Demasiado

I´m so overwhelmed by the past week and half I am not sure where I should start - chronological seems right. but theres a lot here. so forgive me....

When I last left you all I was in a small and quaint port town, awaiting the embarkment of our boat, Eduardo IV, from Yurimaguas to Iquitos. I think we were the only gringos the whole town of Yurimagaus or so it felt. After the three days there, most people knew our faces and some knew us by names. The owners of the hostel we stayed at (Hostel Linares - if you ever go to Yurimagaus, you have to stay here!) were unbelievably welcoming to us.They showed us around on their motorcycles, allowed us to cook dinner in their kitchen, and showed us how to drink a beer the Peruvian way - you pour yourself a glass of beer 3/4 of the way and hand the bottle of beer to the person on your left. As you finish, you then pass the glass to the person who has the bottle so they can serve themselves and they pass on the bottle afterwards. Then you continue on around the circle.
One of the days there, we spent the afternoon horsing around with the kids of the town on the roof of the hostel. The kids ranged from a few months to probably 12 years old. Look at Ryan´s pictures - these kids were amazing. They were hypnotized by all of us - and at one point we had to run sneak away because they were so attached. Another day, some locals took us to a river, so we could swim and cool off. It was pretty relaxed, but it was nice to hole up in the town and relax after being in transit for so long.
Eventually, on Saturday, we got our things ready and headed to the boat. Wow. Im not even sure I can accurately describe the boat. The lower floor is for cargo. And on our boat, the cargo ranged from fruit and vegetables, to livestock - there were about 5 cows that traveled along with us.The next floor up is the hammock section. There were rows upon rows of hammock strewn up on this floor. Families, travelers, and the dueños of cargo stay on this floor. It is usually pretty noisy, and miserably hot, even though the floor is open on the sides. The next floor up - where we all stayed - is the luxury floor. We bought spaces for 5 hammocks and also a room, so we could keep our stuff locked in the room, since we heard that there are a lot of thieves and pickpockets on the boat. The rooms are tiny; they fit bunkbeds, but we had plenty more space to put up hammocks, better food than the lower level and the bathrooms were usable. So we were all happy we paid for the super hammock section.
The boat ride was somewhat relaxing. we spent the three days and two nights, mostly reading, playing cards, eating, watching movies, eating more, and making friends with some other passengers.During the nights, the bugs and the hammock got to me, so I actually slept in the room, even though the hammocks were more comfortable. It was a pretty lax ride; and slow. We had to port at a dock one night because we got stuck in a strong thunderstorm storm, so our arrival was delayed for a whole day.So we were very ready to disembark when we actually made it to Iquitos.
Luckily, throughout the journey, we had become friendly with a very young married couple, Jomer and Rosa and their baby Jomer Jr. Jomer grew up in Iquitos, he and his family were heading back there to visit during their vacation from school (both him and his wife are studying the same thing in Chiclayo).They invited us and some other passengers, a father and daughter from Sweden and a couple from inland Peru, to come to their house and disembark with the family since it is so dangerous in Iquitos.So we all got off and headed to their house, which is like a three minute walk from the dock - which is no dock.When we were trying to dock on the mud bank, our boat pushed over several other boats to squeeze in, so we could walk off.So we headed into their house so we could put down our stuff and figure out where we would stay while we in Iquitos and everything else....
The family offered to let all of us stay in their house, and the tempting idea of free housing, won us all over and everyone agreed.Afterwards, Jomer took us to his molina ( a little farm) where they keep chickens, a goat, sheep, and some dogs and cats - and tons of rice and wheat. They were incredibly hospitable and made us a corn drink for dinner and let us all shower when we got back to the house.There was no running water however, and we all took turnings standing in a bathroom and pouring a bucket of water over our heads.Pretty funny, considering the fact that backpackers pride themselves on roughing it, and none of us wanted to spend more than one night roughing it in the house with the family. We were definitely very happy that they wanted to help us out and do so much for us, but the downstairs of their three story loft house, was filled with cockroaches and mice, and after one night of sleeping on the floor, we all wanted a bed and running water. So the next morning, we had an egg drink breakfast with them and told them we felt like we should get a hostel - we got our stuff and left. (We took most of the family out that night to a very nice and very Peruvian dinner later that night to thank them for their generous hospitality).----Im leaving out a part here; where we went out that night and the three boys came back later than the rest of us, and they knocked on the door but no one answered so they couldn`t get in.Ryan, Yair, and Dennis headed to a hostel to try to sleep there - a two dollar hostel. From what I`ve heard it was unbelievably disgusting. And while Ryan, the great sleeper he is, fell asleep, the other two did not.The rooms were all connected, so they heard coughing, babies crying, and a couple having sex.The walls were covered in every color of liquid imaginable. And eventually the boys returned in the early morning hours to try and get some sleep at the house. Luckily someone was awake and let them in.
Either way, we all moved to Hostal Maflo the next morning, to take hot showers and be in near the city center. Iquitos is quite a large city, even though there are barely any cars - only motorcycles and mototaxis.Since Dennis was pressured for time - he has a flight out of lima on Oct 23 and he wanted to do the jungle, lima, and cuzco, before he left- there was a lot of pressure to figure out the jungle tour and buy flights from Iquitos to Lima that day.
Ryan and Yair, as the good little soldiers they are found a travel company and figured out everything that day. The next morning we would leave at 8 in the morning for a three day, two night jungle adventure, getting back to Iquitos Friday night and we all bought flights to Lima, leaving Sunday day.