A theft and I'm stuck in Iquitos

Well, the first unfortunate event (I suppose I should say involuntary) has occurred. My IPOD was stolen. It was a few years old and I was planning on replacing it upon my return to the US, but it still really ticks me off. It isn't even the financial loss. Those that know me know how important music is to me and the loss of the ability to listen to music is a very serious matter. Made even more serious by the fact that when it was stolen, I was on my way to a boat which I was to be on for 4 days as I traveled to Yurimaguas, Peru. The delay caused by my dealing with the stolen IPOD caused me to miss the boat to Yurimaguas and I am now unsure what I am going to do. The next boat isn't for a few days and I am ready to leave Iquitos. What a bummer. Anyways, one of the joys of traveling without an itinerary is that little events like this really don't throw off any grand plan. I can work around this, I just don't yet know how.


One thing I haven't mentioned yet is all the mototaxis in Iquitos. They are basically rickshaws attached to a motorcycle. They are very noisy and seem to be rather dangerous, but are the only way to get around town. It is also amusing to see them when it rains. I took the photo below as I was riding in one during a downpour. The driver left a couple inches just below the roof and just above the top of his tarp to see. Luckily he didn't hit anything.

Jungle Tour

After being unsure of whether I would actually do a jungle tour or not, I finally decided to take the plunge and paid for a 4 night 5 day jungle tour. There would be two of us plus a guide. Raul, a Chilean, was to be my travel companion for the next several days as we traveled 250 km into the jungle. Our base camp was called Delfín Camp and consisted of a thatch roofed structure that included a common eating room, several screened in rooms and hammocks.


We stayed at the camp for two nights and camped in the jungle for two nights. I am not quite sure how to describe my experience. We would spend our mornings either going out in the canoe looking for wildlife or hiking through the jungle looking for wildlife. We would return to camp for the hot part of the afternoon and then head out again at night either in a canoe or on foot. As far as wildlife is concerned, we saw many monkeys, many birds, many freshwater dolphins, iguanas, a cayman, a turtle and an electric eel. The most abundant creature we saw was also the most unwelcome. Millions of mosquitoes managed to find us over the course of the five days. These also weren't like the mosquitoes I am used to back home. These were mosquitoes on steroids. Despite wearing plenty of insect repellent and two shirts (one long sleeve, one short sleeve) I still had bites all over. And when I say all over, I literally mean all over. Even when I was able to forget about the bites, there was still a constant buzzing in the ears as the flew around my head. It was the buzzing that nearly drove me over the edge to insanity. I had to keep reminding myself that I made the choice to pay money to experience the mosquitoes. Ooof.


Halcón, our guide, was very good at locating things in the trees and was also very good at making bird/animals calls. He always amazed me in that he knew the names of every animal, bird, insect, plant and tree that we would see and also knew the medicinal uses of the things we would find.


Our first day was spent mostly in canoe. We paddled to a small village called Libertad, arriving just before sunset, and wandered around for a bit. The village kids were all playing soccer and volleyball and it was fun to just sit and people watch for a while. As darkness fell, Raul and I entered a makeshift store (I think it was really just someones house) to get a cold drink. Since this village didn't have electricity, the cold part became problematic. The kind store owner offered to turn on his personal generator for a few minutes so that the fridge would cool down so our drink would be cold. After about a minute we were served our still warm drink. As you can imagine turning on a refrigerator for a minute isn't going to cool down anything, but I still really appreciated the effort though. After it was completely dark, we went out to look for caymans (a type of alligator). We were told to keep our headlamps off while our guide scanned the water for the reflection of eyes. After not finding anything for a very long time, Halcón suddenly drove his hand into the water and pulled out a cayman. It was about a year old and didn't really do much. I guess it was playing dead hoping we would leave it alone, which we eventually did.


After finally finding our cayman, we started paddling back to the camp. The paddling started to get very difficult as we were going through a very shallow area with lots of vegetation. Eventually Halcón just jumped out of the front of the canoe and started walking. Not a good sign. The river had evidently dropped several feet since he had come through last and we would not be able to paddle any further. We started dragging the canoe (keep in mind this is a 12-foot dugout canoe made of a single piece of wood and very very heavy) through mud that was up to the knees. I am not sure how far we dragged the canoe or how long it took us, but it seemed like hours (I think it was really less than 30 minutes) but tempers started to flare and some not nice language was used in the heat of the moment. Once again, I paid money to be able to do this. I should be happy. We made it back to camp around 10pm, ate dinner and immediately went to sleep. Long day.


