la selva

cut to a week later, when i´m washing the last of amazonian mud of my ankles and and picking the stray bits of leaves out of my tangled mane of hair. i gave up on counting my bevy of bites when i reached the mid-50´s. those buggers are RUTHLESS. literally, out for blood. my blood. my blanco sangre. they had a bellagio buffet on the backs of my legs, bottomless mimosas included. what is the purpose of a mosquito, anyway? to simply be the bane of my entire existence? and the only option is to spray myself down with napalm-strength repellent? so that i literally repell nature? who wants to repell nature? but i digress.

after the boat, i set myself up in iquitos for a couple of days to recoup. truth be told, i wanted to shower in something that didn't have the clarity of a muddy brown puddle. you know, those showers that actually make you feel clean?

iquitos itself is a beguiling, unique, chaotic whirlwind of a jungle city. and it all but crawls to a complete standstill between 12 and 4, where people seek refuge from the tropical heat in the form of a siesta, a cerveza, or sometimes both. a necessary tradition i was all too happy to indulge in. when in rome...

we decided to check out the floating shantytown of belen and the accompanying markets. hailing a canoe, juan and marlon motored us down the river, passing thatched houses, restaurants, even a discoteca (because amazonians like to party too) that were either built on stilts or affixed onto large logs. the water level ebbs and flows with the seasons, and the annual rains swell the river. taking a liking to us, marlon took us on a tour through his village, walking through a town that would be completely submerge in a mouth, taking us up the steps to his house with only a second floor, calling it "the venice of the amazon." close. but with less gelato and more mosquitoes. a crazy and fascinating way to live.

snapping turtles and their eggs, caimain, armadillo, completely dismembered chickens, long lines of cow intestines, monkey brains, live grubs, piranhas so fresh their gills were still desperately searching for water. small mounds of cumin and canela heaped on the spice isles, tables lined with exotic fruits that don't have english translations, tarps spread with piles of jungle tobacco. marlon pointed this and that out, "jungle fruit, jungle pig, jungle spaghetti, jungle tobacco, live tree grubs-you want to try?" a medicine aisles with cures for everything, peruvians bargaining and wheeling and dealing, refueling with fresh-squeezed juices and plates of ceviche, dodging tuk-tuks squeezing through the mix of people and products. chaotic and yet everything had a well-practiced aire about it. a far cry from the santa monica farmers market.

by chance, we met javier, a local shaman and medicine man. the girl i'd been traveling with for the past month is really interested in traditional and natural medicines, so aside from learning a ton about alternative remedies, i've gotten to tag along on some off-the-track adventures. like with javier. he grew up in the jungle, and for the last 3 days he's taken us into la selva, where we trekked to find various medicinal plants. as my knowledge is minimal, i was moreso there for comic relief, trying fruits and leaves i couldn't pronounce and using my broken spanish to crack jokes. with wellington boots and machetes we trudged along, forging our own trail, cutting through brush and vines, stopping for javier to explain this bark or that flower. it was amazing. it's like the plants talk to him.

some of his family invited us to stay with them at their hut, and one night participated in an ayahuasca ceremony, a plant known for its incredible medicinal and hallugenogenic properties. deep in the jungle. javier donned the traditional costume and headdress, draping himself with layers of necklaces and beads, chanting and music in the indigenous tongue of quechua. the amazon responded, opening it's skies with the infamous rain, so quickly we barely had time to take cover in the hut. lighting cracked, thunder reverberated throughout the trees, and the rainforest lived up to it's name. crawling under our mosquito nets, we fell asleep as the jungle came alive. i don't think you can get more authentic.

so i didn't do the traditional jungle tour, but i did get to stay in a local village, participate in a ceremony, eat lots of plants and meet a family of beautiful people. and that's pretty cool.