Living in Peru : your everyday companion

by Virginia Velasco

When I was 12 years old I went to visit my sister, who lived in Iquitos in the Navy Base in Nanay. The jungle impressed me in such a way, that I never forgot this place of exuberant nature. 3 weeks ago, my husband and our son took the plane to Iquitos at 6:50am arriving there at 8:00am.

At the Iquitos airport, we feel the humid and warm air of the jungle that welcomes us in a seducing/special way. Our guide Percy greets us and shows us the old wooden truck, in which we drive through the city filled with hundreds of “mototaxis”. The motorcycles and the “mototaxis” are the main transport means in Iquitos city, there are small houses made in wood or brick surrounded by palms, trees and flowers everywhere. After 20 minutes we arrive to the port, where a boat is waiting for us. We sail through the Amazon River; we are breathless facing the magnificence of the landscape. The riverside is green, picturesque cottages splash in the horizon, families and fishermen sail in their small boats, women wash clothes, it seems that we travel back to other time; we have arrived to the jungle pace. We fall quietly into the magic of the Amazon. We continue sailing passing villages, schools, people greet the boat from the shore, suddenly I remember that 4 hours before we were in the noisy and chaotic Lima, fortunately we arrive to our lodge after 1 hour 40 minutes.

A long wooden staircase shows us the way, we climb and walk through a field and we enter to what is called prime forest, where the Explorama Lodge is located. We enter through the lodge’s bar, the wooden construction with straw roof is simple and nice, and the buildings are over pilots few feet over the ground.  After a welcome juice we go to the rooms, they are clean and tidy with mosquito nets over the beds; there are no glasses in the windows which gives a special atmosphere to the rooms. Before lunch we enjoy the terrace with hammocks, this terrace seems to be sailing in the middle of the forest, from there we can listen and see different animals.

Lunch is served in the dinning room; we taste the local food, delicious “Dorado” fish, beans, fried bananas and salads. After a little rest we go to visit the Yagua community. We follow our guide, who shows us the way through the jungle, tall trees cover most of the area giving us shadow. Percy shows us exotic flowers as “labios ardientes” (hot lips), “achiote” (used as lipstick and to dye) and animals such as small poisonous red and green frogs and different types of ants. After 40 minutes we arrive to our destination, a big conical cottage of straw is the only building. The Yaguas do not live here, but they come to meet people and show their handicrafts. They use their typical dresses, they dance for us and show us how to use the “cerbatana”(arrows blowed through a cane). Some of the Yaguas have many children, like Rosita’s mother who has 10 kids!

We buy some souvenirs, after this interesting excursion we return to our lodge and enjoy a refreshing cold shower. The wooden bathroom is fantastic; while we bath we listen to the sounds of parrots that live in the lodge. Before dinner we go to the bar to try a “Pisco-sour”, which is known as the best of the area, though it is not so! After a very good dinner, there is an excursion to look for tarantulas and snakes, but we stay in the lodge enjoying the lantern lights and the sounds of the night animals.

The next day we sail to see the pink dolphins from the Amazon, these creatures are feared by some natives. According to the legends from the Peruvian jungle, the pink dolphin can become human looking as a man and can seduce young women and make them pregnant. While we wait to see the pink dolphins, we swim in the Amazon river, it is delightful! We have the opportunity to see many dolphins, which are rather shy; they swim in couples and small groups. We can see their pink and grey backs and their graceful tails, though it is very difficult to picture them!

After lunch we sail to the Ceiba Tops, this is a resort with air-condition, swimming pool and entertainment at night. Owned by Peter Jensen, American who is more “loretano” than anyone else; he has lived 42 years in Iquitos and lives now in Ceiba Tops. You can meet him during the meals; the service here is very good.

After enjoying a refreshing swim in the pool, we sail to a little village called San Luis. We come into the village through a wooden bridge, over a pond with “paiches”, typical Amazonian fish. The fisherman who takes care of them is very gentle and shows us these big fishes. We arrive to the idle of his village, where there is a soccer championship, though we are not unnoticed by the numerous children in town. These friendly and playful kids come to welcome us and we walk around with the young followers, we are happy to see these kids that are so smiling and spontaneous. After a visit to the fisherman’s house and sharing a soda with the people we sail back to the lodge.

