i send you these lines from sao paulo, it was the last days rather rainy here, but i am busy looking at cars. what? you may wonder? automobile? what's going on? yes, maybe i will spend the rest of the time here if i find a nice way to travel by car. But more information about that, is when the blog arrived in Sao Paulo.
to read here and now, are the experiences in lima, as well as the time around my birthday in the peruvian rainforest. have fun.
Warning, I let myself go and it has become very long ..
sleepy we awoke in the hostel and enjoyed the delicious breakfast while we planned our day, tonight we wanted to continue to lima to get our flight to iquitos the next morning. In addition, Alex had reported and announced that he wanted to arrive today in huacachina. We made a small round through the village to see if we could possibly get a bus directly from here. However, there is no way around it again only to drive to ica.
I went through the online price catalog of one of the companies that specialize in vw-bus sales and shipping to europe and located in sao paulo. just when we cleared our bags in the storage room of the hostel, we found alex sitting on the sofa and unfortunately he was quite sick. he probably did not handle the food in the bus so well and serious stomach problems. I still made this great photo of him on the roof of the hostel.
dani and I then went to have lunch. when the game was over, we paid and hiked back to say goodbye to alex and then we took a tuctuc taxi to the bus station in ica, where we found a cheap bus to lima, six hours later, we stood with our backpacks in this huge city. I have picked a hostel, which is close to the airport and we found a taxi, which brought us there.
since it was already 10pm we climbed on the roof and looked at the lights of the city, before we searched for a pizza at the street.
The alarm clock was set to seven o'clock, before we fell asleep.
before the breakfast we showered and then we checked out and drove with a bus for 2 soles so about 50 cents to the airport, a taxi costs 40 soles, way too overpriced. At the airport, we packed our bags and lined up at the check in. When we were in the line and putting the passports on the table, the check-in lady asked for our reservation number, after checking it, she told us that our flight is on Tuesday.
I was really perplexed and checked my mails. I really had booked for the 10.7. , for tuesday. so we had three more days in lima. a pleasant surprise.
we were looking for a hostel. We were happy with the pool-paradise in miraflores.to get there we took a bus ride for one hour, two cozy beds and breakfast were awaiting us. The rest of the day we spent mainly in the hostel and used it to think about what we do with the extra time.
there is not much to see here. as in every big city, they have museums and good food. after we had met some nice british people in the evening, we spent the night talking and listening to music in the garden of the hostel.
the hostel hosted a beer pong tournament and along with adam I won, against three other teams. The price was a good gin-tonic.
a bit hungover as usual on sunday, i woke up at 10.45 in my bed, which meant i only had 15 minutes to get my breakfast, which is really good here in the hostel. eggs, coffee, bread and jam.
then the family was called in Germany (mum) and in norway, my dad and my brother are still there on their annual fishing trip.
Around 2 pm we went to the museo de oro, a really huge museum with a wealth of interesting exhibits. it is divided into two parts, the first floor depicts military weapons and uniforms from around the world. some guns were over 400 years old, and there were a lot of swords from many different countries.
the second level was devoted to the golden grave goods buried by the incas and dug up in the last century, almost all of solid gold. very exciting to see, the goldsmiths were able to work artfully and elegantly. many chains, crowns and masks, from different epochs and also a lot of ceramics, of which the chancay again impresses me the most.
With the bus we went back to the hostel and watched a movie in the evening, with many others at the movie-night, the pixar incredibles movie. a great one, which is now about 10 years old, but has not lost its magic.
exhausted, i fell asleep and was looking forward to tomorrow, alex will fly on tuesday and spend his last night in peru maybe at our hostel.
