la vida

The next day we woke bright and early to try and see the famous pink dolphins of the Amazon. I saw none but was happy to be in the boat again.

After a quick nap (funny how it's easier to sleep in the daytime than it is at night here...)

We headed deeper inside the jungle. A healthy drizzle of fresh rain accompanied us on our little boat...

Harry at the stern...

I'm not sure how long we were on the river because there seemed to be no sense of time in the jungle. But sooner or later, we landed at this farmstead, about two riverbends up from another village.

The cows here aren't as plump as the ones we pass on Interstate 5 back in California.

The woman who owns this farm stopped her corn-counting to talk to us about living in the jungle and to sell us homemade goods (she found success in Pame.) I am sorry to say I paid more attention to the dogs than whatever the woman was saying.

Even the dogs here are smaller!

The jungle is ever-encroaching on the farm, which provides a bounty of fresh fruit.

This guy was pretty sour and tasted suspiciously like Señor Perfilio's coconá concoction back at the lodge.

More fruit...

I don't think I got this one open. Well, I always knew I couldn't survive out here!

Just as Sigourney Weaver says on that Planet Earth miniseries, in the rainforest, living things grab onto and grow from any surface they can find.

While Pame and the farmer were talking about who knows what, Cid and Harry took me fishing. Though we threaded chicken skin onto the hooks and waited patiently, the piranhas were too quick. Whenever we lifted a line, the chicken was gone but there was no fish in its place.

By another village (name forgotten but I think it's another San Juan) Cid showed us these "jealousy plants" (Cid called them celosa but I think a better word is bashful.) The leaves start out open but once you touch it...

... the leaf curls up and tries to hide itself.

As Esa said, if leaves had fingers, they'd be flipping you the bird right about now.

The village seemed a little larger than San Juan de Huanshaldo... someone had definitely taken the time to clear out some land for this hamlet.

This village is large enough to have a soccer team!

The village clinic was the only building with signs of life. Everyone else was out... probably working or playing or napping (since it's so difficult to sleep at night, at least for me.)

I see a phone number on that banner... where's the village telephone?

As we said goodbye to Village No. 2...

... we paddled our way back to Village No. 1, San Juan! Our jungle journey was coming to an end but we were lucky enough to see some of the kids horsing around before we left...

Not your average diving platform...

As we boarded the motorboat back to Iquitos, Suzie just couldn't let us leave without saying goodbye.

Señor Perfilio brought a few more monkeys to bid us adieu...

... and Suzie tried everything to keep us from departing.

I really meant everything! Bad Suzie!

The journey to the lodge only took one hour but since we were heading upstream, our motorboat struggled for two hours as we slowly made our way back to a land with electricity. The waters were noticeably  choppier on our return...

... especially when large craft passed by. At first I thought this was a small vessel under the banner of the Peruvian navy...

... but then the back view made it look like a prison boat.

Thankfully, we made it back to Nauta sans prisoners!

Cid was the only guide to take the return journey with us as the other three had several weeks of training left at the lodge. I found him to be a very knowledgeable and impressive guide and I hope that all his problems with his lady friend are resolved. Or that he gets a new lady.

Before boarding a taxi back to the city center in Iquitos, Cid encouraged us to try a local delicacy: grilled suri (obviously, worms.) These worms look like the kind you see in The Lion King when Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa sing "Hakuna Matata." Well, when in the Amazon...

I must say that the worms are actually quite good. The body tastes a bit like the filling of a beef wellington, it's meaty with a hint of earthiness (probably because worms live in the ground!) The head is crunchy, like a potato chip. I enjoyed my first two worms.

The third on the stick, however, was cold by the time I got to it. I left the worm by a dog, who didn't eat it... wait a minute, if the dog doesn't eat it, what does that say about suri!?

can't catch a wink in the Amazon to save my life

Recently it has struck me that I will be leaving for Colombia in less than two weeks, and I haven't even finished telling the tale of my misadventures in the Peruvian Amazon! I know it has been months since I last wrote about the adorable animals but I must continue.