I won't bore you with the details of every minute of the jungle tour (we saw a tree and then another tree and then a pretty bird...), it was something that is best experienced and not explained. The canoe trips were relaxing, the jungle hikes involved lots of mosquitoes and the camping in the jungle was an experience. While camping we slept in hammocks inside mosquito nets with a tarp on top to protect against the rain. One night as we were trying to fall asleep something that sounded like rocks started to hit the ground around us and the tarps with very loud thuds. Turned out to be a monkey eating a pine cone like fruit and as he was discarding the remains they would fall and make a loud noise as they hit the tarp and the ground. While I was glad the monkey found some food, I started to get very irritated at the constant barrage of fruit that kept me awake. As if there wasn't enough other noise and irritants to keep me awake in the jungle.

All in all my 5 days in the jungle were very good. I am very glad that I went on the trip and that I had the opportunity to delve deep into the jungle. While there were certain aspects of the trip that i wish had gone differently, I am still rather pleased.



More photos from my trip into the jungle at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Amazon Golf Club

The owner of the hostel I stayed at in Iquitos was also an investor in the only golf course in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. In fact, I was told that it is one of only 16 golf courses in Peru and that it is the only course between Lima, Peru and Manaus, Brazil. Because of a legal dispute and a lack of appropriate permits from the provincial government, they are not allowed to charge money to play golf at the course. Bad news for the investors, good news for me. We were invited to head to the 9-hole course and play a round for free. We were even allowed to borrow some golf clubs and golf balls. The caretaker of the course, Maria came along as our caddy and her 3 children served as ball spotters for us. Three of us were golfing, Craig from England, Randy from Minnesota and myself.


We were warned before playing that one of the storage buildings is infested with snakes and to not search for any balls that go near it. We were also warned of a 3 meter cayman that likes to lounge in the water hazards on the course. I love golf in the jungle.


Because the course isn't officially open, the grass is a bit overgrown. Even perfect shots down the middle of the fairway are difficult to find (not that I was hitting many fairways). Although I didn't play my best it was still a great day. Maria's children would race each other to our balls after we hit them and try to be the first to find them. Like I said, it was a blast.

Supposedly the course will be opening up officially in January or February of 2008. There is even a clubhouse under construction that will have a proshop, bar and restaurant. Should be very interesting to see how golf is received in the jungle.

Iquitos, Peru

After a couple days relaxing in Leticia, Colombia I decided to head into Peru via a long 12 hour boat ride up the Amazon River to Iquitos. Most maps say that the Amazon River starts someplace in Peru east of Iquitos where the Marañón River and the Ucayali River meet. Water from several rivers in Ecuador and further into Peru (as far as Cuzco) eventually dump their water into the Atlantic so who can really say where the Amazon River starts. Anyways, before my boat ride I had the pleasure of visiting 3 countries in less than 15 minutes. I woke up in Leticia, Colombia, took a taxi to Tabatinga, Brazil and then took a boat across the Amazon to Santa Rosa, Peru. Fun fun.


Anyways, Iquitos is a very interesting city. It is the largest city in the world that is not accessible by road, you can only get there by boat or by air. It grew to become so large due to a rubber boom in the late 1800's. In fact, on the Plaza de Armas in Iquitos there is a building (pictured above) that was built by Eiffel (the same guy who built the Eiffel Tower) in France. It was deconstructed in France and brought piece by piece to Iquitos where it was rebuilt. Why not?

Shortly after people discovered that they could make money off the rubber trees near Iquitos they also realized that they could make even more money if they just planted the rubber trees closer to the coast in Brazil so that they didn't have the transportation cost of getting the product from Iquitos to the Atlantic. Iquitos never quite recovered the prosperity that it saw back then, but it has become one of the main hubs for jungle exploration in Peru. Everyone you meet on the street wants to be your best friend and take you on a jungle trip.

