Amazon (Día 1)

Okay, so I hope you're all excited for this blog because I am excited to tell you about my weekend.  Sorry for making you wait.  Obviously, this is only going to be Day 1 of my weekend (hence the title), but it's still going to be a long/interesting blog with pictures! :)

Okay, so late Thursday night, I did some packing for the trip.  I had a little bit of trouble packing because I had no idea what to expect in the selva (Amazon).  Well, I have a funny story for you later about something I packed, but anyway, then I went to bed for a few hours.  Our taxi driver, Daniel, who usually takes us to Deporte y Vida, picked us up to take us ot the airport.  He was supposed to come at 5:40ish, but instead he got there around 5:10ish.  Luckily, I had gotten up a little early because I wanted to eat breakfast.  Well, right when I went down to the kitchen to eat breakfast, Tonisha called me to say that her and Daniel were at my house..  So I headed downstairs and Tonisha, Daniel, and I headed out to pick up Sheila, then we were off to the airport.

When we got to the airport, we checked in and had a funny experience with the guy that checked us in.  As we were checking in, he spoke Spanish to us the whole time.  He typed all of our information in then looked up and said "Luggage?" (in a Peruvian accent).  Both Tonisha and I said "Cómo?" (What?).  He repeated himself again "Luggage?" and again Tonisha and I had no clue what he was saying so agian we said "Cómo?" and then he said "Maletas?" (Suitcases?) and we finally understood and said "No."  But even after he used the word "maletas" I had no idea what word he had been using.  I asked Tonisha, "What word was he using?" and she didn't know either.  I stood there going through the Spanish word bank in my head thinking, "luggage, luggage, I don't know that word, luggage..."  Well, at some point in time my brain switched to my English dictionary and said to me "LUGGAGE, you idiot!"  I turned to Tonisha and said, "Luggage (in an American accent) that's what he was saying" and then we laughed about the fact that we had no clue what he said.  We've both decided that sometimes it's easier to listen to peoples Spanish rather than try to decipher their English.  We were also confused as to why he switched to speaking English in the first place.  Anyway, we got breakfast at Starbucks (cinnamon roll yum!), got through security, and boarded the plane.  Our plane was delayed by about 50 minutes because of air traffic and we questioned why they didn't have that figured out already, but then we thought maybe there were delayed flights coming in and we figured we would rather be delayed on the ground then crash into another plane.  We also had a stop in Pucallpa, which we were unaware of, but we didn't have to switch planes or anything.  The flight in total was around 2 1/2 hours, maybe.

Anyway, here's where the funny packing story comes in.  You know when you land on a plnae they tell you the temperature.  Well, the flight attendant said it was 34 degrees Celsius.  I turned to Tonisha excited by that number and said "That's awesome!  That's like the 70s, right?"  And she gave me a funny look and said, "No, I don't think so because 17 degrees is in the 60s."  Well soon enough the flight attendant repeated herself in Englihs saying that it was 92 degrees Fahrenheit!  I had NO idea that it would be that hot!  WE got off the plane and it was stifling.  And I told Tonisha and Sheila, "I packed my cullo, I guess I don't need that."  Just so you remember, chullos are fitted caps with ear flaps and serve the purpose of keeping you warm.  It became the joke of the weekend.  As we were sweating our butts off I would say, "Does anybody need my chullo?"  I'm pretty sure I won the award for being prepared for anything (blizzard) though.  Thanks Mom for teaching me that skill.

