The weekend: Lima-->Iquitos-->Rainforest!

Our first view of the Amazon! (Iquitos, Peru)

Saturday was a day for flying. The two other Drake students and I left our hotel around 1pm for the airport. Our taxi took a route along the ocean which was fun to look at. We were finally able to meet everyone else on the trip. So many pharmacy schools are represented! Our flight on Peruvian Airlines was supposed to take off at 5:30, but due to reasons that were not explained, we did not leave until after 7pm. We were just sitting on the plane. The flight had quite a bit of turbulence, which is never fun, but we arrived safely to the Iquitos airport around 9:30. We had not had a real dinner yet, so Barbara and ChaChi, our guides brought us to a restaurant where we had a delicious and well portioned meal. We got to try delicious juices straight from the rainforest. Camu-Camu is one, and it has the highest amount of vitamin C of any fruit. It is a pink juice, that has a slightly sour aftertaste, but is still good. We also got to have passionfruit juice, which is my favorite, called maracayu. We got to live in luxury for one last night, staying at a beautiful hotel in downtown Iquitos. Iquitos is an interesting city. It can only be gotten to by air or water--no roads go in or out of the city. It was very wealthy in the 1900s when rubber was the big draw. Even Mr. Eiffel himself designed a house here, but unfortunately only one small part of it is left. The city was majorly affected by flooding. Iquitos experienced the most rainfall in 2012 than it ever has in its history. Many houses were destroyed and people were displaced, which always leads to issues, filth, and poverty.Many people try to sell animals on the streets from the jungle, which is illegal. If we see any of that happening, our group will confiscate the animal, and help reintroduce it back to the wild. 

Sunday was our going to be our first time to the reserve in the rainforest! We were all excited and nervous. We rode a motorized boat to our reserve with all our camping gear.

The Reserve

 In order to get to the boat, we had to walk through a gigantic sawmill that smelled interesting. There was a steep bank down to the river but everyone made it down without a scrape. The boat is basically just a wide canoe that is powered by a lawn mower engine. We took our first 30 minute trek to our reserve in the Amazon. It is MUCH nicer than I expected. We do have two (currently) functioning toilets, and 3 showers, however you are able to bathe in the Amazon if you want. I am not brave enough yet, but I will before the trip is over. Yes, there are piranhas in the river, but supposedly they won´t bother you. What you do need to look out for are the electric eels that hide out under our dock. We are basically staying in a giant, two story hut that reminds me of a tree house. It is completely screened in, but there are no windows. It allows a nice breeze at any time of day. All the students are in one giant room. Some people put up tents, but most, including me are sleeping on the floor in our sleeping bags and mats. There are a couple small bugs that get in, but since it is fully screened in, we don´t have to worry too much. There is definitely not privacy, but so far we are all getting along great. Next week, we will be roughing it in the jungle, as we visit tribes further down the Amazon. I am so excited and so nervous! On Sunday we had our first test run in the hollowed out logs that are our canoes. We canoe to Iquitos everyday this week for class. Each canoe holds 4-5 paddlers. The oars are all handmade by a man who works on our reserve who has no fingers or toes, but he does a magnificent job carving.