So after cuddling monkeys and petting snakes, the guides took Pame and I back to the lodge where we became friends with the other four tourists (in the entire lodge) over a delicious dinner of rice, chicken, and the ever-present coconá. Well, that meal probably tasted better than it really was because we were hungry, but so long as the chicken is tender, I can't complain!

As my luck would have it one of the couples was from the States! Charo is a friendly Peruvian national who moved to the USA where she met Esa, her Finnish-born husband. Charo also happens to be a cousin of the trio behind Limón Rotisserie (which has recently failed to exude Peruvian excellence but that was way after I met Charo in January.) Esa turned out to be one of the best sorts of people you could ask for in an expedition: he was inadvertently hilarious because he stuck out so much (more than me), he always had a wisecrack to share, and he was a fan of patronizing San Juan's tavern for beer.

Along with the young couple from Argentina, the six of us and our combined four guides pulled on our boots and embarked on our nightwalk. I'm sorry to say I have no pictures since my camera was charging but if I had taken any, it would only be blackness or a fuzzy shot of mud lit up by a camera flash.If you truly want to be in darkness and don't want to go into a mineshaft, go to the jungle. No streetlamps, no car headlights, no wayward rays of light escaping from someone's house. All we had were our flashlights and the stars.

The guides encouraged us to try walking with the flashlights off, since that's how the locals travel when they need to make a midnight run to... wherever the hell they need to go. I felt comfortable with less light but no one wanted to go without any light. So they stayed on.

Oftentimes untamed animals are more active at night, or so the nature shows tell us. The only animal we saw on our nightwalk was a tarantula on a tree. In a way, I was happy that the hairy arachnid was the only creature we saw at night... I wouldn't want to come face-to-face with a caiman with only my flashlight. Well, I really wouldn't want to come face-to-face with one at all. I prefer a safety barrier in between us.

The possibility of encountering caimen didn't faze us, and after procuring beer from the local pub, all ten of us piled into one paddleboat and pushed off into the river. The night was uneventful, though the beer, the chats, the sounds of frogs and crickets, and the mosquitoes kept us awake. Several times mosquitoes buzzed too close to my ear and during one of these incidents, I slapped my ear hard enough that I side-headbutted Pame, who almost jumped off the boat. Other than that, it was a creaky little cruise of unearthly shapes emerging from the dark. Our vision was limited to the little circles illuminated by our small flashlights, which made the trees we saw earlier that day seem even more strange.

After we docked the boat, we trekked back to San Juan and celebrated our safe return at the village discotech (which happens to be the same house from which the baby sloth came.) A single room with men playing cards at one end, all five teens in the village at the other, and window where we could buy beer made a fitting setting for our hullabaloo. Between dancing to Colombian and Brazilian music and toasting to our quasi-adventures with beer, we learned quite a bit about our guides.

Artemio and Pedro were nineteen, Harry was eighteen, and Cid the shortest was thirty. All the guides went to "guide school," which sounds like a scam to me if you already live in the jungle. Except for Cid, the guides were still training (and as Pame and I found out the next day, were not getting paid during training.) Artemio was a devout Christian and didn't drink beer (we bought him Coca-Cola) but Pedro, Harry, and Cid had no problem drinking beer or dancing with me (that's what happens when you're the only unmarried girl in a group.) I remember the next day Cid was telling me about how he has a lady friend but they had a fight so he had to sleep alone the previous night. If this was the Amazon way of picking up girls, it certainly flew over my head and all I thought about was "how do you fit two people in those small hammocks anyways?"

At some early hour in the morning we finally walked the last 10 minutes back to our lodge and slept. Or, everyone else slept as I put up with the jungle symphony of frogs and insects and the occasional bark. It didn't help that I was covered in mosquito bites and I spent a good hour scratching my shoulders and pondering if the mosquito netting was truly insect-proof before falling into some sort of stupor for a few hours.

Hiram Bingham climbed up a hill

Happy 101st Anniversary of your coming out, Machu Picchu! People have been awed by your intricate architecture and extraordinary altitude since July 24, 1911!