I was unsure as to whether I would actually take a jungle trip or not. I really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to go deep into the jungle, but I also didn't want to get ripped off and I didn't want to go with a shady tour guide. Luckily I met a guy from Duluth, Minnesota who had just returned from a jungle trip and he filled me in on his experience. In the end I decided to go with the same guide he used, however I will write a separate post on my trip into the jungle.


One of my only touristy activities in Iquitos was a visit to the Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm. Although it was very interesting to see the Butterfly Farm (and animal orphanage) I actually enjoyed the walk through the village leading up to the farm much more. It was a very laid back relaxing village called Padre Cocha where when people passed you they actually smiled and said "Buenos Dias" and most importantly didn't try to sell me anything. At the Butterfly Farm itself I was taken on a tour of the enclosure which had several different species of butterflies flying around. We were then taken a separate enclosure where they had eggs, pupae, larvae and caterpillars. I forget all the stages of the life of a butterfly and what order they are in, but it was still interesting to see. Lastly we were taken to see the various animals that they have at the farm. These included a tapir, a jaguar and an anteater. They also claim to have a cayman and a manatee however neither were visible. There were also several monkeys that were running around and jumping on us throughout the tour. They seemed friendly enough until one of them started to take stuff out of the pockets of a Spanish woman. Luckily I wasn't robbed by the monkeys. All in all it was a good visit, however for those of you from Michigan, the annual butterfly exhibit the Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids is much more impressive. I guess the butterflies I saw here were actually in their natural habitat though.

On the walk back to the boat through the village I stopped and played soccer with some little kids. They were so much better than me and spent a fair amount of time laughing about my lack of soccer skills, however it was still a blast. It was nice to associate with some kids who weren't trying to sell me gum or convince me to buy them a hamburger.


On the boat ride back to Iquitos we found ourselves in a downpour. During the rainstorm the boat driver (I won't refer to him as a captain) kept running into objects in the river, culminating with hitting the only other boat within 100 yards of us. At this point everyone on board put on a life jacket (they kindly didn't leave one for me or the 80 year old sitting next to me though) however we eventually made it safely to Iquitos.



More photos from Iquitos in the Peru album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Welcome to the jungle...

On the flight from Bogotá to Leticia I was listening to my IPOD and had it set to play random songs. Right before landing in Leticia and right before they made the announcement to turn off all electronic devices, my IPOD randomly played Guns N Roses ¨Welcome to the Jungle.¨ How fitting (and a nice segue from the Grateful Dead song I had been listening to before). The flight over the jungle was really amazing. From 35000 feet, the ground is just dark green as far as you can see, occasionally split up by a river snaking its way through the jungle. I have never seen so much forest in my life. No roads, no cities, no signs of humans, just trees as far as you can see. Amazing.

Leticia, Colombia sits at the southernmost tip of Colombia and is in the middle of jungle. It sits right on the Amazon River and shares a three-way border with Peru and Brazil. Not much to do in Leticia so I´ve just been wandering around and taking advantage of the pool at my hotel. Tomorrow morning at 4am I am catching a boat that will take me up the Amazon to Iquitos, Peru.

As I walked to the airport today to get an exit stamp in my passport, I passed a training center for the jungle unit of the Colombian Army. These are the guys that basically go through the jungle hundreds of miles from anyone trying to root out the guerillas. Pretty tough job. Anyways, they were parading around in some kind of official ceremony and it reminded me of the never ending parades and drilling that they had to go through in Catch-22 (read it and you will know exactly what I mean). Kinda funny that these elite forces who specialize in jungle work would spend so much time learning how to march in unison. Can´t imagine there is much marching in unison as you are trying to struggle through nearly impenetrable jungle. Maybe it has something to do with unit cohesion and discipline. Then again, I am not a military person so don´t know too much about it.


Sunset over the Amazon.

Back in Bogotá

One last night in Bogotá before I fly down to the Colombian jungle. Very uneventful as I was dead tired from my massive bus ride from Cartagena, but did briefly walk down to Plaza Bolívar to check out the Christmas decorations. Massive lighted balls (1.5 meters wide) all over the square, giant Christmas tree and lots of lights on the buildings. Still weird to be in the Christmas mood without snow.

Cartagena, Colombia

After an overnight bus ride featuring not one but two Jean Claude VanDame movies, I arrived in Cartagena, Colombia. Cartagena is a beautiful old city right on the Caribbean. It is divided between the new, trendy and expensive area called Boca Grande, the old colonial walled city and then the rest of Cartagena where the majority of the people live.

