Some last boat photos

Early in the morning we stopped at a place called Nauta. I woke up and took these dawn photos. Not sure if I expected it or not, but this is what a jungle town looks like.

A petrol key, naturally

Sunrise

Lots of locals got off at Nauta, preferring to make the rest of the journey to Iquitos over land - there is a road apparently, we had no idea about this though. Must be a faster way of getting there though because the boat was practically empty afterwards.

Market, mud, people

I like the type on the life jackets, they were strung over our hammocks and crawling with spiders. I hate spiders! Had trouble sleeping the first night, worrying that one might land one my whilst I was unconscious. Hammock intervened and soon worked on the insomnia bought about by the worry

Hammocks, mosquito nets, this was our boat dorm room. 

And at last IQUITOS

Love the big boats, they look like wonky floating houses, their flat bottoms, they move like slabs in the water unlike their ocean going counterparts who have to cut through waves and swell.

Seriously cool looking boats - I wonder how old they are..

The Boat

What to say about the boat, the most remarkable thing was discovering my hidden talents for napping. I never knew my capacity for sleeping in hammocks was quite as endless as it seems to be. In the confined space of the boat deck, with nothing much to do for amusement, every time I climbed back inside my hammock to read I'd barely get through two pages before I was nodding off. Ok so not strictly true, but even so, with nothing at all to do at night we would easily be asleep before midnight most days - so it wan't exactly like I needed both a mid morning and mid afternoon nap if not more than that. Why are they so comfortable to snooze in through the day and murder to sleep in at night? It makes no logical sense to me, all I do know is that I love the feeling of being suspended, cocooned. It was a big injection of sleep for me. Verging on too much sleep.

But Incredible.

The scenery was quite monotonous even in it's beauty, river, trees, sky. Endlessly. I wanted to try and convince myself that the trees were AMAZONIAN trees and after the enchanting effect that the Rainforest project had on me as a child at school, I must savour every moment of looking at these marvellous things. It's true they were an abundance of emerald green and twisted knarlled bark, birds nesting in the bright leaves. But seen from afar and not in the depths of the forest where the tress can reach up to 50 meters (next trip then) it was the harmony and dialogue between the river and sky that was by far an away the more breath-taking aspect of the scenery. Sunsets glowing in the sky reflected by the water and the endless change and progression of blue, lilac, peach, burning orange. The pure and celestial quality of the sky and the rippling water. Beautiful.

The experience of being on the boat was unique to the rest of the trip. Buses are just boring, but this felt like a real explorer's experience combining traveling to our next destination with cultural immersion, discovery of people and sights alike. There must have been hundreds of jungle dwellers travelling with us to Iquitos. Two incredibly sleazy men who perved on me and my friend during the dinner queue. I noticed on a separate trip to the bathroom that one of them had a prison style tattoo of a naked woman on his chest - literally gash. Legs spread, his navel was...really what kind of person chooses to do something like that? It was a boat of extremes. Mixed in with the unrefined machismo of the male passengers, surprisingly or perhaps not so, the entire kitchen staff were gay, really camp, really gay.

Older female passengers would assemble around the only table at night and play bingo. There was a girl with a pet monkey. And the very first local guy we talked to, who had rushed over to introduce himself to us as soon as the boat left the river banks of Yurimaguas, was socially inept and very into God. He quickly earned the name God man, or for me, el Senor. The way he had come over made us believe that he was some sort of official on the boat, offering his help, first time round he had our full attention but after we realised that he was just a bit crazy we spent the rest of the trip trying to ignore him. He really wound me up, he would come and hassle me with his God chat and ask me if I'd finished my book yet so that he could read it at the most ill-timed moments in the day, first thing in the morning before I'd ever really woken up, groggy, bleary-eyed, he would come over to annoy us.

The boat itself was hot, sweaty, confined. I actually enjoyed my shower (in the toilet cubicle, that stank, with water that came straight out of the amazon). It was refreshing, a change of sensation and it cooled me down. I was beginning to feel like I was going to rot in my own skin, my hair seriously needed washing and brushing, I felt quite revolting and although a shower like that would normally have the reverse effect, I felt clean! A feeling that lasted all of about 30 minutes. By the end of the journey with the prospect of clean clothes and a clean body firmly within my reach when we arrived at Iquitos we were told that it was going to take an hour before we'd be able to actually get off the boat! Hotter than ever at about 11am, this was the only point were the boat started to drive me crazy. I could envisage us being stuck there until dusk whilst they unloaded - I got the impression from before that the foot passengers were a second priority and cargo actually came first. It was torturous not knowing how long we would have to wait, seeing the dry land meters away, thinking about a meal that wasn't just rice, being able to walk around on streets again in clean clothes and fresh skin. Instead el Senor ramped it up a notch and suggested an exchange of email addresses and offered us a little personal free tour around his city, along with a visit to church, obvs.

I think I could talk about the boat experience endlessly, it combined such opposites and therefore the experience was ever changing even with its slow pace. I'd feel frustrated and confined and all I had to do was look out over the water and instantly feel at ease again. The pervy men felt threatening but then we would be approached by a group of children and play with them on the deck whist their parents sat near by drinking beers, watching over and smiling appreciatively. Even the monotonous rice, rice and more rice based meals we were given were somehow more enjoyable than they should have been. Feeling confined and hot by day melted away at night with constellations of stars stretching out across the open sky and cooler night air. We climbed onto the top deck for some torch light chess with some german backpackers who happened to be doing a similar trip to us. It was fun and I'd definitely do it again, maybe stay in the jungle for longer on my next trip - fingers crossed for the next trip!

Waiting the boat

Waiting for the boat to get from Yurimaguas to Iquitos was a bit of a nightmare. We had been told it was going to leave first thing in the morning so we packed up and went over to the port. It was raining heavily (sandals weren't the best choice of footwear for me, in the mud, no grip with my backpack on) at the port they were unloading wood from the boat. It looked like it could take a while.

We installed ourselves on deck with some jungle locals and started waiting, watching the rain and the river whilst we played cards sat on our backpacks.

The whole day past like this, after about three in the afternoon they told us we wouldn't be leaving today but tomorrow morning for sure. They hadn't stopped unloading and when they did they began loading up the boat with other produce. Great. This went on well into the night, we hung our hammocks and slept on the boat that night, hoping to be able to leave in the morning as promised.

When it finally was time to go we actually had to change boats, exactly the same kind of boat just that there were a lot more people. The bottom deck had row after row of hammocks and people's possessions neatly or not so neatly installed underneath. We even saw another pet monkey!

We positioned ourselves on the second deck. We were terrified of theft having heard horror stories from travellers and guide books alike about the likelihood of our stuff being taken. We had agreed that in any eventuality there would be someone stood with the bags and at night time we padlocked everything up.

I was getting frustrated with the waiting and didn't believe that we were ever actually going to leave. When we did the relief was enormous - but we now had to spend three days on a boat with not much to do but sit in our hammocks, or stand on deck and watch endless trees and river go by....

The never ending loading/unloading area that you can't see very well because it's dark

Amazing colours in the sky at dusk