  All that there was to greet us were a couple of wooden planks in the mud and a trailhead that led into the jungle.  Segundo told us that we only had a 5 minute walk to reach the lodge.  Once there, we were given a brief tour and then shown to our rooms.  They were quite basic, but that was to be expected.

Working our way to the front of the boat as we are nearing our destination.

That's Theresa on the right.

Banana Boy!

The Maniti Lodge.

My room is on the left, Theresa's on the right.

The dining hall.

My room.

And bathroom.  The water from the tap was a bit yellow at times as it was pumped from the river and if it didn't have time to settle in the big water tank, it wasn't too pleasant.

Lovely flowers on the property.

About 20 minutes later, Segundo took Theresa and me on an hour-long hike in the jungle.  Being late morning, I didn’t expect to see much as that is not the time of the day when the jungle tends to be active…it’s too hot for most animals.  However, I was surprised as within 5 minutes of walking along the trail, we stopped to watch a troop of small monkeys hopping from branch to branch high up in the canopy.  Great start!

Nice mushrooms.

Segundo explained many things about the flora and fauna as we continued on, more on the flora than fauna as we didn’t see any other animals, but it was a great walk nonetheless.  We would be going on a night walk this evening and that should prove to be more interesting.

A prickly stump of a tree.

Vines, vines and more vines.

Theresa practicing her machete skills...I stayed a good distance away!

Can't remember what this was that Segundo sliced open, but the white bit is smooth and very hard.

Back at the lodge, we sat down for lunch and met a few other tourists who had already been at the lodge for a number of days.  Chris from England would actually leave back to Iquitos after lunch while Bree from Wisconsin had a few more days in her stay.  They both seemed to be enjoying their time at the lodge.  After lunch we had an hour to relax before we headed off on an exciting afternoon adventure.

 

So far, a good start to the Peruvian Amazon jungle!