Next morning we wake up at 5:30am, this is the “big day”, we sail to ExplorNapo lodge where we have breakfast and we head to the canopy walk! In our way through the prime forest we see beautiful big blue butterflies, more frogs and different types of liquids.

The canopy walk is an unforgettable experience, we climb little by little to these hanging bridges on the top of the trees and we have the opportunity to see the jungle from above, the landscape is breathtaking. We are divided in smalls groups, there are Australians, Peruvians, Danes and Americans, sometimes the silence is absolute and suddenly there are hundreds of sounds coming from below. This canopy walk is up to 38 meters above the ground, it is possible to see monkeys, birds and many insects, and this is something we all want to remember. We take many pictures and we try to stay as long as possible. Slowly we go back to the start of the track and later to the lodge.

After a nice lunch in ExploNapo Lodge, we visit the botanic garden where a “chamán” (healer) explains us how the natives have learned through generations to use the plants to heal themselves. Infections, snake bites, lung diseases are treated with these plants, the most known is Cat’s Claw. Some of these plants are now industrialized by pharmaceutical laboratories, but the natives who found the benefits of the plants have too little or none profit at all of this developing industry.  After an enriching lecture about the traditional medicine in the jungle, we go back to the boat with a feeling of plenitude for all what we experienced this day.

The next day, we have a free morning to enjoy the lodge, the pool and to take pictures to the animals living in the lodge. This could have been a very nice break-away short holiday, we could have returned to Iquitos and back to Lima that afternoon, but we want to stay in another lodge to experience more the jungle.

We sail to SINCHICUY LODGE. Due to the dry season the river is 13 meters below its highest level, we arrive to our destination, where our new guide Sandro greets us. We climb the narrow wooden stairs up to a village, we walk through the village where there is a school and we arrive to SINCHICUY LODGE. This is a smaller lodge; there are 36 rooms, a hammock room, a leisure room and a very cosy dining room with a straw cone-shaped roof. There are bananas hanging in the corridors for the monkeys that live nearby and the parrots. The rooms are a bit small though we have our own bathroom, the walls between the rooms are in wood and the sound isolation is not good.

After a short rest we go for a walk. This is a secondary forest; we visit again a “chaman” and a place where there is an old cane mill, where a young woman shows us how they do sugar cane juice. We go back to the lodge, in our way Sandro shows us an “aguaje”, this is a palm tree with fruits called aguaje too, and a delicious juice is made out of them. When an “aguaje” tree is old and falls to the ground, the natives cut it in two, and then some special bugs lay their eggs there. Out of these eggs come worms called “suris” that eat the tree and when they are fat enough the local people eats them grilled. If you like to try exotic food, this is an excellent opportunity!

The next day is another “big day”; we have a whole day program of bird-watching and visiting some huge trees. We wake up at 5:00am and sail through the Amazon river passing by Padre Cocha (Father Island), we arrive to another island, where there is a village called Santa Maria de Fátima. We start our walk from here into the island, due to the dry season the boat cannot sail. This walk takes at least one hour, there is less vegetation and there are no tall trees that give us shadow, it is warm! Therefore it is not recommended for families with small kids unless it is rainy season and the boat closer.

While we walk we see a woodpecker, golden orioles, a perezoso bear and many parrots. After a while we finally arrive to the other side where there is a small boat that takes us through a shallow river. We see the Amazon kingfisher, a falcon, an owl and many other birds. It is easier to spot animals in this small river where there are no many boats and less traffic. We arrive to another lodge and from there we go inside the jungle to see the tall, old trees which are beautiful and fabulous. We see coloured worms, butterflies, monkeys and birds. After lunch we sail to fish piranhas, we do pretty well, we catch catfish and piranhas, but they are too small and we throw them back in the river. We enjoy very much the quietness of this small river and the nature surrounding us. In our way back we have to walk to Santa María de Fátima again and then we sail to the SINCHICUY LODGE.

