Trip to Iquitos (Days 1 & 2)

March 5th, 2018

After a ridiculously early flight (and two hours of sleep) we arrived in Iquitos and took a boat ride to a community close to our hotel where the other exchange students from Arequipa and the other cities in Peru were. When we arrived, not all of the exchange students were there, as they had all left for a hike. We did however say our hellos to the ones that were present, and we waited for the rest to arrive.  I was so excited to see two of my closest friends, Gracie (USA) and Ana (Brazil). Once we were all happily reunited, we had a ceremony inside the school. We danced and had songs sang to us, before the ceremony was concluded and we all went to go break a beer bottle with a hammer (a tradition) before going to paint our names inside. Having done nothing to actually construct the tower (except for raising money) it felt a little odd to be painting my name on it, but we all wrote it on anyways.

After our names were written, we all once again boarded the boats and headed to the hotel. We ended up waiting around a little bit before we could finally get into our rooms. The Arequipenos all packed up there things and got ready for us to all say their goodbyes. I among a few others cried like a little baby (mostly for having to say goodbye to my Ana). After I pulled it together, we all settled into the hotel rooms and explored the hotel. We all went and got our boots from the hotel that we would be using for our duration at the hotel. After we got our boots we explored the hotel and went on a walk with a guide. My group was with an exceptional guide, who had also toured with National Geographic. The tour was quite hot (obviously) but we made it through without dying. After our walk through the jungle we returned back and showered. We later went out on a late night boat ride to see the stars. While we were out looking at the stars, a lighting storm started, causing flashes of lights to skirt around our boat. It was truly a magical moment to sit on a boat in the middle of the Amazon on a boat listening to the sounds of the jungle around you as the river continually was lit up by the sky. After our boat ride we headed back to the hotel and all collapsed in exhaustion.

March 6th, 2017

We woke up bright and early to eat breakfast before we headed out to go a see the cite of where our construction. Once we arrived, the work began. The people of the community had been working on the tour before our arrival, and some of the tour was visible.While we didn't get to  actually construct the tour, we definitely we were put to work. We started carrying bags of sand from a nearby dug hole over to the tour. The purpose of the sand was to make it into cement. Apparently, I was working a little too hard because as I bent down to get some sand, I heard a little rip. After depositing my sand closer to the tour, I look to evaluate the situation. While the hole wasn't too large, the situation continued to develop until the hole was larger than a basketball (good thing I wore a shirt that was REALLY large). Even with my pants having a situation, the work continued. At one point Macie (USA) and I went to go fetch water from a nearby ditch with Macie. Well, we ended up taking a shower in the water as we spilled a lot, but we got the water there. Before we left our day of work, we put our handprints in our carefully mixed cement.

Progress Day 1

Our handprints!

After our work of the day, we went back to the hotel to eat a quick lunch. We got a little time to recuperate. After the recuperation, we all headed back into the boats and sped off to go visit a native community. As soon as we got off the boats, we were greeted by some children who just happened to have some interesting pets, aka sloths and some birds. We all took some photos of course...

Sloths!

A few seconds later when I thought the sloth was gonna claw out my eye :)

After our photo session, we all went back to the tribe. We listened to the tribal leader explain the life and traditions, before we all watched and participated in some native dances. After the dances we attempted to shoot darts through a pipe of sorts. While I hit the target, my dart sadly didn't stick. 

Target Practice!

After our target practice, we left and returned back to the hotel. Here, we had some time to prepare for a night time walk through the jungle. We left before dinner and found a ton of tarantulas, some deathly ants, a frog, and a bunch of other crazy insects. After our nightly stroll we all returned back to the hotel for a dinner before we all rested up for the next day.

Little pic of the sunset :)

 

An itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout...