The third installment of my Adventures on the Amazon series over at Gadling is now online if you're interested. In this edition I leave the jungle city of Iquitos behind and head out on the river for the first time. You can read the story by clicking here.
While I enjoyed my brief stay in Lima and the short time I had in Iquitos, I was definitely eager to get out on the river itself and see the amazing place that I had come to visit first hand. I think I spent the first two or three hours up on deck of our river boat, just watching the jungle slip by, snapping some photos as I went, and reveling in the fact that I was actually in the Amazon. It was a great feeling.
One thing I mention in the story is that I was amazed at how many people lived right on the edge of the water. I expected that once we set out from Iquitos, there wouldn't be many people to see, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong. Now, don't get me wrong, there weren't thousands of people lining the banks, nor were there large cities. Far from it But as we moved along upstream, there were regularly little huts, suspended on stilts, that lined the water way.
We also saw a lot of boat traffic that included barges bringing supplies down river to Iquitos and the river taxi carrying people to and from the "big city" and their smaller villages. But I was more fascinated with the small, wooden, hand-built boats that jungle inhabitants had made for themselves and used daily to get around the area. It was fascinating to watch, and as the days went on, and we wandered further and further into the Amazon backwaters, it was still surprising to come across someone paddling around, so far from anything.
More stories to come in the days ahead. Hope you're enjoying the posts so far.
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