Amazon Jungle

Floating shantytown, Belen, Iquitos

Iquitos is the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road – with more than 500,000 people and 40,000 ‘moto-cars’ (similar to tuk-tuks in Thailand) it certainly buzzes with life (& plenty of noise!). Suffice to say, after a day of exploring Iquitos and its crazy markets & floating shantytowns, heading deep into the jungle was a welcome reprieve!

Fishing for piranhas

We have now re-emerged into civilisation after  5 days in the depths of the Amazon Rainforest in northern Peru. We have been staying at Muyuna Jungle Lodge, an isolated hideaway 140km up the Amazon River from Iquitos. We were paired up with a lovely young English couple and looked after by our guide, Julio, who had a supernatural ability for spotting all manner of wildlife and creepy crawlies. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of looking from a distance and we proceeded to get far too close to a few too many caimans, tarantulas and snakes for our liking!

Catching frogs!

By day we went swimming in the Amazon River with pink and grey dolphins, canoed through dense jungle, went bird and monkey spotting, fished for piranhas, laughed at the three-toed sloths ‘sloth-ing’ their way up tree trunks, drank beers on the boat as the sun set, met the villagers of San Juan, drank ‘Jungle juice’ and danced in gumboots with the 69-year old Shaman (spiritual leader) – how can you say no to a Shaman?!. By night we cruised the river in search of transparent green frogs, boa constrictors, nocturnal monkeys and best of all, caiman (alligators). We nearly fell out of the boat when one of the guides spotted a caiman with the floodlight and then swiftly disappeared off the boat, into the water and under the river vegetation, re-emerging with a 2-metre caiman in hand!

Wrestling caimans!

The guides were certainly willing to do anything and everything to ensure we had a great jungle adventure!

Chris had a few near-sleepless nights in our bungalow as he listened to the sounds of the jungle and envisaged jaguars (or killer monkeys!) on the prowl outside. Yet somehow we managed to survive our time in the Amazon unscathed – with the exception of a few dozen mozzie bites! We’re now on our way to Lima where we’re lucky enough to be staying in a family friend’s apartment for a few days– thanks Orietta!

Beers and sunset in the Amazon