AMAZON JUNGLE

        Arriving at Iquitos, I was able to book a tour with Amazon Tours, which does things a little different.  I was able to get a guide, Enola, for myself and was able to leave the next day.  Enola was a terrific person.  She is the daughter of the owner of the company.  

   We started down one of the Three Rivers that run into the Amazon.   She appeared to be easing me into the jungle because we stopped at a couple villages along the way.  Even though they are indigenous people, one has to wonder about having people visiting them. 

     I wound up with a blow gun and a few other things.  We even got to dance with them.  This was the only part that was easy.  Handling the anaconda snake or the young jaguar was nothing compared to what was about to occur.  After these two stops it was not for any one that has a little fear. 

          Boating down the river until it came into the Amazon was an experience. The jungle was so green and mystic.  All sorts of thoughts were running through my mind.  Particularly, was the guide good enough because if not, then I had a serious problem. 

     When the rivers meet with the Amazon, it truly is the largest river in the world.  What is more spectacular is seeing the Amazon, which is black, meet with the Negraga River, which is Brown.  One can see the waters of each.  They appear to never mix.   After a five or six hour boat trip, we finally arrived at the base camp which would be my only night to sleep in a hut with a mosquito net.  The rest of the time would be in the jungle camping.  Later we went out in a dug out canoe looking for monkeys and birds.

          The next morning we took off in a dug out canoe and came to a landing a few hours later.  From there it was walking into the jungle.  I learned a lot about razor bushes that will cut you deeply if you come in contact with it.  An incident occurred in which we met up with a British couple who was being led by the top guide for the company.  She had gotten over 300 to 500 hundred mosquito bites, some in the right eye which had closed and the left one was not looking any better.

     I was switched to Juan Carlos as my guide.  Actually that was the plan all along, although I did not realize it at first.  Juan knew his plants, animals and more importantly, he knew the jungle.  He taught me a lot about the plants, animals and the environment, and more importantly how to survive in the jungle.  The Amazon jungle has plants or herbs for so many things.  Cornel has hired Juan to help in their studies for herbal cures instead of chemo therapy.   Eating off of the land was very interesting.  There are plants you can drink, eat, and take as drugs for treatment in the event one gets injured.   Also there are so many plants and some trees that are deadly poison upon contact.

     One day we went fishing in a large lake.  I caught two red belly piranhas and several catfish that we eat for supper that night.  There were a lot of teeth, but not much meat on the  piranhas, but I wanted to eat it to prove a point.  There are over 2,800 species of fish in the Amazon, of which there are over 600 different types of catfish.  Juan says there are over 80,000 plants and trees of which there have been studies on only a couple thousand.  The rest are unknown. 

     One of the roughest parts is the constant fighting off the mosquitoes.  I don’t care how much repellent, mosquito net, or clothing one uses, you are still going to get bitten.  I got over two hundred bites on my arms, legs, and back.  I guess the hardest part is dealing with the tremendous intensity.  You are in an entirely different enviroment that with one slip it can be deadly or very costly.  One time, Juan almost whacked a bush that had a hornet’s nest attached to a leaf.  He immediately froze and ordered me to do the same.  We stood there a couple of minutes and then eased back. 

     Sloshing in the mud and being mindful of not losing ones balance was also constantly on your mind.  One slip or walking into a razor bush,  or touching a poisonous plant or tree was always on my mind.  However, one night, Juan said there was a village, an hour or two walk away, where we could meet the chief and have some sugar cane rum with honey and pollen from the bees.  I was game.  After several hours with the chief and another guy, drinking the rum, I didn’t have those nagging fears of razor bushes, snakes or other wildlife walking through the jungle.   I was mainly concerned with keeping my balance.   That stuff really kicked me in the rear.  I did not think about mosquitoes or any other wildlife that night.