Living in the Rainforest Compound

our cabins

Day 6-16, maybe Aug 10-20ish, 2000

We spent most of the next 10 days living in the "jungle compound" which was the part time residence of a gringa woman Christine (who we never met, nor do I remember how Lynn knew her). It is situated about a 10 minute walk through the jungle from the village of Jaldar, which is home to one of our guides.

The compound consists of a series of bamboo platforms on stilts with palm thatched roofs. There was a "big house", several smaller huts a dock and an outhouse. We hung our hammocks in the "big house" which had enough floor space for a large dining table, a kitchen, and a couple of tents. The other huts held one tent each. The tents were necessary protection from the mosquitoes which were the most vicious I have ever seen in my life. NOTHING stops these things, they look at DEET like cocktail sauce, and they can bite your butt thru your hammock, jeans, towels, and never mind having to drop your drawers to use the latrine...Oh, and the latrine actually had a toilet seat, brought in special for Christine since she was a gringa. 

The mosquitos, and other stinging insects were constant companions, they only lightened up during the daily afternooon rainstorm.  Michael perfected a little "scarf" dance that we would do with our towels, swishing around each leg and then each shoulder in turn, sort of making figure 8's around ourselves trying to swat the bugs away.  We got so that we could do this sitting, walking and lying down...

We noticed that the locals were not being bitten anywhere near as much as we were.  They said it was because their metabolism was lower than ours, so they put off less body heat and less carbon dioxide. 

The big house

the pier, and the bath spot (home of the nipple fish)

We had our meals and mid day naps (during the afternoon thunderstorm) in the big house.  Oscar turned out to be an amazing bush cook.  We had fresh eggs and veggies and chicken and fish out of the river, Yucca heart palm.  It was all delicious and so fresh.  The guides did most of the food gathering and cooking, but when we could, we helped with the fishing.  We took baths and washed our clothes in the river.  Being in the water provided a brief break from the incessant bites and stings (which really started to get to you after a while) BUT there were pirhanna in the water, including some that lived under the pier.  They would go after any parts that stuck out.  There was one that went straight for your nipples as soon as you jumped in.  We dubbed it the nipple fish.  So really, living in the jungle was an exercise in experiencing NOT being on the top of the food chain.  Everything was tyring to eat us all the time.  We had our revenge in time....

Oscare and Enrice preparing a feast

Pollo loco - a confused chicken who spent way too much time in the kitchen for her own health

salsa lessons

Family dinner

Piranha about to be dinner.... ah sweet revenge...

During the 10 days we did a lot of fishing.  One day while fishing our guides took us farther out on the river and we went looking for cayman (crocodiles - which we found - pretty scary).  We also saw all sorts of beautiful birds (parrots, macaws, kingfishers, and tucans), monkeys, sloths, electric eels.  I think the sloth was the funniest.  It really didn't move at all, much to Michael's chagrin.  We took several day long hikes to look at medicinal plants and trees. We watched amazing soccer matches between "our village" and the neighboring village of New Jerusalem (they were FAR too good for most of us to consider playing, though Justin, the college student traveling with us, gave it a go). I tried to teach Justin how to salsa dance (with moderate success). 

For me (the perpetual insomniac), sleeping in the jungle was super challenging.  For starters, the jungle is LOUD.  Birds and howler monkeys and other screaming animals and insects were constant both day and night.  It was also (as you would expect) super hot and humid, without much breeze, so we were sweaty and sticky and pretty dirty all the time.  And then there were the DEET disrespecting mosquitos.  Every night after crawling into our tent, we spent at least 20 minutes hunting and trying to kill all the mosquitos that had found their way in.  Every morning, there would be at least 1 swollen mosquito dangling from the inside of the tent lining and we would have at least 10 more bites.  20 years later, my tent still has some of those blood stains.  

One day we also had a "craft" day where the local villagers showed us how they made all sorts of things out of the plants in the jungle (baskets, jewelry, thatch roofs).  I was very proud of the fact that they though my basket would actually hold water!  Michael made great progress in learning to assemble thatch that would not leak (a key trait when looking for a husband).  The nearby village also had several fiestas while we were there.  Not sure they were in our honor as much as we gave them an excuse to drink fire water and listen to music.  

Basket weaving 101

Drilling guarana seeds for jewelry

Near the last day we took our small boats back out to the Amazon proper to look for the fresh water dolphins. To our delight we found them and got to swim with them for a few minutes.

Heading back to Iquitos

Sunset on the Amazon