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| Our first view of Genaro Herrera |
GENARO HERRERA
We were so pleased to finally make land at Genaro Herrera, having spent nearly 24hrs on the river. What a tiny wee village it is with such happy people! The hub of activity is centered around the morning market where it is possible to buy many varieties of fruit, vegetables and meat. A fruit smoothie and a toasty cheese bun made for a perfect breakfast more than once. After 10.00am though, there is not much to be had except a bottle of cold cerveza from the tienda (village shop).
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| This cute wee guy was eager to show us his packet of hundreds and thousands |
We were to spend the next week at a hostel just a short walk from the village. We were met at the dock by two English guys, Chris and Paul, who have owned Casa del Otoronga (the house of the jaguar) for nearly a year. Also on the boat from Nauta were two guys from Italy, Francesco & Leonardo who were also headed to Casa del Otorongo. We had a fabulous few days together before they went back to Iquitos where Franco's abuela (grandmother) lives.
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| Casa del Otorongo |
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| The creek at the back of the house where some of our fishing adventures took place |
We were delighted to land in such a tranquil authentic place such as this. There is only power to the houses of the village for three hours a night and we never mind reverting to going to bed with the sun down and rising when the sun comes up.
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| Sun setting over Casa del Otorongo |
Our constant companions for the week were these utterly gorgeous pups, Sticky and Haze and their Mum Princesa (who had a new litter of pups in her tum!)
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| From back: Sticky, Haze and Princesa |
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| The pups playing |
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| Cheeky Sticky enjoying hammock time |
There is also this rather interesting reptilian creature which lives in an old boat at the hostel .... the Mata Mata. So ugly it is almost pretty - NOT! We fed him some of the bait fish we caught in the river.
Our chief objective for choosing this place was the opportunity to do some fishing. We were not disappointed! We had a lot of fun in the creek at the back of the house and in the main river as well as spending a day with Chris and Eric (as our guide) in the panga, making our way down the Ucayali to catch some piranha for dinner.
We had some wonderful dinners together of an evening, the most memorable being a three course affair by candle light ..... the power never came on that evening ;-) Course one: Ceviche de catfish by James and Clare; course two: Spaghetti de Italiano by Franco and Leo & Pork stew by Paul .... delissimo
We were also lucky enough to be in this wonderful wild setting during the blood moon.
The only thing left to do was to cool down in the river when it got too hot
IQUITOS
When it came time to leave we boarded the boat for Nauta. This was not as easy as it sounds as the shop where we purchased the tickets didn't have any ACTUAL tickets so there was some confusion over whether the gringos should even be on the boat. Normal chaos reined untill the young man from the shop came in the nick of time to plead our case. By this time all the seats were taken, so Clare got to sit on a plastic chair in the aisle while James sat on the step at the entrance. Not for the first time we were disappointed in our inability to communicate adequately in Spanish.
At Nauta we changed to a bus for the journey to Iquitos ..... the largest city in the world not accessible by road (the only road being between Nauta and Iquitos). Iquitos was founded on the back of the rubber industry of the late nineteenth century. There is an interesting vibe to Iquitos which we put down to a lack of vehicles on the city roads. The normal mode of transport around the city being the mototaxis.
We were happy to be eating street food again.
And we were delighted to find a very good cup of coffee at a posh cafe on 'the right side' of town.
The architecture about town was really pretty .... with the obvious colonial influence.
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| Casa de Fierro is made entirely of iron |
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| The Amazon in all its glory |
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| Town square |
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| La Basura (the rubbish bin) |
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| This poor guy was being the doll in the kids dress up game ... note the Peruvian colours! |
Our favourite part of Iquitos turned out to be the Belen Market .... we share this experience with you as best we can with this video:
We literally ran into Franco and Leo as we came out of the market and they recommended us to buy this wee beauty here. A rollinia deliciosa. Never heard of it? Nor had we! It is related to the custard apple and is consumed by sucking or chewing the flesh off the seeds. It tastes quite like custard but is quite slimy in texture, which puts lots of people off. Clare really enjoyed it, James didn't.
We were destined to see the boys once more at the airport the following day. We all flew to Cusco together on the same flight! It was awesome to share some of this journey with them. Part of our love of travel is some of the cool people we get to meet as we go:-)
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