Downpour at the boarder

Sometimes I admit, when travelling and pushed to some sort of limit, I get a bit grumpy. At the Peruvian, Colombian boarder in a downpour and the clumsy passing from boat to boat heavily laden with a very large and extremely well packed backpack, falling in the water would have really pissed me off, I'd have been stuck legs in the air and all my stuff would have been soaked, more soaked than it was in the flash flood. And I had precious cargo of some extremely nice shoes which absolutely could not get wet or damaged before I got the chance to wear them. Over my dead body. Stepping out or a wobbly boat strapped into both backpacks and walking along the precariously constructed bridges to get from boat to boat, place, to place to negotiate the seemingly over complicated boarder procedure to be able to step on Colombia dry land.

We were hassled when we disembarked the boat we had caught from Caballococha, we told the guy that we could cope with telling the boat driver where to take us and get safely to Leticia without too much trouble. I was annoyed that it was raining and I was annoyed that the guy wouldn't go away, he kept on interjecting and trying to take over to ensure himself a few soles when his help clearly was neither wanted nor required, we were managing.

We made our way to the two Peruvian offices check out and check out again? Not really sure, or was it boarder control and customs? Being guided though the near knee deep water, they signalled out where the pavement normally would be and we waded through the muddy water to each immigration office. Sandals ruined then. Boarder papers sorted. Stamped out of Peru, we made our way to solid land, running for cover from the rain albeit slowly in my case with the weight on my back. We sheltered in a bar where we couldn't buy drinks because we didn't have the right currency. We looked through our travel guides and tried to work out where in Leticia we could stay for cheap that night and how far away it was from our current location. When the rain finally abated we walked over to where we thought the hostel was, changing our money collectively and feeling that we really were in a different country. This was a serious step up in standards to Peru. The Colombian jungle was a far more advanced and sophisticated affair. My backpack was killing and we had a fair walk ahead, backbreaking pain. We found somewhere and haggled a deal and went and found some food. Showered.

COLOMBIA! I finally made it, I've been dreaming about coming to this country for at least five years. At last!

Flooded Sta Rosa

The sky

Try balancing on something like this with a 20k+ backpack, not so fun

Flooded

On the way to the Immigration Office

The bench - for once we know how high the water is compared to normal

Smudgy, badly taken but the idea here was to show the three flags on the boat, Brazil, Peru and Colombia

Welcome to Leticia, Colombia