Into the Amazon - Part 1

Technological difficulties continue to plague me, but I managed to upload a few pictures to start with. Our path to the jungle started in Iquitos, the largest city in the world unreachable by road. We took a bus to a town directly south of Iquitos, called Nauta, where we caught a banana boat with a basic outboard motor to take us down the Rio Marañon. There´s a picture of me teasing a half-smirk out of our jungle guide, Jorge, or more fully, Jorge of the Jungle. On the hour long ride, we spotted several river dolphins, their gray and pink fins glimmering momentarily in the sun. Trying to get a picture was like playing an impossible game of smash the weasel on the head, as they popped up whenever and wherever they pleased. Gather the family ´round and see who can find the dolphin in my attempt of a picture. At that time in the year, the river was near its lowest, and I took a photo of a bank to show the approx. 5 feet that the entire river will rise in the wetter months. Now I´m no mathmetician, but I would put my estimate for the change in aqueous volume somewhere in the range of a crapload and a half. Shyaa. Anyways, when the Marañon met up with the Yarapa, we got off in a small village and transferred to canoes. It was another hour-long paddle upriver and into the branching Cumaceba before our base camp turned into view. I had to snap a photo of little Romy, Jorge´s nephew, hitching a ride in the back of the cooks´ canoe behind the plaintains. It was impenetrable jungle on either side, occasionally broken by a winding tributary or an inlet completely covered in a field of pastel orange and green butterflies. The sounds of the jungle surround you, punctuated by the most bizzare birdcalls you could imagine. Predictably, my camera temporarily stopped working when we arrived, so I have no pictures of the camp. It was basically two largish huts on stilts, connected by a raised wooden walkway. Our hut consisted of a table and our ¨mosquiteros¨, or netted beds to sleep and take refuge in. We unloaded, smacking away at mosquitoes, and took a deep breath of jungle air before our adventures ahead.