My first impression upon arriving at the bus terminal in Cartagena that I would not be able to survive the heat. While in Medellin, an Irish guy I met had warned me that showering is almost useless in Cartagena because as soon as you step out of the shower and dry off you need another shower because you are drenched in sweat again.

In December I am used to below freezing temperatures and snow, not 90+ degree heat with humidity. Luckily I was able to overcome this challenge and survived a tremendously relaxing and very enjoyable week in Cartagena, made even more enjoyable by the fact that several people who stayed with me at the same hostel in Medellin also made the trek up to Cartagena.


One of my favorite days was spent on a trip to the Volcán de Lodo (mud volcano) about an hour and half outside of Cartagena. The volcán is a natural formation about 10-12 meters high that you climb up and enter its mud filled cone. Not sure how it is formed or why it formed here, but it was one of the most bizarre experiences I´ve ever had. You climb down into the mud and are basically just suspended. You can´t feel the bottom, you just float in the muck. It is very hard to move, but movement really isn´t necessary because there are guys in the mud that give dirt cheap massages (1-2 US dollars depending on the length). After floating in the mud for a bit, we were all led down to a nearby lagoon where local women gave us all baths to clean all the mud. This was followed by a moment of temporary awkwardness as we were all told to remove our bathing suits so that they could get the mud out. Sure, why not?

Besides several lengthy strolls through the old walled city, I also spent some time on the beach in Cartagena. We had all been told several times that there were no beaches in Cartagena and that trying to find a place to get some sun and go swimming would be a waste of time. Those of us that went to the beach found that while it was not the prettiest beach in the Caribbean, it certainly did the trick. Very pleasant water and the same sun that you get anywhere else. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Next up is a 23 hour bus ride to Bogota and then a flight to Leticia, Colombia in the middle of the jungle.


More pictures of Cartagena can be found on my Picassa photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Running Off A Mountain

Second highlight of my time in Medellin was paragliding over the city. Paragliding is where you are strapped to a parachute and fly around for a while. When I thought of paragliding, I always thought that since you were in a parachute you would take off from someplace with a really high elevation and then float down and land at a lower elevation, but the wind conditions in Medellin allow you to take off and land at the same spot.The wind conditions in Medellin make it one of the best places to go paragliding in South America and people come from all over to try it out here.

Me and and a couple Swedish girls from the hostel had to take a 2 hour bus ride up to the top of one of the mountains overlooking Medellin to get to the take off point. I´ll admit, I was a little nervous before setting off (running off a mountain isn´t something I do every day) but everything turned out great. The ride was very smooth and I was in the air for the tandem flight over Medellin for about 45 minutes. The only downside to the paragliding is that while we were waiting to get everything set up, we got tons of sand flea bites on our feet and ankles and they have been itching like crazy ever since. Oh well.

Great day in the mountains with some great people.


More pictures of paragliding in Medellin can be found on my Picassa photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Atlético Nacional vs. Caldas

One of the highlights of my time in Medellin was going to my first proper men´s professional soccer match. It was an absolute blast. Atlético Nacional, the team in Medellin, just happened to be playing a match while I was there and several people from the hostel were going to the game, how could I refuse?

The atmosphere outside the stadium was great. Everyone was wearing green and black (the colors of the home team) and there was live music. After buying our souvenir hats and going through two security checkpoints, we finally made it into the stadium. Very few fans of any American sports team can compare to your average South American soccer fan. Everyone seems to be a die hard fan and people are truly emotionally tied to their team. As soon as the teams came out and the match began, the true noise began. Several drums in unison, several different chants, firecrackers, cursing out the referees. It was quite the experience. At several points riot police had to use their shields to protect the side referee after he made calls against Atlético Nacional, but once they were too slow and he got pegged in the back of the head with a bag of water. Another time a player for Caldas actually got hit by a bag of water also, resulting in a slight delay in the action. In the end Atlético Nacional won the match 1-0.

