Iquitos, Peru- October 24-27, 2022

The desire to spend the night on a hammock in the jungle, on the Amazon has been a dream of mine since first flipping through National Geographic magazines. The remoteness and isolation intrigued me. After reading "The Wizard of the Upper Amazon," I was hooked. Who wouldn't want to get kidnapped, initiated into a tribe during a ayahuasca ceremony and eventually escape to tell a story. This recent short visit was nothing but the perfection of a dream. Not only did I sleep in a hammock in the jungle but I slept on a floating cabana, in a hammock, on a river, in the jungle. It was surreal, no kidnapping though.

Getting there however was more of a chore. The night before I received a text saying the last leg of our three part flight was cancelled. We booked a hotel in Lima and bought tickets for the next day.

The hotel was less than $30 a night and when we pulled up to the unmarked building it made sense. The hotel had arranged airport pickup, which was nice. As the hotel owner, Luis let us in, he locked several doors behind us, closing out the loud tuk-tuks and city noise. He pointed to the WiFi QR code, so naturally I went for my phone to join. No phone. Where's my phone? Oh shit. He said, "un momento" and left the room. I said, my phone, my phone. He just kept saying "un momento." I ran to the door which was locked in more ways than I could figure out. I couldn't get out. Did I leave it in the taxi, did it drop on the street? It may literally be smashed between banana peels and dirty diapers just two feet beyond this impenetrable door. Alisa broke into the private kitchen and screamed, "help, his phone, his phone." The old woman holding a giant wooden spoon went from, "I'm gonna beat this white girls ass!" to "Luis, get your ass down here and help these poor people, they lost their phone." It wasn't until Luis got a hold of Arturo, the taxi driver that I finally relaxed. I got my phone back, Arturo got a fat tip, all's well in the Lima ghetto, ahh.

We caught our flight the next morning leaving behind our little gangsta paradise and the cold wind that was just starting to get worse. When we landed, we were welcomed with a thick blanket of humidity and free buckets of sweat, seconds after the plane door opened. Our lodge picked us up at the airport and drove across the newly finished Nanay Bridge, a huge suspension bridge that abruptly ends and turns into a dirt road. We then took a boat up the Nanay to the Momon River. Both tributaries to the Amazon.

Our "Oasis" was a floating lodge consisting of four guestrooms, two on either side of the main reception area in the middle. All meals and tours were included in the price.

We brought mosquito nets, knowing our certain death would follow the onslaught of bites. After a DEET covered evening of watching nature, the locals playing soccer on the banks and unsuccessfully practicing astrophotography on a floating house, we placed the individual nets above the bed. Each cabana had screens for windows, but there were plenty of holes.

The nets didn't last more than a few hours. The breeze stopped, the insects stopped, everything stood still in a stifling-sweaty-silence. Alisa tossed around like an epileptic on crack. I broke from the safety of the net, my lifeline to the protected world, a world without deadly shit that wants to kill you. I hopped in the hammock, a hammock made for our shorter brethren, it appears. As the boats slowly passed, they rocked the cabana, creating a breeze and a much needed sense of relaxation.

Around 5:30, I woke up with the sun, stiff, sore but without a bite. This really was an Oasis. The sunrise slowly changed the sky, the river and all that lived in it. After breakfast we took off to see what these tours were all about. We went to the El Parisio del Amazonas, El Serpentario and visited the indigenous community of Boras. We mingled with animals in cages and wished them better lives. One monkey was so pissed, I fed him everything I had on me. Pretty sure he wanted to first bump me afterwards but played it cool. We played with the natives and wished for temporary blindness or multiple drinks. Either one would have worked.. too much flipity flap for this chap.

We stopped where the Nanay and the Amazon meet. You could actually see the different color of water.

This is where the floating resort boats kept tourists safe sitting at dining tables covered in white linen. Floor to ceiling windows kept reality at bay. Entire trees were floating past us. Our tiny boat rocked with every passing barge. Planes took off right from the water as indigenous fisherman watched in awe, or anger. There's a lot of corruption with natural resources and land claims. A week after we left, one tribe took a tourist boat hostage to get the attention of the government to clean up an oil spill.

We skipped the evening tours and took naps on the outdoor hammocks. We jumped in the river to cool off and show how bad-ass we were to the other tourists who thought we were nuts. Actually there was only one night when we had other people staying with us. More naps. In my half-awaken state, I started to differentiate between the sound of the boat engines. I could hear the difference of the kiskadee from the gallinule. Life was personified in everything around us. From the distant monkey's reunion call to the butterfly magnets we became, we were in the thick of it, the rain forest, the jungle, the Amazon's wild tributary, life giving life, life taking life.

We spent the next day on the water canoeing and cooling off in the river from the afternoon heat. I had wanted to get some fishing in, but was somewhat leary as to what I'd bring up, considering I was swimming there. Napping on the river soon became our favorite pastime. The birds constantly lulled us to sleep. At dusk, the jungle was painted by the setting sun. Birds were replaced by bats, the new moon refused to shine. We kept the lights off, our eyes adjusted quickly. Lightning bugs danced over the water, frogs began to serenade. This was the Peruvian Amazon in all it's glory. This was paradise, even if the peace was periodically interrupted by two-stroke engines.

We left our cabana on the river after breakfast. We reluctantly boarded our plane. I counted one bite, one for the entire time and it didn't even itch. We had an early flight the next morning so we booked a room in the city of Iquitos. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that can't be accessed by roads. We took off to explore the trash filed streets. There were days old pigs drying out in the heat, massive traffic jams with exhaust spewing thick black smoke in every direction. Another get in, get out city.

As if to tell us to stay, a beautiful butterfly flew into the plane and landed next to me. I let it crawl on my finger and it flew onto my pants where it stayed the entire trip, except at the end to get a better view.