I have spent the last week in Iquitos which is right out in the Amazon jungle, accesible on by plane or by boat on the Amazon river. Its called a city, but not necessarily what I imagined. As you would expect, its very lush and tropical, huge palms everywhere, very hot and humid. It rains most days, sometimes drizzle and sometimes full on rainstorms... but the next morning is always hot sun and blue skies. There are hardly any cars here, everyone gets around by moto-taxi, motorbikes with a small wagon on the back for 3 people. They are very cheap to get around in, most journeys across town are no more than 50p.
The hub of Iquitos is the Yellow Rose of Texas, a tourist bar run by a big fat Texan. It sounds awful but is a great place to sit at night and have a beer, everyone congregates there and already I´ve met so many interesting people. There are constantly groups of kids walking past selling trinkets or cigarettes, stray dogs hopefully gazing at the huge plates of food on the tables, local indians selling their handicrafts and gorgeous rugs and clothing. The food is pretty good too, though overpriced of course. But we´ve had many a happy night drinking beers and eating local dishes such as dorado and paixa, which is a massive freshwater fish found only in the Amazon.
We have spent some time out in a shamanic retreat, which is basically a big wooden lodge right out in the jungle where we work with a shaman doing ceremonies with ancient plants. The lodge itself is amazing, it consists of a large round building with a very high conical roof, built over the river. There are other smaller huts around for toilets, sleeping quarters for the shaman and his family etc. The ceremonies are very intense and really quite magical. At night there are no sounds except the deafening sounds of wildlife in the jungle, all kinds of birds and insects and god knows what else. There are sometimes 9 or 10 people there taking part, and in the morning we all hang around eating fresh fruit, swimming in the river and just enjoying being away from everything.
During one of these ceremonies, I began to realise just how much it means to me to be this closely connected to mother nature. Its what I´ve been looking for my whole life, it seems. Simple things like the sound of the river, sitting in a cool wooden lodge with no electricity and no phones, eating fresh and healthy vegetarian food - this is what life is about! One of the things out here that has been really upsetting me is the number of stray dogs here, and the awful state some of them are in. I realised all of a sudden that finally, I´m in a position where I can make a difference. I have the time, the money and the freedom to do something. So I contacted a local organisation which has a programme for catching and treating the stray dogs, neutering them and releasing them if they can´t be rehomed. It sounds really exciting, so hopefully I will start to be involved in the next couple of days and really start to do something to help. I´m convinced that I´m on the right path, call it destiny or whatever, but it feels good and right. I´m not making any decisions about how long I´ll stay here in Iquitos now, for the first time ever I´m absolutely free to do whatever I want and its a great feeling!
