3/10/2011

Come Monday (3/14/11) I’m off on another adventure/trip. This time it is to the east of the Andes in South America. In particular I will be focusing on the upper Amazon centering on Iquitos (at the map pointer, above). This is an area that I have wanted to explore a bit for most of my life, particularly after having read Wade Davis’s “One River”. I intended this sojourn during my last trip to the area but there happened to be extensive flooding in the area at the time so plans were foiled. All to the better, perhaps, since this time I should be better prepared.

For one thing, there will be no truck this trip. The standard means of transportation in the area I’m headed is by boat or, for the more affluent and when there are facilities, by air. So, I’ll be carrying all my belongings literally on my back. This is a radical change for me after traveling with my truck and trailer (“Might need it. Better throw it in.”). I’ve done a few iterations of loading up my pack, hoisting it up to my back (groan), lugging it around the house for five minutes (omygod!), setting it back down, unpacking it again, and discovering some more items that I “really won’t need”. Fortunately I won’t be needing cold weather gear or a tent (hammocks are de rigueur). Unfortunately I’m having to pack for a few months. I anticipate quite a bit of travel will be via rides hitched with cargo boats with my accommodations being a hammock on deck. A buffet of “mystery food” (to me, at least) is generally furnished on these boats.  So, I’m packing a bit of my food also.

To begin with I will be flying into Lima and spending a week playing the foodie and cruising the museums since I spent no time there on my last trip. I am a member (out of convenience) of the South America Explorers Club so I will likely be spending some time there doing research.  Given that I have plane, room reservations for my week of arrival, and a scheduled meet with some shamans in the jungle a few hours upriver from Iquitos for the first couple of weeks in April, I can speak of this part of my trip with a little bit of certainty. Other than that, well, we’ll see.

I anticipate flying from Lima to [somewhere-Barranca? Pucallpa?] and floating down to Iquitos. I “plan” on walking some nature preserves and doing a canopy walk.  Perhaps I’ll happen across the Lost City Of Z . This heretofore quasi-mythical location is considered as possibly found at Kuhikugu Brazil and is on my list. All told, I guess that I’ll be spending a lot of time floating on rivers. Downriver, I don’t think that I’ll go any farther than Manaus.

More pages to be added as material becomes available.

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