There are more pictures of the soccer match on my Picassa photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Medellin, Colombia

Medellin, Colombia was made famous in the 80´s and early 90´s as the home of Pablo Escobar. Despite its reputation, Medellin has proven itself to be an amazing place. It is incredibly modern and very organized with very little crime. It obviously has its fair share of problems, as any large city does, but I felt very safe and am very glad that I included Medellin as a stop on my tour of Colombia.


Having just read a book on the life of Pablo Escobar (¨Killing Pablo¨) I went to visit his grave in Medellin with Aussie Dan. We were both expecting a large extravagant gravesite but were surprised to see a modest headstone for Pablo next to his mother and some other family members. His grave has a caretaker and we talked to him for a bit about Pablo and his effect on Medellin and Colombia. According to him, people are very conflicted in their views on Pablo because although he was responsible for some horrible crimes in his life, he also invested a tremendous amount of money into Medellin in areas such as infrastructure, education and recreation. While nobody would condone the many murders, assaults and kidnappings that Pablo and his associates were responsible for, people are also very appreciative of his generosity towards their community. One thing that was always in the back of my mind as I was going through Medellin was that despite it being such a nice modern city, how much of
this is a result of drug money from the Medellin cartel.

One of my most bizarre experiences in Medellin was visiting a night club called ¨Mangos.¨ Several of us from the hostel took a cab to this American Wild West themed place a little outside of the main downtown area of Medellin. We were told that this was THE club to go to in Medellin so we were all very excited to check it out. I knew it would be a bizarre night when I arrived and was greeted by a group of midgets; some dressed as Fidel Castro, others in cowboy costumes and others in salsa dancing clothes. The main part of the club had several stages around with salsa dancers in very extravagant clothing. Shortly after our arrival though, group after group of scantily clad women came down from a fire pole and started dancing to more popular club music. There were about 5 different groups of people who came down the fire pole before they were replaced again by the salsa dancers. Do I want to return to Mangos? No. Am I glad I went? Yes. An odd night, but good company made it enjoyable.

Medellin has a great metro system that runs to most areas of interest for the average traveler. Part of the metro system is a cable car that runs from one of the metro stations up the mountain into some of the poorer neighborhoods. The system has been great for the working class people in Medellin, but it also gives travelers the chance to take in some good views of the city. Several of us from the hostel ventured up and walked around the neighborhood at the top. There is a very large and very interesting black brick building at the top which is a new library. For us though, it had a nice terrace area giving us a chance to take in the amazing views over the city. There were lots of little kids running around in this area and they were all very intrigued by us, especially since we could speak Spanish with them. Lots of giggling. Perfect.


More pictures of Medellin on my Picassa photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren

Zipaquirá, Colombia

Took a day trip to Zipaquirá, Colombia, a small city about two hours outside of Bogotá. This city makes money on mining salt from the nearby mountains and is also home to the Salt Cathedral. I´ve been a bit tired of visiting churches, but this one was one of the most interesting that I have seen. It is actually inside of a mountain in the salt mines, .75 km from the mine entrance. It is very eerie on the inside as everything is dark except for dark blue purple lights illuminating crosses as you walk into the main chapel. The main chapel is enormous and I was told can hold almost 8000 people. Very amazing that all of this is basically under and inside a mountain.

No hay agua...

Water is something I have always taken for granted, until today. Went the last 36 hours without any running water at the hostel. They told us that the city shut it off for maintenance. This meant no toilets, no showers, no clean dishes. What a pain. Had to walk about 10 blocks just to use a restroom and the hostel is really starting to smell quite bad since nobody has showered. Oh well, I lived.

More from Bogotá

Cerro Monserate is a mountain that towers over La Candelaria in Bogotá. They have both a cable car and a train that runs to the top, although the train only runs on weekends. At the top is a church and restaurant and great views of Bogotá. Spent a good deal of time hanging out looking at the city.

I also toured the Police Museum in Bogotá. It was actually pretty boring for the most part, and we were not allowed to take pictures during the cool parts (the room full of guns and the Pablo Escobar room). The Pablo Escobar room featured some things owned by Pablo when he was killed such as some guns and a jacket. They also had a tile from the roof where Pablo was killed that has a blood stain on it. Reminded me a bit of the pillow in Washington DC with a blood stain from Lincoln.

Other than that, I have been enjoying just walking around Bogotá. Great city with lots of character. They have done a great job moving forward and embracing the new without abandoning the old.