PIRATES!

well folks the sparkle tog ran into a bit of a snag but we are back in business. the snag being i was robbed by pirates while on a boat on the ucayali river deep in the jungles of peru. ok i didn´t actually see who robbed me but if you are robbed on a boat in the jungle i think it must be by a pirate. but ill get to that a bit later in the story since i feel the need to write my story in order.

after trujillo i went to cajamarca where i didn´t stay very long, one night, then took a bus to celendin. i was heading towards chachapoyas and it was the long way but beautiful. made it to celedin in the afternoon wandered around the tiny town and the market and here is a picture.

celendin market day.

next it was on to kuelap which is an old stone fortress from 900ad or so. i met a couple of guys from spain (fernando and pablo) and we ended up hiking up from the town of tingo. it was a pretty straight up hike and tiring. we met a peruvian guy on the way up that ended up joining us on the hike. he was visiting family that lived in the village below the fortress and he hadn´t been there in 10 years or so. and when we met him he had actually gotten scared of hiking alone and was going down until he met up with us. he was apparently afraid of the silence. so we hiked up with him and he also asked if he could hike down with us to. so while we visited the ruins he visited his family and came back down with us. by the way all of this was translated to me from the spanish guys because my spanish is getting better but needs lots of work.

hike up to kuelap


kuelap

kuelap

next on to chachapoyas where we stayed the night then onto pedro ruiz to catch a bus to tarapoto. on the way we stopped at gocta waterfall that is up for the 2nd tallest falls in the world or the 14th depending how you judge falls. im not sure how they judge falls but to me it was two falls not just one. it was beautiful and really tall dont get me wrong but maybe ill have to read up on waterfall definitions to know for sure.

gocta falls

turkey near gocta falls

so after all of that we headed for a boat from yurimaguas to iquitos. it was to be a three day boat ride sleeping on a hammock on the top deck. there were alot of other travelers so we had a ball. ok sleeping on a hammock is fun for a while but not very comfortable for three nights. the end of the boat ride before iquitos was on the amazon and it is pretty big. its the dry season so not as big as it gets but impressive. saw lots of birds and even some dolphins from the boat. once we got to iquitos myself and pablo went on a one day jungle trek in a reserve outside of the city. also say a butterfly farm, ate lots of fish, saw lots of fun dead things at the market (turtle, iguana, pirana, these big squirmy grubs, lots of fish i didn´t know). they also had a medicine isle where they sold cures for everything made out of the plants and trees in the rainforest. good fun.

yurimaguas port

sunset

part of a village in iquitos (iquitos itself is a regular city not like this)

jungle mushrooms

jungle frog

monkey at the butterfly farm

medicine isle market belen iquitos

floating village iquitos

sloth with the old fashion bowl cut

ended up spending a week or so in iquitos then hopped on a boat for pulcallpa. a five or six day boat trip this time. not many tourists on this boat because it takes so long but rather than fly or go back the same way i took the long way again. and the first night when we landed in requena is where i realized i had met a pirate. when people from the port came on the boat came on to sell drinks and snacks i woke up to buy water and my little backpack was gone. truthfully i had gotten a bit relaxed about my important belonging and didn´t do what i usually did to be careful with them and paid the price. lost my passport and credit cards which were the most annoying but also lost my journal and some other fun stuff i had collected on the trip so that was a drag. the most stressful part was having to wait three days until i could get off the boat to use a phone to cancel my credit cards. luckily i met two brothers who offered to help me get to lima since i only had 30 soles (10 dollars not enough to make it on my own). so we got off the boat early in contamana because they were working and i was able to call and cancel my cards and also arrange to have money wired to me in pulcallpa. one of the brothers bought and sold wood for a company and the other was an entimologist. about the perfect people to help me. we even went to a lake near contamana to catch bugs which was fun. so long story short i got money in pulcallpa and still hung out with the brothers until lima then back on my own. starting to deal with getting new passport and credit cards.

iquitos dock waiting to leave for pulcallpa

sunrise ucayali river

sunset ucayali river

sunset ucayali river

another one

tranchula (the day we went to catch bugs)

loading a cow on our boat from contamana to pulcallpa

another one

is jenny taking peru by storm or is it the other way around

well the lima part is pretty boring filled with beauracracy and phone calls to banks. but did meet some fun people and was able to finally rest for a while. i haven´t really stopped moving since the start so it was actually nice to have a forced rest.

sanfrancisco church lima

lima

famous hairless dogs in lima

santa rosa celebration lima

after lima i headed down to ica and stayed at a little town in the sand dunes. went wine and pisco tasting the one day i spent there and it was great. not the greatest wine but fun all the same.

one of the wineries

winery

sand dunes

sand dunes

huacachina the town i stayed in.

since then ive been to nazca to see some of the lines in the desert. then on to cuzco and machu picchu, and now im in puna about to head for copacabana bolivia tomorrow. ill have to add more pictures later of the picchu. to be continued..........

knock knock

whos there

ali

ali who

alittle old man who can`t reach the doorbell