I awoke very early in the morning and after the delicious breakfast I spent some more time waiting for Dani, who wanted to call her friend. We did not really have a plan for today, there is a zoo in the city with a botanical garden and archaeological site. But we decided to follow the recommendation of a friend here in the hostel,we will drive to the san francisco church and see the catacombs. After an hour's bus ride we reached the church. We paid the entry and were lucky because an English-speaking tour would start in a few minutes.
the guide first took us through the church's many pillars and to the choir and the library before descending into the catacombs. especially impressive are the woodworks, which often decorate the ceilings here and most beautiful I found a wooden dome, which was designed so perfectly detailed and also supported the high ceiling. it is not so old, as the two previous versions have fallen victim to the earthquake, but apart from the library which even contains one of the first printed bibles, the most worth seeing of the church. apart from the catacombs, of course.
the catacombs are a kind of cemetery under the church, where about 17,000-25,000 bodies were buried here. but the strangest thing is that in the forties, when the archaeological excavations were completed, someone thought it would be a good idea to arrange the bones in geometric patterns and circles. very macabre, but today one of the best sights in lima.
After we escaped the spook of the church, the bus drove us back to the hostel, we bought some fruit and bread and then we ate.
I then sat down in front of the computer the rest of the afternoon and worked through the gigantic list of vw-buses that a salesman had sent me. of more than 150 examples, about 30 are left over at the end. all T1, from the 70s, all under 10,000 euro, there are some really nice and I hope that I can see as many as possible, before I decide for one.
In the early evening I went to bed, because tomorrow we would be the first at breakfast.
after the rich breakfast in the hostel we head directly with our backpacks on the way to the bus stop to take the city bus to the airport, it was quite a lot traffic and so we arrived about an hour before our flight.
We were a few minutes at the check in and then called, since we had already checked in online, everything went without problems and we were able to give up our luggage quickly. a few minutes later we slipped through the security control and arrived a few minutes later at the gate. Here we waited almost 20 minutes in the bus for the last person and then it went to the plane.
off in the air, two hours up and then down again. boom, you are in the jungle. The first thing I noticed when getting out of the plane was that it smells like the tropical house of the botanical garden and it's damn warm. 32 degrees warm. The airport here is probably the smallest I've ever been to, except, of course, Scotland in the Hebrides.
surrounded by about 20 people, who wanted to guide us gringos in just their mototaxi, we stepped out of the city.
we ran to the street and waited two minutes before a bus came, which brought us for one sol into downtown. From the first moment, I can say, I like this city, which looks very lively and run down at first sight. iquitos is a city with 400,000 inhabitants, which can not be reached by road from the rest of the world, but there are a lot of cars in the city and much more mototaxis, three-wheeled motorcycles. founded as a jesuit mission to confirm the indigos, the city boomed when rubber was mass produced around 1880. but it ended with a man smuggling seeds from brazil and selling them to asia, where large plantations were bulid. iquitos impoverished in the following years and tried to keep afloat with different ideas. that is even literally meant, in the district belén, there are a lot of stilt houses, which are necessary especially in winter, february, when the amazon rises sharply.
around 1960, the oil and wood industry brought the city into the modern age, and tourism is also playing an important role here today.
Enough of that, I was delighted to finally arrive, so we stood in the green track hostel and were able to move into our room a few minutes later. we were very hungry so we hiked to a supermarket and bought noodles and vegetables.
After eating, we started planning our next days and hiked to the harbor and the center of the city. we have enough time to make a tour in the jungle and then continue by boat to santa rosa, which is the border city to brazil.
after asking the prices and times of the ships at the port, we also find a nice two day tour offered by an agency that was recommended to us by two guys from the hostel, because it was already late and the agency was closed when we arrived back from the port, I ask the owner of the hostel to call the phone number on the flyer. He asks us if we have heard of El Chino.
He also says it's the best thing to do here and the money goes to the people who live in the village and not an agency. We are listening, because it sounds exactly what we were looking for. then another employee of the hostel showed us his photos, we were convinced. We ask him to call his friend and to plan the tour for the next 3-4 days. happy and knowing that i will celebrate my birthday in jungle, i fall asleep.
eventful days always start early, as well as ours, at 5.30 am the bell rang from the hostel beds, so we can take a shower and have some breakfast.
a mototaxi took us to the port of puerto lao, where some time later we boarded a boat to tamshiyacu, which brought us in a good hour to the small village on one side of the amazonas.
lino, the brother of our host, was already waiting for us there. He drives us the next four hours over creeks and various meanders to the small village el chino, our home for the next three or four days.
