Yesterday and today were
travel days: flight to Cusco, night in Lima, flight to Iquitos deep in the
Amazon jungle. It was goodbye to the grey of the Pacific and the brown of
Peru’s coastal strip, the steep hills scribbled with zigzag roads joining the
little settlements.
Then came the white of the
Andes, peaks sticking up through the clouds remarkably high and pointy,
glaciers thick between them. Finally, there was the green of the jungle, a
dense and unbroken mat with only the river system winding through it in a
complicated tangle of bends and ox-bow lakes, muddy brown or silver, depending
on the light shafting through the piled-up clouds.
Iquitos is a city of half a
million people, and, amazingly, it’s an Atlantic port, but all I saw was a
shanty town of tin roofs and thatch, palms and trees, tuk-tuks and wandering
kids. We drove for an hour and a half and fetched up in the dark at Nauta,
where we were efficiently loaded onto the Delfin II, our home for the next five
days.
It’s a 16-suite river boat,
all varnished wood, airy space, solicitous white-uniformed staff and thoughtful
touches; and if the dinner tonight is any indication, there’s a lot to look
forward to even without all the wildlife that we’ll be up early tomorrow to
kayak amongst.
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