On Thursday morning we left for an overnight trip to a small town called Nauta. (I like to think of Iquitos as Syracuse and Nauta as Massena.) It’s about 2 hours away by bus and the only town connected to Iquitos by road. We got there around 11, dropped out bags off at the hotel, and got in a boat to travel 2 more hours to a small remote village. The reason for this ridiculously long and uncomfortable day of travel?; to see the place where the Ucayali and Maranon Rivers come together to officially form the mouth of the Amazon River. During the bus/boat rides to get there… most of us were questioning why anyone in their right mind would come all this way just to see two rivers meet, but once we got there we changed our minds. Our boat pulled up to shore and we walked up to the village. Being winter in the southern hemisphere, the Amazon is currently experiencing its dry season, and the river has nearly reached its yearly low. This means that there is a ton (about a quarter mile) of exposed river bed to trek across. Had this been the rainy season, the boat would have pulled up right next to the village. For some perspective, the river covers 3 times more land at its highest compared to at its lowest. The riverbed will be exposed for about 4 months so the people have planted rice to take advantage of the extra space. Most people remarked how this was their first time walking through a rice paddy, however (un?)lucky me, having been to Korea, this was far from my first time, although I never thought I’d do it again. The village has built a large tower that you can climb in order to get a better view of the surrounding area, including the rivers. It cost 10 soles per person to climb the tower, which seemed like a lot, but it’s the village’s only source of income so it’s a small price to pay for their well being. We spent a long time at the top, taking pictures and enjoying the view. The river and the jungle just seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions.
After the tower and on our way to lunch, we met this guy who has a pet sloth!! Her name was Elizabeth, just like me, so of course I had to hold her and get a ton of pictures. She is adorable. Sloths are so sleepy, and move ridiculously slowly – every stereotype you’ve ever heard about them is true. When I took her, she reached out her arms to me like an infant would, and always wanted to have a hand wrapped around at least one of your arms or fingers. The only down side to this is that she had 2 inch nails on all four appendages. Even so, I wanted her… but the guy wouldn't sell her. :(
We got back to Nauta around 6 and had the rest of the night off. There was a big political rally going on in the town square so there were lots of people out and music all night long, lots of fun. Some of us ate dinner at this restaurant where the menu was literally 1. A whole chicken, 2. A half a chicken, 3. A quarter of a chicken… with plantains, fries, or rice. Despite the limited menu, it was delicious. We all ordered half chickens, and seriously got half a chicken… not half a chicken breast, half a chicken, legs and all.
On Saturday it was FREEZING! We're all in pants and long sleeves, and jackets... it felt like winter. :( It wouldn’t be so bad if we could spend the day curled up in bed, but we went on our last boat trip.... 2 hours up river. SO COLD!! It was to another village to bring supplies and do a vaccine clinic. This trip was supposed to be the highlight of the trip, we were all looking forward to it, there were 10 extra doctors/nurses coming with us, and none of the profs had ever done one before. The funny thing was... there were no vaccines... Seriously we had a vaccine clinic with no vaccines? I don't know, but it's Peru and I've learned to roll with the punches here... nothing surprises me anymore. We still spent the day there doing clinic work like we did in Padre Cocha so it wasn’t as if the day was wasted. After the clinic and lunch we played a soccer game with the local kids and as always, it was a ton of fun. (Actually, it was even better because it was so cold, the exercise felt good.) Then it was back in the boat for 2 more miserable freezing cold hours back to Iquitos. It was Saturday night and we had planned on all going out… but because it was so cold most of us opted for a night in instead. I ended up wearing pants, socks, and a hoodie to bed…. it’s wrong for it to be this cold this close to the equator.
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