Into the wild: Coca to Iquitos

San Francisco de Orellana, better known as Coca, was the starting point for our next adventure. The city itself hadn’t much to offer, but a mosquito net and a ticket for the boat to Nuevo Rocafuerte was all we needed.

The next day we found ourselves on a boat loaded with locals, kids and bags. They were all to be shipped to somewhere down the Rio Napo.

10 hours in a boat where you can’t really move are a long time. It somehow reminded me of the boat trip I had undergone with Easy in Laos to Luang Prabang in January 2009. Long, long time ago, it seems.

Besides some 20 minutes that we spent shoveling a little 50c-soup into our mouths (that was all our lunch consisted of), we killed our time talking, solving puzzles and playing kniffel. Somehow, the evening arrived, and we were happy to lift our stiffened body out of the boat and set foot into Nuevo Rocafuerte, the last Ecuadorian city before the Peruvian boarder.

Some 500 inhabitants are estimated to live in this village, and there isn’t much to see or do: Three shops where we stocked up on food and water for the upcoming three days ride on a cargo boat. An immigration office, where we bribed the guy in uniform with 30$ to get Julez an exit stamp – he had not applied for a new visa, not paid 230$, overstayed the tourist visa by five weeks – and just got out of the situation with 30 minutes of talking and the same amount of dollars. I was kind of jealous… ^^ But hey, in return sugardaddy promised to pay a decent round of beer for celebration purposes… :)

We, that includes the two other Danish gringos we had met on the boat, encountered three other white guys (an Argentinian couple plus one German lady) along the riverside. They had a cargo boat captain talked into taking them down to Iquitos – and we joined in. Even though it was “highly illegal” to take passengers on cargo boats across the Peruvian boarder, the crew agreed to accept us as seven of them for the following days. Maybe those 90$ we offered per person helped to convince them. Money can buy you a lot of things in South America.

We put the hammocks we had bought in Quito for this trip up in the backyard of a hostel (3$ per person), strolled along the riverside, enjoyed dinner and a beer while overlooking Rio Napo. The first night in our new hammocks was awesome. And those 10$-hammocks would turn out to be inevitable travel companions for the next two weeks…

Before sunrise we were up…

…to board a little canoe which would bring us to Pantoja, the first Peruvian village we had ever set foot on.

Bye, bye, Ecuador!

The boat ride itself was already half an adventure, as that little canoe felt like it would fall over should one of us dare to breathe in to heavily or so…

After obtaining our visa and another bit of shopping (not much to be bought here, but some softdrinks and few fruits were available), we transferred our  luggage to the cargo boat, installed our hammocks on the sun deck, waited another hour or two for no obvious reason and then began our journey down the river. Three days of perfect relaxation lay ahead of us.

In general, we didn’t do much. In fact, there isn’t much you can do on board of a small cargo ship like this one was. We mainly spent our time cooking…

…chilling out in our incredibly comfortable hammocks…

…and shaved, maybe mainly out of boredom, Julez’ head as well.

From now on, we might really pass as brothers, ey? What do you guys think? :)

We imitated Titanic…

…we wrote diary, letters and to-do-lists…

…and finally arrived in Mazán, where we had to leave the boat and find other means of transportation to Iquitos. Thanks, crew, that trip was awesome! :)

Four Tuk-Tuks ran us to the next port. I started last, but clearly won the race, as I promised my driver that I’d leave a decent tip should he arrive first. *hahaha* Those two Soles were absolutely worth it. (Nuevo Soles is the current Peruvian currency, subdivided into 100 céntimos. One Nuevo Sol equals 2.65 US $, and there 3 to 3.5 €. We had exchanged our dollars in Pantoja to be prepared to not pay tourists prices.)

A speed boat ride of 40 minutes later we arrived at our temporary destination: Iquitos. Welcome to the jungle. Welcome to Peru.

Adios, Quiteños

We arrived early on a Tuesday morning. Sarah opened the door, and the last day had begun. Not for me. For Malte, Madhuri & Bea. Sad story. Good news: It started with a delicious, self-made brunch!

