We´ve Got Fun and Games

We´re still in Iquitos, though it looks like we´re heading toward the border tomorrow. This is a wonderful town, the people are so incredibly warm and friendly. They aren´t always after you to give them something like most of the other places I´ve been in Peru. Maybe a little conversation every once in a while, but nothing more. They like to talk. A young kid approached me the other day as I was walking along a park on the river and we started talking in English a little bit, then he found out I knew Spanish and asked me if I wanted to sit down and talk for a little while. I thought he wanted to practice English, but no. He just wanted to get to know me. Never asked for a thing. So sweet. And almost everyone is that way.

But enough talk. Here´s some promised eye candy.
This is the land of hammocks. Crowded but comfortable. I love that the man next to me is texting as we drift down jungle waters.

This is what most all of the sunsets look like here. Breathtaking. The only ones I´ve ever seen to rival them are Arizonan, but those are because of the smog. Or so I´m told. There´s no smog here.

South America is full of men in ambiguous uniforms. This was a whole parade of them marching around the main plaza. These were the only ones not carrying fully automatic weapons.

We were invited to visit a small community, a short boat ride outside of the city, and this is the sidewalk that led us to it. Kind of surreal to see a sidewalk running through the middle of the jungle. We decided it was a natural phenomena, created by a sophisticated ant colony. Ants love sidewalks.

Thinking about ants.

We bumped into some old friends from the Sacred Valley in Iquitos, and their friends (and now ours as well) are the ones staying in this little paradise.

It´s been great visiting with them. They left the Valley a few weeks before us, and we still managed to catch them, which goes to show you how most people travel here. They are 5 girls and a little boy, and they´re affording their travels by playing music, juggling, and selling their crafts. They left here yesterday, but we´re all going in the same direction, so we´re certain to see them again soon.

This is the main structure on the land. The incredibly large table also serves as an incredibly large bed for a few of the residents and for visitors.

All of the guys were very welcoming. A few were musicians and a few, jugglers, and good ones. I hadn´t passed clubs since Lebn left, so I was glad to find them.

This is my best buddy, Lautaro. He´s the little boy travelling with the girls and we got to know each other pretty well in the valley. We´d just been swimming in the water here that´s source is 100 meters from this bridge. Incredibly refreshing.

It was a great little excursion though we only stayed a night. Brazil´s call is getting stronger though, and there´s more jungle a head. Tallyhoo!