Iquitos, Peru - Leticia, Colombia - Tabatinga, brasil
09 June 2017
I highly recommend my guide! Wilder Malafaya +51 941 823 952. Facebook: Wilder Malafaya Amazon.
One of my favorite trips of all time! Always something exciting going on in the jungle and Wilder (pictured above, on the right) will go down as one of my favorite guides ever. Had a nice lazy 2 day boat ride down the Amazon from Iquitos to Leticia. Just hung my hammock, opened a book, and didn't move for the next two days! I could have stayed on the boat forever. Met a stowaway from Albania who lost their passport and had to sneak into Brasil where there was the only Albanian embassy in South America. Pretty cool story involving bribing boat drivers, living in small river villages, and even meeting a pilot and flying some of the way from Ecuador in a seaplane!
So many animals, especially spiders in the jungle. Saw tons of exotic birds, caimans, frogs, sloths, monkeys, insects, pink dolphins, and my favorite...the anaconda! Wow, that thing was not happy when we picked it up! I got bit by a piranha while fishing, stung by a prehistoric-looking catfish while wading through knee deep water, enjoyed a tarantula massage, and had a mud fight in the river with some local kids in a small village. I really want to go back and have Wilder again as a guide, next time in the dry season which is very different.
I also had an interesting surprise waiting for me when I got back from 12 days without phone service. I found out I had been furloughed (laid off) from work! Haha. Kind of a bummer but I'm never one to let things get me down. I immediately put in applications for 5 airlines and bought a ticket to Bangkok with intentions of going to Borneo for some more jungle adventures while I awaited a call from one of the companies. Well, the times have changed and there really is a pilot shortage! I got calls from 4 of the companies, one that was my first choice and dream job. I had to cancel my ticket to Borneo but it was worth it since I passed the interview a few weeks later and got the job!