The Amazon Rainforest Part 1

Hey everybody. Sorry that I did not get a chance to start writing a blog earlier but I have been pretty busy since I have been here and there really hasn´t been that much to write about since I spent the first 4 days in Lima. Lima was a great place but not nearly as exciting as the rainforest. I will try to write more about that later. I have a couple of minutes before I take off for my flight so I will try to fill you in on a little and come back and write more later.

So on Friday I landed in Iquitos, Peru which is in the Northwest part of the country and is situated in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. As a bustling, tropical city with almost a million inhabitants not including the people in the surrounding villages, Iquitos is isolated from the rest of the country by road. It can only be gotten to by two ways, either by boat on the Amazon River or by plane. I clearly chose to take the plane route. Waaaayyyyy shorter. Taking a week long boat trip on the Amazon would have been cool but I unfortunately just don´t have the time. Anyway when I landed it was quite a big change from Lima´s cool, foggy, rather temperate weather. Instead it was a sweltering, humid, 85 degrees. As soon as I stepped off the plane I felt as if I was already in the middle of the rainforest. Soon enough my long awaited dream of seeing the heart of the amazon rainforest would come true. As I picked up my bags I was greeted by two of the most amazing people I met, Huilder, the guy who would be the tour guide the rainforest, or la selva in spanish, and the head of the company, Juan Carlos, who has 30 years of experience in the rainforest doing some of the craziest things you could ever imagine. Apparently they were very impressed with my ability to speak Spanish bc I guess that most of the people that come to do these types of tours in the Amazon don´t usually speak Spanish. Winding through the city on the way to the tour office reminded me a lot of Siem Riep, Cambodia, where I was last year to see Angkor Watt. Most of the residents of the city live in one or two room houses that are built off the ground on stilts with roofs made of a special bamboo. Also like Siem Riep, there are tons of impoverished children, running around all day constantly trying to sell you all sorts of nicknacks, such as cigarettes, gum, candy, cards, really anything you could think of. Fortunately or unfortunately, I´m not sure which, they weren´t anywhere near as agressive or as good salesmen as the kids in Siem Riep. These days Iquitos is a fast growing city due mainly to the large and fertile natural gas fields that have been found near to the city. Previously, Iquitos had grown a lot due to the exploitation of the rubber trees for rubber and plastics that are found in the rainforest. These trees are no longer used for this but rather they use petroleum biproducts these days. Well, it looks as if there is always going to be new resources to exploit from the rainforest.

I have to run for my flight now but I will try to write a whole bunch more later today. Unfortunately I havent even gotten to the amazing rainforest trees yet. I think that picture uploading might have to wait until I get home unfortunately. This seems to be a problem almost everywhere I go but Europe, but the internet connection here is just waaay to slow to upload pics efficiently.