Once there, we were greeted directly by Miguel, he is a guest dad and guide in one for us. We will sleep on the second floor of a house on the edge of the square. after we moved into our rooms, lino shows us the bathroom, which is very basic. There is no flush or seat in the toilet, but a first-class bucket shower with fresh rain / amazonas-water.
I asked miguel at noon, if there is a shop here wich sells the coca cola or nestle, and he said no, there is only a tiny beer shop, a kind of pub. That's the first time I've fled the corporate world.
The following lunch, which was prepared by the wife, is rice with fish and bananas, very good and just right for us after the long journey.
after lunch we have a siesta until about 3 o'clock and afterwards we go fishing.
I've slept a bit and also read, the next book of traven, the bridge in the djungel, how appropriate.
with the boat, fishing-rod, miguel and lino we drove up the river a bit, then the engine was exhibited and we stocked the rods, which consist only of sticks, twine and hooks, with small pieces of fish. it takes hardly 5 minutes until we register the first bite and after a little while Dani has caught the first phirana, many should follow. Other fish also went on cannibalism and on our hooks.
It is a real pleasure this kind of fishing here. so easy and successful. after some time and a lot of tossing and tugging, we have about 15 good fish together and make our way back to the village. I could get used to this way of supplying yourself.
We proudly present Mili, the wife, our catch and she immediately starts to prepare him for dinner. the fish are scaled, then the sides are scratched and then the fish is cut at the belly to pull out the intestines. seasoned with a little salt and sautéed in a pan, it creates the typical food of the Amazonian inhabitants. muy rico!
after eating, I listen to my audiobook while I sleep under the mosquito net. Tomorrow will be my 23rd birthday and I am glad that I can spend it in such a nice place with such nice people.
today's morning was relatively hot, we are about 3 degrees off the equator and it is therefore tropical warm. after a gigantic breakfast with 8 fried eggs for the two of us, we boarded the small boat and drove with lino and miguel to the reserve. That took about one and a half hours and on the way we saw three small otter, who probably just sunned and a monkey, a yellow-tailed wool monkey, or choro. He caught the bananas we threw to him and we watched him eat. Unfortunately, I have no photo, but that's what he looks like.
When we arrived at a sandbank and started hiking, Miguel explained a lot about the animals and plants of the forest. miguel lived in this part of the forest for over 20 years, until his children were born and he moved to the village so they could go to school. At the beginning we came to his old house, more the foundation piles, also we saw:
gigantic ferns and lianas
hummingbird or picaflor
some frogs
irapay, a plant that is used to build roofs because of its large leaves. We learned how to do that and you can see it in the video.
We also saw the tortuga tree from which the villagers make their fishing, as it is very flexible and yet stable. unfortunately i have no picture.
we saw a copal tree that produces whitish resin, which has a special smell and, as a smoking material, even helps against mosquitoes. An approximately fist-sized lump burns about 2 hours and the liquid resin is used to seal off the boats. a great nature material.
the next special tree was the rare chuchuhuasha, from the outside it does not look very special, but the shaved bark has a disinfecting effect and it is used here by humans as a tree for all sorts of diseases. that's why he's so rare, Miguel told us it's the only one he knows, because normally these trees are quickly felled and sold when they're discovered. you can get rich with the bark here, but he and a few other men of his family are the only ones who know this tree and that's why nobody will cut him down, which makes him very happy.
Next we found a really extraordinary little frog, the atelopus. it is poisonous, but you can hold it in your hand for a moment.
When we had almost no water left and were about to return to the boat, miguel chopped off a piece off liana with his machete and asked if we wanted to drink something. He tilted her to one side and ran out a jet of water. This species is called paujil chaky and has pure drinking water inside.
after our return to the village we had a delicious lunch and a few hours siesta, before we started fishing at night, at 19 o'clock we were in the right part of the river and armed with spears on the hunt for the fish, which are close to the surface and skewer, well if you're fast enough. We were surrounded by many noisy toads and frogs the musicians and some birds accompanied the choral. the night was illuminated by the headlamp miguel and the few thousand fireflies that hovered around us.
the highlight of the night were the caimans, river crocodiles, which are relatively small, especially a baby caiman, which we even sat in the boat for a short time before we released it again.
after about two hours of nocturnal action and after breaking one of the spears because the fish I was throwing it into, was too big and he broke the spear instead of hanging on it, we headed home. There was a noodle soup with poached egg for us. very salty but okay. After that we went to sleep, because we would wake up early tomorrow. It was a very special birthday, which I will not forget so soon.
the first thing I realized this morning was the soup last night was not so good for my stomach.
