Quick Update – Next Stop: The Amazonian Jungles of Peru
Late last night, I landed in the City of Iquitos, the gateway to the Northern Peruvian Amazon. The featured picture of this post is the view out of my B&B room window that I woke up to this morning.
I am showing up here during one of the hottest and wettest times of the year they lovingly call, “the rainy season”. I am told we could see more rain in a few hours that my native Southern California could see in months.
While my trip has been wonderful, it is not without shortcomings. For example, I am showing up today with one pair of short pants and some flip flops I picked up yesterday from a market area where locals shop in Cusco.
Other than that, I am showing up in the jungle with a backpack full of thermal polar gear. Perfect!
I also just learned I will be issued knee-high sterilized rubber boots for our trekking outings because of the ….“conditions”.
……. I wonder if a parka will help keep mosquitos at bay? LOL!
Seriously, I signed on with one of the (some say the) oldest and most respected eco-lodge / trekking operators in the Amazon, so although I did little preparation for this part of my journey (shocking, right?), so this bumbling explorer is in good hands. I winged a good deal of this trip on my own and I had some pretty wonderful results. But the Amazon is one location I felt better left to someone with a clue.
Now I do believe I did make one solid critical planning decision. As some of you have noticed and commented on from the pictures in my last posts, I left the beard behind in Antarctica. The unsolicited up / down comments on the beard were hysterical. Clearly there are some firm opinions out there on the subject, and I respect them all! The beard, like the Moon and my clean-shaven look, will continue to make periodic guess appearances from time to time. So to answer the “why did you shave” questions:
I figured it best not to provide an additional favorable habitat for the local Amazonian wildlife.
Wish me luck. And, if you know anything about the jungle, now would be an Excellent time to message me and share that information!
I’m headed out to meander through the city of Iquitos for a bit before taking a boat up river into the Jungle and going off line for a while. I’ll report back with more updates soon.
Until then …. Thanks everyone for following along with me.
Love, Bruce