TripTracker.net - 2009 Trans-Amazon Expedition, The way to Iquitos

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation The Final Countdown El Mercado Mira Flores La Selva Chipaota The First Leg: Chasuta to Yurimaguas Pacaya Samiria Reserve The way to Iquitos to Leticia The Slow Boat to Manaus Difficult Questions

RainforestPartnership

2009 Trans-Amazon Expedition

The way to Iquitos

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Nov 2 2009, 05:45 PM

22 photos

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Traveler

RainforestPa-
rtnership
Austin, Texas, United States

Journal

Location

Iquitos, Peru

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Early in the morning we said goodbye to our friends at the last ranger station and left the Reserve behind. Before noon we had paddled into Marañon, the river that will later meet the Negro and form the Amazon. We paddled all afternoon and didn´t quite know where on the river we were. We pulled up next to a fisherman who told us that he and his friends on another boat upriver were going to float down to Nauta to sell there catch. We talked for a while and ended up tying the boats together to float down with them. At around six we paddled to this small A-frame hut where one of the fisherman lived. It was situated on a big plot of rice and there were fifteen people eating and mulling around by the fire. The fish was plentiful, the rice was hot and the people were friendly. After that we headed back out onto the river.
Waking up early, paddling and making camp at night every day is a routine that is easy to get into. It´s easy to forget where we are and how unbelievable this trip is. There are moments however when we are forced to stop, look around and are stricken by the overwhelming truth that we are in a completely different world. As we were all laying down in our boats and the sun was streaking red and gold across the horizon and the clouds were billowing up and passing over us I had one of those moments. We were floating down to Nauta with a couple of fisherman on the Marañon under the setting sun and all there was left to do, and all that we could do was be silent and hold in reverence those passing minutes when the gold fades to inky black and the clouds open up and the stars fall and the river runs regardless of whether we were there or not. And that´s exaclty what we did.
As night fell we stared at the stars and talked about where we had been and where we were going. They asked how to say certain things in English. It was a lazy kind of talk. One filled with lots of space to just lay down and take it all in.
We floated that way until three in the morning, then they hauled the huge nets of fish that were hanging over the sides of the boat in and filled there twenty five foot long and three foot deep boat to the brim with a catch that must have been no less than eight hundred pounds. We tied our boat and the other canoe in single file and we snaked our way behind the pecky-pecky into Nauta.
We spent a day in Nauta saying goodbye to Genaro and picking up some food for the two-day paddle for Iquitos. The next morning I woke up at four to see Genaro off to his launcha for Lagunas and we got the boat loaded and were on the river by 6:45.
It was an uneventful on the two-day trip down. Until about two hours outside of Iquitos. A lightweight aluminum boat with an outboard engine came flying upriver towards us, bow pointed skyward, tearing a gash up the river behind it. I tried to turn the boat out of their way but they turned with me. As they approached I saw that it was a boatful of men with AK-47´s and pistols out and aimed at us. My first thought was ¨damn it, we came all this way only to be robbed two hours outside of Iquitos,¨ and I just shook my and smiled. Then I saw that they were wearing bullet proof vests with ¨POLICIA¨emblazoned across the chest. ¨Well, at least we won´t be getting robbed illegally,¨ I thought. They stopped us, asked for our passports and searched our stuff. They were Narcotics Agents and were patrolling the pass into Iquitos. So I talked to them, told them what we were doing, showed them some of our gear (they really liked our backpacking stove) and they asked if we wanted a tow into Iquitos. We ended up shaving off two hours of paddling and arrived at the port with a police escort. I guess that´s one way of getting into Iquitos.

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11/02/2009
05:45 PM

11/02/2009
05:46 PM

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	11. Difficult Questions Jan 26 2010, 03:26 PMSanta Fe, United States, New Mexico10 photos When people from home ask me about people from the river, I always tell them about the teacher's wife. We had been staying in Chipaota for the better half of a week, living and working with the men and women of the community and trying as best we could to assimilate ourselves...

	10. The Slow Boat to Manaus Nov 29 2009, 09:39 PMManaus, Brazil14 photos We had made it to Leticia, the end of our paddling leg, but we still had a long way to go to get to Manaus. Leticia is a Columbian town situated on the tri-border of Peru, Columbia and Brazil. As soon as we set foot on the banks of Leticia and climbed the wooden steps that led to the central...

	9. to Leticia Nov 17 2009, 09:21 PMLeticia, Colombia37 photos Paddling the final few meters into Porta Masusa in Iquitos was like stepping into another world. We rounded a bend in the river out of the ether a mass of lights and urban sprawl lay ahead of us. We spent four days surrounded by the concrete and grime of this lost city dropped in the middle of the...

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