Leticia

Somehow we needed to chill after the experience of Caballococha. We spent the first day or two in Leticia catching up with internet stuff, reading, getting our clothes washed and cooking our own food! We found a place that did an amazingly cheap and amazingly delicious menu del dia and had a bit of a look around the grottier bit of Leticia with all the market stalls - lots of hammocks I wanted to buy and some really nice bags too. Leticia was expensive if you wanted to buy anything that wasn't produced in the jungle. Very expensive, a shock coming from Peru and before that Bolivia where life was for the most part pretty cheap. Colombia has a stronger economy and imports into the jungle came at a price. Trips to the supermarket were a shock. Locals often cross over to the Peruvian petrol keys, go out for beers and dance in Sta. Rosa, go to Brazil for their Brazilian needs, there seemed to be a fair bit of exchange between the three countries which is to be expected. Three frontiers meeting like this make the idea of countries seem really odd. These people have more in common with each other than those in their respective capital cities for example, yet the different between the places was marked due to the different governments and the relative wealth of Colombia and Brazil in comparison to Peru. It was crazy to see it so stark like that. One side of an invisible line peoples lives are so different to the other. Mad.

Our days in Leticia were relaxed until we started the hunt for a jungle tour. I wasn't convinced. We were in the jungle, did we need a tour? What were we going to see that we hadn't already, we had already seen monkeys, river dolphins and parrots, a lot of jungle water and some lilies. What more did we need? I was also skint. But I got my arm twisted in the end.

Leticia dappled in sunlight and mostly pretty peaceful was a nice place to be and it whet my appetite to get back to civilisation and see more of Colombia, this infamous drug-ridden lawless place. Dangerous, beautiful. Misunderstood.

There was one night in the hostel where our peaceful haven of reading, diary writing, reading and catching up with personal hygiene was rudely interrupted when a group of disgusting men descended on our dorm room. One of them seemed to think that it was fine to sit himself down on my bed when I was reading. I got up and left to read somewhere else, he even did the same the next morning when I was still asleep. Strange and very aggressive way to come on to someone. Not to mention presumtious. I was not amused. I refused to greet any of them which is not something I usually do but they were total arseholes so they deserved it.

But first the jungle tour, another ass crack of dawn start...