Day 2 of G-Adventures of Amazon river boat adventures in depth PVIIA

San Augustine Exclusive, Lima, Room 614.

6:00 am wake up call. We unsubscribed for the wakeup call at the lobby yesterday. Did not help. Since we joined the two queen size bed, the hotel phone is somewhere beyond. I fight throwing stuff under the bed to kill it. The phone is invincible.
Breakfast is ok.

7:02 am. We are too late to meet in the lobby. 2 minutes. The canadian ladies in our group recignized and eyethunder strikes me.

Let’s go to the airport. First row in the bus. A big mistake. Gladys early organ kills my right eardrum from the co-drivers seat. Christina puts, very eye-catching for Gladys, her earplugs in. As a tourist guide you must be unterrifyable. Gladys continues, as if nothing happened. My right half of the brain goes on emergency stop, to ensure survival.

We reach the airport and get off the bus 2 km away from the entrance. I donot tip the driver. Gladys stops talking. My tinitus oscillates post-pulse.

We carry our bags to the LatAm desk. All inhabitants of Lima fly today with LatAm. We go to Priority desk. The nice smiling LatAm girl offers us emergency seats and in 5 minutes we are through. We wait for the others before going to our favorite coffee place. The others donot join. We have second breakfast @ Cinco Millas at Lima Airport.

Then we go through security and to the gate, board the plane early. We seat one row behind emergency. Never trust a smiling LatAm girl. At least the middle seat is not occupied. I watch Royals.

FLIGHT 20: LatAm LA2240 from Jorge Chavez International Airport, Lima (LIM) 10:05 to Iquitos (IQT) duration: 2:05h

18.03.2018 12:19 S 03°47.0586′ W 073°18.2288′ altitude: 251 masl @ Iquitos international airport

We land in Iquitos and get out of the plane. Uhhh, heat and humidity strike me. Welcome to the amazonas.

We get quick our luggage (pole at the luggage lane – the airport is a bigger room, no ac, but the roof is not tight to the wall, so air can circulate – welcome to the jungle)

And into the waiting G Adventures bus. The bus brings us to the Plaza del Arms into the city center of Iquitos. We get 20 min to buy insect repellant or sneak around. I sneak around. Everybody else stays in the shade. Cathedral is locked up.

Buses have no windows … they all seem to be very custom models ….

The iron house of a rubber baron …

Nature takes its share back …

The cathedral (unfortunately locked up) …

I thought the amazon ship would be bigger.

We get back in the bus and drive to the “harbour building”. It looks like from a scifi post 3rd worldwar movie. We get into a metal skiff and drive on. I cannot spot my luggage. However. Huge river. We approach the boat. A lot of pipes which spit out different liquids. Seems to be proven.

18.03.2018 16:11 S 03°47.7167′ W 073°09.2635′ altitude: 258 masl @ Amatista opposite to Iquitos harbour

Our guide Victor giving us an insight to the schedule while we set sail upstream …

My room (the complicated room reservation of cabin 203, which was confirmed, did of course not work – G Adventures organization failed) …

We get a welcome by the ships crew band (the skunky monkeys) and get our rooms.

With a little confusion we get a kingsize bedroom with a window and go up to lunch. Catfish. Fine.

After lunch there is siesta. Somewhen the boat drives close to the riverbank and is tied to a tree.

At 5:00 pm there is a siren test, we board an aluminium skiff and go up the riverbank. We see some Godzillas (Iguanas), lots of birds, … our guide Victor explains a lot about Flora and Fauna.

Before 6 pm we head back (according to Victor the Mosquitos have a tight schedule between 6 pm and 8 pm).

Afterwards we meet in the cooled down lecture room to listen to the boats band, the skunky monkeys, before we go to dinner.

Tomorrows program is to wait for 4 additional people whos flight from cusco was delayed, doing a local village visit at 6:30 am, breakfast, boat ride and then sail up the river to the national park.