It went on with some chilling out, another (a last) radio show and some Indian dinner.

The next morning Bea and I looked for (and finally even found) some stamps for her dad’s collection. And then, again, it was time to say goodbye. A travelers never ending nightmare.

They reached German ground successful despite a strike of Spanish laborers. Sarah and I went for a paintball battle. Cheap fun, that is. But it sometimes hurts. *g*

After an acceptable lunch in the nearby food court Quito was calling, and again, we parted from people I might never see again.

To make up for them, Julez arrived, and the last week in Ecuador’s capital had begun. We spent it eating burgers…

…eating pancakes (for which Sarah broke her commitment to not eat sweets until Easter)…

…watched a lot of movies, faked LAN parties…

…and finally took the last picture with Sarah. For now. :) (To secure a reunion, we let our dirty clothes get locked at the laundry, and Sarah will take them home to Germany. Thanks for that, my dear!)

We spent a last evening with Sarina…

…Wlady and his girlfriend Kim…

…and I decided to leave my hair behind as well. :) We were ready for  the jungle!

Quito, those were impressive and interesting four months. I learned a lot, from my salsa lessons at Rhytmo Salvaje to Spanish vocabulary and grammar at Banana Spanish School to stuff like html programming and Ecuadorian sales and marketing techniques at Haugan Cruises. (The ladder finally reimbursed me for January with 150$. Not even half of what I should have received, but well, better than nothing. I was just sick of such senseless discussions, in which each time you’ll get a different statement which will then again be twisted into the opposite once you leave the office. Sad truth, but dear Haugan Cruises management department (and especially Washington del Pino), you really ruined my faith in Ecuadorian honesty.) Apart from that, I thank all the figures, creatures and characters I had the pleasure to meet here. You made my four months what they were in the end – unforgettable.

I don’t know if I’ll ever return. I wouldn’t bet on it. But I wouldn’t bet against it either…

Puerto Lopez. And Montañita. Once again. One last time.

Back in Quito I wasn’t too motivated to have big action going on. Most of the time I spent in my room, reading, chatting, watching movies. One needs time to digest all those incredible impressions I collected throughout the last month.

My friends still made me leave the house every once in a while, may it be to host a radio show on Ecuadorian Tourism Radio or to see Manu Chao live. Even though it rained cats and dogs, we enjoyed the performance underneath our 1$ rain ponchos.

And Bea and I mixed our first Ecuadorian cola beer. :) (Including a free 50% or so re-fill.)

I don’t know, how it came, but somehow our two mates Madhuri & Malte told us to hurry up after Manu Chao had played its last song, to still jump into a bus as long as they weren’t completely overcrowded. Unluckily, that tactics didn’t work out: The last bus had already left, the next one was supposed to arrive in an hour or so. Madhuri, Malte and Sarina decided to take a cab, Bea and I decided to safe those dollars and walk. And get lost in endless discussions. Awesome.

When I finally arrived back home around midnight, my two flatmates weren’t there yet. I called Sarah – she told me she was still at the concert. We had obviously skipped the main gig of a band called Calle 13, pretty famous around here. Sarah reported that those dudes were heating up the stadium way better than Manu Chao had before. Sad story.

Anyway, one of the results of the discussions was, that I seriously thought about heading back to the coast. Again. Bea, Malte & Madhuri would leave on Thursday night – and, honestly, I couldn’t find any reason why not to join. Grey and rainy Quito would be way to boring should these three guys leave town as well, so I decided to join. Not a failure.

