Welcome to the Amazon...

Where you are always wet, whether it's rain or sweat.
While that isn't the official slogan of the Amazon and the region, it should be. After 2 weeks of city between Bogota and Medellin, it was wonderful to find ourselves in small towns again. Although we met some very entertaining and engaging people, I was ready for a break. The cities were fun but I felt like new born in a new place... over-stimulated. There is just so much going on, so much to see and so many people! I guess it was probably good since I will, at some point, after transition back to life in the US.
We flew from Medellin to Leticia, Colombia. Leticia is a small isolated town on the Amazon river at the Brazil and Peru borders. I heard a rumor that buses to Leticia exist, but for all practical purposes, you cannot get there by land. Much of the land between central Colombia and Leticia is FARC territory but the Amazon, tres fronteras region is safe and outside FARC land. Leticia is a small and buzzing with motorcycles and a few cars. We only spent one night in Leticia before heading 2 hours up the Amazon with some new made friends, an English girl and a Colombian father-son. We initially planned on one night in Puerto Nariño but liked it so much we spent the next night there as well. We easily could have stayed more but had to move on. Puerto Nariño is the town of two vehicles. Literally, they have 2 motor vehicles: an ambulance and the garbage tractor that passes daily collecting trash, organic waste as well as plastics and glass. Yes, they are a model sustainable community with recycling and a ban on motor vehicles. After 15 years they will reassess whether to maintain the ban. I hope the do. The town is not big and it is so peaceful with birds everywhere and bordering a national park. We took a ride in a peque peque, a little canoe with a tiny motor up river, through two lakes to see a giant fish, Pirarucu (probably twice my size) which had been harpooned and landed in a boat smaller than ours, and to see the grey and pink dolphins. The pink dolphins weren't as pink as I expected but still fun to watch surface to breathe around the lake and near our boat. We also took several walks to nearby villages and sweat out every ounce of water we drank. We happened to be in town for the 8th Indigenous Olympics of Puerto Nariño. We walked about an hour in the heat to the village of San Francisco hoping to see archery and other traditional games. We were disappointed to find out those games weren't until the next day but did get to watch local fútbol and girls' basketball. We took a peque peque back as the sky opened and DUMPED rain on us, completely exposed. We couldn't stop laughing as the rain chilled us and the boat man started bailing.
The next day, we stopped at Isla de los Micos, Monkey Island where a little local man snuck bananas onto our heads and little monkeys leaped for the food, and devoured the fruit from our heads. At one point, I think there were 20-30 monkeys (according to Rachel 110) climbing on our shoulders, head, arms, chest, on top of each other, anywhere they could find. Again, we found ourselves laughing hysterically. I cried I was laughing so hard. After the monkeys, the rest of our temporary adopted family headed back to Pto Nariño and Rachel and I headed back to Letcia. We crossed into Brazil to buy our boat tickets ran all over getting immigration sorted out and finally ended up in Santa Rosa, Peru, a little island in the middle of the Amazon, about 10 minutes from Leticia. We took the fast boat (10 hours) from Santa Rosa at 4am this morning to Iquitos, the biggest city in the world, not accessible by road. 450,000 people in a city you can only enter and leave by boat or plane. Crazy. Loving Peru so far, everyone wants to give you a taxi ride in 3 wheeled motor carts and everything is CHEAP! I'll get pictures soon...