When I first visited Peru in March 2011, I almost didn't go to Machu Picchu! After tossing my cookies at Lake Titicaca, I dreaded visiting the mountaintop ruin. All I wanted to do was curl up in my bed at the inn and sleep off the dizziness. But I am so glad I stuck it out (having already paid for the tickets and tour was also a strong impetus for climbing the mountain.) After waking up at 5AM to and traveling 4 hours by van and train, I finally saw this:

  

And it was all worth it!

countdown

It's less than one month until I leave for Colombia and I am ramping myself up as best as possible. I'm revisiting my old college Spanish book, exercising (almost) everyday so I am not that fat of a chingra, and listening to Colombia's rich and varied music scene. One of my favorites is Bomba Estereo, a genre-bending group that I had the pleasure of seeing live last year.

Lili raises the roof!

Fuego is one of the band's first hits and it shows off the colorful and slightly subversive style that Bomba Estereo is still known for.

the side effects

Yesterday I was perfectly fine, until the bus ride home. Then I started feeling lightheaded, and my shoulders started feeling stiff.

Uh oh, that's how I feel when I'm sick!

Mr. Yuck, a real American hero...
at least since I first saw him on a bottle in my dad's medicine cabinet.
Image courtesy of google image search

I know that vaccines are supposed to be weakened cousins of a virus but that yellow fever vaccine I got on Monday was quite the kicker. Once I returned home yesterday I made a pot of tea and drank the last of the beouf bourguignon I made on Sunday. I swapped my yoga pants for sweatpants and cozied up with a sweater and a blanket. The most telltale sign? I fell asleep during Animal Planet's Viking Wilderness. It's just totally not me to fall asleep when there are baby fox cubs playing on TV.

It's also not me to fall asleep at 9PM when I could be up until 1AM knitting and reading and watching crappy television. 9PM!

Well perhaps it's a good thing I went to bed early last night. I sweated out that fever like Scandinavians in a sauna and though it sucked to get out of bed, the symptoms soon wore off and I worked a full day. The symptoms are down to a bare minimum now... just a weird sensation at the crown of my skull when I shake my head really hard. And why would I have to shake my head anyways?

Now that my body has paid the price, I am ready for Colombia. Once I pack, that is.

follow the yellow brick road

It's less than two months until my trip to Colombia and I finally got my yellow card, the internationally recognized proof of yellow fever vaccination. Woohoo!

Passport to travel safely!

Since I'm on the lovely cut-rate health plan where my primary care physician can tell me what's wrong but can't fix it, I hopped on over to the Adult Immunization and Travel Clinic in the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Well, I made an appointment, then hopped over. You wouldn't think that the place is buzzing but it is small. Also, I swear that the clerk on the phone told me my appointment was at 3 PM but when I checked in, a very nice and slightly sassy lady told me that my appointment was at 2:50 PM. Good thing I arrived at 2:49 PM!

The prices are a touch steep but don't let the $49 travel consultation deter you. The nurses at the Travel Clinic know a lot. They can dissect a country and tell you where the high risk areas are for yellow fever and malaria (which is not recommended for Colombia unless you're going to the Amazon.) My nurse was very thorough and gave me some advice on other issues that my PCP didn't say. All in all, I feel like I got better care at the health clinic than I do when I go to my PCP. That helps to mitigate the $149 price tag on my yellow fever shot.

By the way, the card is valid for ten years. Don't consider it an expense, consider it an investment in your journey!

temptations

I just paid off the balance of my much-awaited trip to Colombia but I still have to wait until August!

While entering my plastic information on Intrepid's website, I couldn't resist browsing around. And I found out that if you book one of Intrepid's selelcted short trips by the end of June, you can take a friend for 50% off. Solo travellers can get 30% off one trip if they book two "short breaks;" if both short trips are also "urban adventures" (less than one day) then one is free!

The trips are organized into broad categories by the general trip idea and I love that they've added a food option... would anyone care to take a 5-day cooking tour in Morocco?

Now I can't help figuring out how to squeeze a weekend trip in before August!

yummy!
Image courtesy of google image search