A cozy night ride later we arrived at Puerto Lopez around 5am. Everything was still closed, obviously, even though there weren’t few people hanging out on the streets. No clue what they did there. But we preferred to set up camp at the beach. Watch the sunrise. In the west. Yeah right. *g*

We finally found a hostel that sold us a room for the four of us, booked in and went to negotiate the cheapest price for a trip the Isla de la Plata, an island approximately 1,5 hours from the mainland, which got its name in a time when pirates still ruled the seas: While the Spanish crown was exploiting the mainland, the English crown simply paid its pirates to set up camp at Isla de la Plata and mug the Spanish galleys passing by. Pretty smart tactics, to be honest…

We found the tour operator of our choice, paid 25$ per head (for a full-day trip, including lunch), and began our holidays. Beach chairs were easy to organize, and everyone who offered them also sold those delicious fruit smoothies I had enjoyed with Carina only a week earlier. But there’s stuff in this world you can’t get enough from… (Chilling out is one of them…)

To be honest – we didn’t really leave the beach that day. Neither did we stop consuming fruit shakes. And I’m not sure if we spent more than 10$ on them per person… :)

The next day we started with a self-bought breakfast, bread, cheese, watermelon. All you need. And then we prepared for our island trip: Sunscreen (really important, as Bea burned herself really badly the day before), towels, hats, swimming gear, water bottle, camera. Don’t forget a pack of blue sky and sunshine. And go.

The local fishermen were already up and hard-working, when we boarded the boat.

Around 16 tourists were on board, around 5 nationalities present. Plus two guides and a captain.

Upon arrival we left the boat, refilled our water bottles and started walking. Straight up the hill. Too exhausting for an elderly, Peruvian lady, who returned with her daughter. The others made it up to the first resting point, where we divided the whole gang into two groups – a faster one and a slower one. The faster group were basically us plus three other guys, amongst them an Argentinian lady who maybe should have chosen the other group.

Still, we enjoyed the amazing nature…

…a fascinating landscape…

…and an astonishing abundance of wildlife – amongst others loads of blue footed boobies…

…as well as their relatives, the Nazca boobies.

The island never got really inhabited due to a lack of freshwater. There is some, but not much. And it is absolutely essential. We sweated like the Russian national soccer team after playing overtime in Saudi Arabia…

But hey, we made our way back to the starting point, boarded the boat again and got a watermelon snack in-between. And as sharing is caring, our guides showed us how to feed turtles with the leftovers…

Some 10 minutes later we reached our snorkeling spot, and jumped straight into the water.

The gear wasn’t the best, and so wasn’t the spot itself. Okay, I might be spoiled since the Galapagos Islands, but still, there wasn’t much to see. So Malte, Madhuri and I enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves…

…while Bea was up on the deck to treat her sunburn… ^^

We snacked a little, I napped a little, and then we snacked again back on the mainland, while sitting in our beach chairs, sipping fruit shakes and admiring the sunset.

The following day would be our last in Puerto Lopez – for now. We decided against heading to Los Freijles and against Agua Blanca – but we wouldn’t leave without another oreo shake, our favourite. :)

Next stop: Montañita. Once again. *g*

We found a cozy place right at the beach front, where hammocks on the terrace swing and where one can rent a mattress on the top floor for 5$ per night. The mattresses weren’t thick (in fact, we even had two each), but the top floor was not closed by walls – a fresh ocean breeze would blow underneath the roof. Amazing.

We met up with Julez, to then follow him to the beach and watch him giving surf instructions to a group of Danish youngster, all of whom had just graduated from high school.

Because we were on holidays, we stayed out on the beach until the sun set. That is when hunger made us look for a place to feast – and that again was when I showed everyone the way to Rastapan once more.

The rest of the night was spent at the beach again, under the stars, lost in endless discussions…

How would you guys start a day in Montañita, if you have read my previous blog posts?

Yeah, right, with a massive vitamin bomb…

Because Julez’ boss didn’t want to rent us some surfboards in the early morning, we just took it easy, hung out again, surfed the internet instead, bought our bus tickets back to Quito and enjoyed our last day at the beach. Malte, Madhuri & Bea would fly back to Germany in two days’ time, we had to return. Unfortunately.

Bye Julez, bye Montañita, bye Ecuadorian coast. I don’t know when I’ll see the ladder two of you again...