River Travel: Day 1

Friday was a day in Iquitos to buy some last minute items before our big adventure down the Amazon. It was very laid back and allowed all the students to spend quality time with one another. A couple guys went fishing on the dock. They caught a couple pirannha, a small snake, and other smaller fish.
Saturday was our first day of travel. We had 4 canoe boats for rowers, and the 1 motorized "peki-peki" boat. We rode about 2 hours all together on the peki-peki to bypass the busier portions of the river where there would be too many waves for our dugout canoes. We passed an entire "floating city" called Belen where they built all their houses on rafts. That way when the water levels rose and dropped, they would not have to worry about flooding. Genious! The tributary we were coming out of went right into the Amazon River. When these two different bodies of water mixed, you could see the color change. This was an area where we saw 2 river dolphins! They were off in the distance, but still I was thrilled. We stopped on a piece of land so everyone could switch boats. I took two steps and all of a sudden I was knee deep in sand/mud. It was not quicksand per se, however, it was pretty close and I sunk fast. I was pulled out by one of the natives who steer our boats and was good to go--just a little more dirty than before.
Once everyone got situated in their canoes or the peki peki, we were off! It was sunny the entire time on the river. There was very little breeze. Since I was in the motorized boat with half the group, we would go fast for awhile and enjoy the wind, but then we would have to stop and wait for the paddlers to catch up. This would be every 20 minutes or so. When the boat was stopped it was brutal. You are sitting on the side of the boat, so your butt hurts. You cant move around a lot since the boat is small and would easily tip. There was zero shade and the scenary was all the same. The Amazon river is very wide, so you could not look into the trees to find animals or anything easily. We went this way for about 4 more hours that day.
Our destination was a house up on a bank of the Amazon. The owners were very nice and allowed us to set up camp on their property.

They brewed their own beer and were excited to have the group try and buy their selections. This did not really interest me, but other members of the group were excited. We crammed 4 people into our tent that night. It was really hot and stuffy at first, but definitely cooled down later in the night. Since the house was  on a high bank off the river, it had a beautiful view of the river and at night, the stars were so pretty. We ate out of our mess kits and were happy to have a toilet to use. The toilet did not flush. Instead they have a bucket of water that you pour into the bowl after you use it. This has the same effect as flushing, just with a little extra human effort. I slept surprisingly well, thanks to my ear plugs, but you can still hear a lot. Roosters do not crow at the crack of dawn but about every half hour throughout the entire night. Too much, in my opinion!
I have more stories, so stay tuned...