Day 11

We left the hostel at 9:30, after the free breakfast that only was a tiny croissant with marmalade and a cup of tea, and met our guide for the jungle. We went with the mototaxi to belen market, and maxi (the guide) showed us all the different foods that came from the jungle. Many different fruits and fishes (piraña among others), grilled kaiman, and giant grilled maggots. We left quickly so sadly we couldn't try anything. Maybe later when we get back to iquitos. Then we went to the long boat that would take us to our first sleeping place in the base camp. We were not even 2 minutes on the river, and we got to see amazon grey dolphins! The river at iquitos merged into the amazon river, which was good to see because of the changing of colors of the water. The boat trip lasted one and a half hour when we arrived at a village. Here maxi showed us all the different plants and trees and what they are used for. Many medicinal plants against all kinds of problems too. At some point, when we were next to the river, a small long fishingboat arrived, and the two men on it were very exited. It turned out that they caught a ver very big catfish of about 60/70 kilos! The big ones like this normally live very deep in the river. We arrived at the base camp, hung up our moskito net, and chilled untill lunch. Lunch was great! We ate catfish 🤭 the humidity here is very high and we are sweating from every pore 🥵 we got some rainboots and went on our way to the jungle. Right around the corner of the base camp we saw a little tiny monkey. It was really really little tiny, because it was the smallest monkey in the world, the lion monkey ❤️ It was also there where Eike decided to take his boot off because it felt strange. It turned out he had a frog in his boot 😅 we walked further and at some point left the road and went straight into the jungle. Apart from the amazing trees and plants, we did not see any animals. Eike was anyway very very happy. It was clear he was living his dream 🥰
We also saw bright red mushrooms and mushrooms like strawberries. It started to rain mega hard, a real rainforest rainshower. The rain was great because it cooled down a bit and the moskitos left. But also all the other animals... Nevertheless it was a very nice experience to see the rainforest with and without rain. When the rain stopped, there were extremely many moskitos, and it got really annoying. The humidity also went up very quickly. Some 'ways' were flooded so maxi had to search other ways to that direction. He looked in the sky to see where we were. One step out of jungle, humidity dropped significantly again and the moskitos were gone. We were completely wet, but everything does not dry so quickly. We arrived at the base camp and put on some dry clothes. Dinner was served and the generator went on (3 hours every night). We were supposed to walk in jungle in night time, but is started raining heavily again, so we decided to postpone it. We took shower and went to bed. The souns were really nice. Many frogs and in the middle of night a monkey was screaming very loud.Read more