{"id":860,"date":"2011-09-01T00:34:26","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T14:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=860"},"modified":"2018-04-19T10:57:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T00:57:13","slug":"amazon-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slingadventures.com\/destinations\/peru\/amazon-river","title":{"rendered":"Amazon River"},"content":{"rendered":"Forgive me if I start this article with Inca Cola. Sure, you are expecting to read about the majestic Amazon jungle but first you must learn about Inca Cola. It's everywhere in Peru. I had some yesterday. It tastes a bit like Irn-Bru, that Scottish based energy soft drink. It must be the Peruvian national drink. Marketing genius to mix the culturally significant Incas with a modern marvel Cola flavouring. Equalling a patriotic drink for the masses. Coca-Cola and Pepsi seem noticeably absent in Peru although it turns out Coca-Cola in fact own Inca Cola. Like I said, marketing genius. Now, onto the Amazon...\r\n\r\nA terrible night's sleep in our hotel Casa Morey in Iquitos, situated on the upper Amazon river. \u00a0Usual jetlag having us both up at 1am. When morning arrives we are met in the lobby by our guide, his name is Oscar. Oscar is a very energetic guy and keen to get on our way. Our first stop is a manatee nursery.\r\n\r\nThe nursery was set up to care for baby manatees that are often separated from their mothers and taken up by locals as pets. The nursery intends to bring them back into the wild however you can see the temptation to have them as pets as they are a little bit cute. Being basically blind, the murky Amazon waters has not much use for sight. They tend to see using their snouts and spiky whiskers which slurp around until it finds the grass or cabbage we\u00a0held out for some. Allison turned out to be their number one fan. I'm certain I could have left her there all day, all week in fact.\r\n\r\nThe Amazon river awaits however and we grab lunch back in Iquitos hitching a ride on a tuk tuk all the way and then on to the makeshift port where dozens of long river boats are moored. We hop onto one marked 'Otorongo Lodge', our residence for the next few days. Soon we are zooming along the Amazon to our lodge about 100km down river and despite our speed it is a three hour journey. Quite a bit of debris in the river keeping the driver alert and the odd bump as an unavoidable log hits the underside of the boat.\r\n\r\nOne thing about the Amazon is it's wide. Seems understandable I suppose but so wide that you can sometimes only just make out the shore on both sides. The river is about 10m below the usual\u00a0height\u00a0so large mud and dirt banks have been along the entire route. We are now scaling one of these steep banks and walk about 10mins into the jungle to our lodge through a thin film of mud in our thongs\u00a0(before you picture something different, also known as flip, flops)\r\n\r\nThe lodge was, you'd say modest, being two simple buildings connected by an elevated walkway, the mosquito screens however looked particularly robust which was a good thing as it felt particularly buggy around here not to mention everything else crawling around the jungle floor. It felt pretty remote having not seen much on the bank for the past 100km from Iquitos and with Iquitos\u00a0being quite remote in itself. It was a further 3 day boat ride down river to the Brazilian border and surrounding us on all sides a never ending jungle, the biggest jungle on earth in fact, the lungs of the world as they say, it would take your breath away, if not for the fact there were not so many plants\u00a0photosynthesising.\r\n\r\nOscar has plenty of activities in store for us during our stay and he is our private guide for the duration. There is only one other traveller we've seen at the lodge so far. Oscar sticks to the clock too, so at precisely 4pm we are getting equipped for our first jungle walk. Slightly nervous as to what we'll see or what will see us more accurately. It starts a bit nervously as we are issued industrial style gum boots to keep the mud and more appropriately nasties out of our shoes and prevent the strike of the many\u00a0poisonous snakes native to the area. Allison sliding on her gumboot lets out a shriek and whips off her boot to see a small green frog hop out, yeah, great start!\r\n\r\nWe see a Pygmy monkey early on just past the lodge. Then Oscar hacks into a tree with his machete to see white sap oozing out. Scooping this up and hands it to us to feel. Instantly to the touch the oozy sap turns solid into rubber, essentially a rubber band which is quite peculiar. Oscar proceeds to give us a chemistry lesson with all the plants and all the medicinal purposes they have. Picking up a termites nest and rubbing it on his face to protect from mosquitos Bear Grylls style. Luckily not mistaking them from the fire ants at the next stop which can be lethal at high doses.\r\n\r\nNot much in the way of large wildlife, but Oscar grabs a toad to show us at least. As it is getting dark and Oscar tells a story of how he actually got quite lost in this part of the jungle once when guiding some English tourists in pursuit of some monkeys. We are glad when he heads for home, and manages to find it more importantly. Persuading him to stop calling for monkeys for which he seems obsessed by.\r\n\r\nDinner is great and we get chatting to the only other guest for the evening who is from Taiwan. Although she seems focused on showing us lots of photos of\u00a0butterflies she saw at the farm the day before.\r\n\r\nOff to bed earlish with only a mosquito net and a flimsy plywood wall separating us from whatever may be lurking out in the infinite space of the Amazon jungle.\r\n
Forgive me if I start this article with Inca Cola. Sure, you are expecting to read about the majestic Amazon jungle but first you must learn about Inca Cola. It’s everywhere in Peru. I had some yesterday. It tastes a bit like Irn-Bru, that Scottish based energy soft drink. It must be the Peruvian national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,188],"tags":[373,423,419,438,350,411],"yoast_head":"\n