Leaving Iquitos

A view from the Iquitos boardwalk

Chonta (fresh heart of palm) salad, a local specialty

We spent two weeks in Iquitos looking at boats and researching our trip up river in a peque-peque canoe. We had found a boat, an engine, charts from the navy, and were ready to depart at the drop of a hat, but unfortunately without two or three other people to share the expenses and with the last lancha of the month departing, we decided our personal riverboat trip would have to wait until another time. Below are a few of the boats we looked at. The price for a pretty decent 6 month old 10 metre boat with cover and benches was around $250.00 CDN.

Some were better than others...

Iquitos- Quistococha

Keeping the porks tiby seemed to be a problem in Iquitos but hopefully with a little help from this sign birty porks will no longer be an issue.

Jaguar

Northern Caiman Lizard

Giant river otter

''Pink'' river dolphin but not pink because he doesn't eat enough shrimp in captivity

Baby caimans

Paiche- the Amazon's (and South America's) largest fresh water fish coming up for air. This fish can reach more than two metres long and over 200 lbs. One was used to feed all 250 people on our lancha from Manaus to Tabatinga.

Capibara (a giant rodent)

Padre cocha mariposaria

This butterfly reserve is located a short boat ride outside of Iquitos. The woman who runs the reserve is from Austria and she has lived in Peru for 27 years. Since opening the butterfly reserve many orphaned or poorly treated pets have been brought to the reserve for safe keeping.

These caterpillars remain in this formation until they are ready to cocoon.

Hands down the strangest animal I have ever come across. The giant anteater is feared by many locals because it is said that they're the only animal capable of killing a jaguar with their giant bear-like claws. We came across this one foraging for ants in the forest but later she came into the reserve for a refreshing bowl of fermented milk which she lapped up with her two foot long tongue.

A caiman shared the lagoon with a manatee but they kept their distance.

We were told that the only reason the tapir is not extinct is because indigenous groups thought they were impossible to kill because arrows would bounce right off their incredibly thick skin.




Some of the monkeys in the reserve were trained by street children to pickpocket. Others have learned this skill through association. For this reason everything must be left in a locker at the entrance to the park. Aparently wallets, passports and cameras are favourite items to rip up or throw in the lagoon.