Also dani was feeling sick and when we were on the way to the boat, she even vomited again. Today's tour takes us together with Miguel and Lino to a lake in the reserve. After about an hour in the boat, we reached a muddy river section and started hiking in the jungle. It was good that we were equipped with rubber boots and a hiking stick, because there was a lot of water in the forest and the ground was muddy. We again saw many interesting trees and plants, but we could not concentrate so well on it, because I was also quite sick, and I vomited ugly.
then it was feeling better fast and my stomach / head were okay. the rest of the hike was no problem.
arrived at the lake, we saw huge caimans, up to 4m in size. In addition, some colorful birds and a few beautiful butterflies. Here, a kind of viewpoint had been built and we could see everything from a higher angle. we also fish here a bit, there are so many fish here that it is a constant jumping and hunting in the water, so fishing was also very easy.
then we went back and spent some time in the village, before lino brought us back to tamshiyacu, which took about 3 hours and it was very uncomfortable in the tiny wooden boat. from tamshiyacu, also a tiny village, we drove after one and a half hours waiting time with a speedboat to iquitos, the same distance as from el chino, only three times as fast.
with a mototaxi we drove then totally exhausted to our hostel and after we had reported from our tour, we fell tired to the toes in the bed.
After yesterday we did not feel so good, of course we slept extra long today. We were the last at breakfast. the morning we spent walking through the belén market, the big market in iquitos, on which it ranges from a like ants to z like zipless pants. however, it is mainly food, vegetables, fruits and meat, that is offered.
As we left the market, we reached a kind of poor neighborhood where many families live. It is built on stilts, as this part of the city is sometimes covered by floods. but a venice feeling is definitely not here. after all, the water flushes away the garbage that would otherwise suffocate the city. There are always great places to play football in the evenings.
then we walked to the offices that sold tickets for the boats to the border. tomorrow is sunday, where everything is a bit more expensive, and the day after tomorrow is monday, where no speedboat drives. So we booked at golfinho, a boat that would take us to relatively expensive 180 soles in 9 hours to the border.
the eiffel house, by the famous architect of the tower in paris.
Afterwards I wanted to indulge in the enjoyment of the internet and was looking for an internet café, but the one they got here is billed by mb, that would have made me poor quickly, so we went to green leaves, a hotel of the Hilton chain. Here I kindly asked if they could help me with some wifi. first-class connection without pay, it is a super trick. I talked to my family for about an hour and a half, catching up on the missing birthday call. I also discussed the vw-bus story with my dad. We agree that it makes more sense and the better investment is to buy a T1 from the seventies. he is clearly more expensive but also much more beautiful and my absolute dream car.
I can probably count on financial support too, so my travel funds will not be completely used up when the car is maybe bought.
For dinner I made delicious pancakes and we went to bed early, at 3 o'clock the alarm rings us awake.
it will continue next time in brazil.
love
pauli
i would like to show you this, johnny has sent me this picture a while ago, he has built the roof on his position with other volunteers.
this done work fulfills its purpose and will hopefully do long, good work.
I also want to invite you here, to have a look at my little documentation on agnihotra, I finally uploaded the video and you can now dive into the world of fire ritual. have fun watching.
Thank you very much to Karina, Juan and Dante!
small warning goes out however, to you fast-moving, it is so 25 min, a lot of work, I ask you to see it if you have time and are open to it.
here my current contact data:
mail: [email protected]
Telephone: +55 (11) 98842-2617 (the new brazilian one)
whatsapp: +54 9 11 2693-6601
blog: https://steemit.com/@schningelnatter