We sail late in the afternoon and we enjoy the beautiful pink and orange colours of the sunset. Back in our lodge we taste a Pisco sour before dinner, this is a good one and the dinner is good too, though the choice is smaller than in the Ceiba Tops buffet. In the cosy dinning room we enjoy live music played by one of the guides and later we see some dancers from the school of the village. Here ends our journey in the jungle, the next day we will go to Iquitos.

We stay in the only 5 star hotel of Iquitos city, “Dorado”. After a refreshing bath in the pool, we head towards Pilpintuwasi or the Butterfly Farm. We decide to go on our own without a guide; we take the local boat, which costs 1 sol per person. The only inconvenience is that we have to wait till there are 8 passengers. We sail, after 20 minutes we arrive to Padre Cocha, where the farm is located. We walk around 20 minutes and we arrive to this nice place managed by a Peruvian, Robler Moreno and an Austrian lady, Gudrun Sperrer. In the Butterfly Farm it is possible to see the whole cycle of a butterfly life plus an explanation of the different types of butterflies. But their job is not only the butterflies, they welcome animals that are in danger as Pedro, a beautiful jaguar which was going to be sold, different types of monkeys, an anteater, etc. Gudrun teaches languages at the university, which is very important for the local guides. After our visit to this nice farm, we take our boat again, where we meet a very pleasant English man, who also lives here several years: Mike ---, who is starting the “Amazon Golf Club”.

Back in Iquitos we ate a sandwich at Ari’s Burger in the main square, here you find different kind of delicious ice creams as avocado, passion fruit, camu-camu, etc. The waitresses go around in small red skirts and are very friendly and smiling. The women of Iquitos are known by their open attitude and their friendly smiles. Due to the heat many of them use very little clothes and it is common to see them jumping gracefully on to their motorcycles or “mototaxis”.

After visiting the city, we have dinner in one of Iquitos best restaurants “Gran Maloca“, this old-fashioned restaurant keeps its style and it has one of the most amazing menu cards, different kind of fishes, poultry, crocodile, deer, delicious appetizers and so on. We tried a fish dish which was excellent.  

The next and last day we visit the market and its famous street “Pasaje Paquito”. Here you find many smalls stores, where there are beverages, oils and perfumes for all purposes, there are “potions” for everything! to become pregnant, to become very sexy, to bewitch your husband, wife or someone else, and to have luck and money... We buy many bottles! one of them is “7 raices” which is the most known drink from the jungle, it is a mix of roots and rum and the other one is a concentrate of “camu-camu”, delicious fruit with lots of C vitamin. While visiting the city we realize that there are plenty of bars and restaurants to visit, we have not enough time! Our last lunch is at Nikoro, a restaurant by the riverside owned by a French Canadian young woman who was seduced by Iquitos and decided to stay there. The restaurant is casual and charming; we have a very good menu and a beautiful sight.

With our bags full of bottles and Cat Claw’s we fly back to Lima a little nostalgic as we know that we will miss this radiant adventure, the smiling people and the pace of the  seducing Amazonian jungle.
 

Tips

• Take sun lotion; if you travel with children you could use 30 to 50
• Take a good insect repellent
• Take comfortable clothes, shirts with long sleeves and long pants.
• Be sure that you can take lots of pictures

Do you want to know what the plants are used for? 

Uña de gato (cats claw)
To prevent diseases the bark is boiled up to 20 minutes, it is used as “agua de tiempo”, a glass or 2 per day, but it must not be too red. The cat claw is used against arthitris, cancer and to strength the immune system. 

Sangre de grado
Women in the area use to heal wounds; it is also good for ulcers.

Botón de oro (golden button)
It is a kind of anesthesia used when there is tooth pain and scorpion’s bite. What is inside the plant is used against eye infection (conjunctivitis) 

Sachajergón
It is a tubercle good to treat snake's bite.

Achiote
It is used to dye textiles and other fibers for their handicrafts.

Sachaajo
It is used to treat asthma and sinusitis.