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After departing from the triple frontier we travelled to Peru on a "speedboat" for twelve hours. Everything about this boat made us think it had been designed for maximum discomfort! From the tiny seats, the endless drone of the engine to the strange toilet you had to perch on to reach! Needless to say it wasn't a highlight.
We arrived at the crazy port of Iquitos in the Peruvian jungle and were greeted with huge crowds of men and children clamouring for our luggage and our business, thankfully our hostel had organised a British guy to pick us up! His tuktuk had the slogan"only English driver in Iquitos" on the side! Not that it helped much as the traffic was madness! Not a safe place to cross the street!
Our time in Iquitos was fairly unimpressive, the city was overcrowded, fairly expensive and not really our kind of place. After talking to a local who had done his masters on jungle ethnography (?) he informed us that Iquitos has some of the worse effected jungle, endless incursions by man mean that to get to pristine jungle you have to leave the city and travel hours! We decided against any further jungle trips after that so not to spoil our incredible experiences in the Brazilian amazon basin.
The highlight and lowlight came when we took a trip out to the local animal park, it was a shock to see such obvious distress and tiny tiny cages for animals like puma and monkeys. We were saddened to see the locals hitting the cages and shouting at already upset animals. We didn't, and couldn't stay long.
Next was the incredible manatee rescue centre. What a breath of fresh air! The centre works tirelessly to monitor, rescue, recuperate and eventually rehome the graceful river cows. We got to meet five of their babies, got to feed them fruits, even gave them a kiss!!
We left iquitos by plane and headed to the capital Lima. Lima was not what we expected at all! We stayed in the lovely area of miraflores not far from the cliff edged pacific coast line. Lima was more modern and western than we had anticipated, and yes we admit it, we had Starbucks and macdonalds!
The coast line was a beautiful walk and we greatly enjoyed the lack of mosquitoes! We took a "tour" of the historic centre with Javier, the elderly scammer who picked us up on the street. He took us around the centre, to a fantastic local resaurant where we bought him lunch and beers, we paid for the taxis, and of course at the end of our day he was asking for money, he became quite bitter and angry when I told him we wouldn't give him any more, a sad ending to a strange but good day!
Before leaving Lima for huaraz in the north we took a night to enjoy the "miracle water" park. It had loads of water sculptures all lit in different colours with a finale of dancing projections on a huge moving wall of water! Quite fun for 4 soles!!
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