Anyway, once we all changed into tank tops in the airport bathroom we headed outside, where we were mauled by three taxi driveres willing to take us to the Plaza de Armas of Iquitos.  Every time we decided to go with one driver, another driver would lower his price and we would go with him then the other guy would change his price.  It got down to 2 soles ($.73) for a taxi and we could've taken a mototaxi for 1 sol, but we decided against the moto and got in the regular for 2 soles.  Our taxi driver was really nice and we talked to him a lot about Iquitos and what we wanted to do for the weekend.  Well, it ended up that rather than taking us to the Plaza de Armas (where we were supposed to meet Kevin and mark who had already been on the Amazon for a week) he took us to a tour office and we didn't even have to pay him, but we're pretty sure the tour office pays him for every group he brings there.  Needless to say, we ended up signing up for a tour that would take us to the selva for the weekend and we would be leaving in the next 45 minutes.  The tour guy brought us to a restaurant (where again we're sure the restaurant pays the tour place to bring people there) while he went and got all the groceries and things we would need for the weekend.  After eating (lomo saltado of course) and getting liters of water for the weekend, we (Tonisha, Sheila, and I)  left in a white station wagon with Nilton (who would be one of our guides for the weekend), and a driver to go to the town of Nauta.  After about a 2 1/2 hour drive in a hot car with the window down where I tried to read for all of 2 minutes we safely got to Nauta.  Although we were still thinking worse case scenario, we boarded a boat on the river.  AS we took off on the river we encountered our first experience with wildlife.  A spider was accompanying us as well.  Nilton had to kill it for us.  The boat ride was probably another hour and a half or so I really don't know about times.  I didn't pay attention too much so I could be completely wrong on the lengths of flights, car rides, and boat rides.

But anyway, on the boat two exciting things we saw were some dolphins jumping and the change in water type.  Yes, there are dolphins in the Amazon!  And not only are they grey dolphins, but there are pink ones, too.  The dolphins didn't jump all the way out of the water, but we did see their backs.

And the change in water... Well there are ríos negros and ríos blancos (black and white rivers), which we actually talked about in Ethnography so it was cool to see it in person.  Here's a picture of the Río Cumaceba, which our lodge was on, running into the Río Yarapa.

Black vs. White rivers

When we got to the lodge, the guide showed us where we ate and there were hammocks there, too!  Then he showed us our room, where we were greeted by a big spider in our bathroom that he had to kill again.

Trying to show the size of the spider, but I didn't want to get my hand too close :)

We also had mosquito nets over our beds and we had electricity for 2 hours (from 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.) a night and honestly, at no point did I miss the electricity.  I almost wish there wasn't any so it would keep the bugs away more.  Once we got settled in our room, we all went and laid in the hammocks and sang "In the Jungle."  Then our guide came and gave us our boots for the weekend and we were introduced to our other guide, Roland, and we would soon find out that he was a fearless 20-year old who would help make our weekend great!

And then.... we headed out into the Amazon for the first time at night!  It was kind of scary.  I knew it would be a good adventure though when Roland and Nelton saw/caught a baby alligator before we even left the lodge.

Me with the baby alligator

Close-up

 On our grand night adventure, Tonisha was given a machete, I know, scary, right? (But not as scary as Sheila with a machete, but you'll find out about that in Amazon (Día 2)).  Anyway, we found frogs... 

Roland caught a opossum (yea, who knew there were opossums in the jungle)

A spider...

And a scorpian...

 And this was the first time we realized Roland was fearless.  I don't know how he did it, but he decided to pick the scorpion up.  He wanted us to put it on our face, but we weren't for that, but Sheila put it on her hand.  And then, our night adventure was over.  I'd say it was pretty successful.  The only things that we didn't find were snakes (Boas and Anacondas) and a tarantula.

After the jungle hike, we ate dinner which consisted of chicken and french fries.  As we were sitting there, I was already itching like crazy from the bug bites.  I could feel the bites through my pants and I counted about five.  well, when I got back tot the room, I learned that each bite I felt was actually like three to five bites around the same spot.  It was horrible!  The most I got bitten was always when we were eating meals-it wasn't fun.  I wish I could countall of the bites I have from the weekend, but it would be kind of impossible to find/count them all, but just believe me that I have a lot.  Good thing I got that yellow fever shot, right?

Anyway, after being eaten alive by mosquitos, we climbed into bed with our mosquito nets and of course had some girl talk because that's just what happens when you have three girls sleeping in the same room in the middle of the jungle.  Then, we fell asleep before 10 p.m.  The first night was horrible.  I was so scared of getting eaten more, even with the net, that I slept in pants and a sweatshirt the whole night.  I was SO hot the entire night and I kept waking up along with Sheila and Tonisha.  We also had rock hard pillows which were interesting to sleep on, but we all made it through the night and we were up and reading at 6 a.m. for the Amazon (Día 2), which will be coming soon to a blog near you.

Hope you enjoyed this first day and I hope you stick around to hear our adventure from the other two days!