🇵🇪 Peru. Amazon rainforest, Amazon river, and Napo river via Iquitos.

This is about my first visit to the Peruvian Amazon rainforest via Iquitos. For now Iquitos can only be reached by plane or by boat. Most flights to Iquitos originate from Lima. My flight with Star Perú had a short stop in Tarapoto only long enough to exchange some passengers.The total journey took about two hours.

Upon arrival at Iquitos airport, I was welcomed by an intense heat blended with high humidity. As I was approaching the city center, the heat and humidity felt worse likely because of very bad air pollution. With thousands of unregulated vehicle emissions, poor air quality in the city in this climate wasn't very friendly to people's lungs. So, I spent the majority of my stay in the jungle, where better air quality combined with nice cool breeze made it more enjoyable...and healthier.

The Amazon rainforest isn't just important to the climatic and ecological balance, but also to the development of pharmaceutical products. Twenty five percent of modern pharmaceutical ingredients are derived from sources in the Amazon rainforest today. But only 1% of its medicinal potential has been discovered!

A special thanks to Prem and Jethro for their wonderful music. Enjoy more inspirational music by Prem and Jethro Williams at: http://www.sacredearthmusic.com.

Learn more about illegal logging and deforestation from these excellent articles:

1. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20183580.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

2. https://www.illegal-logging.info/content/china%E2%80%99s-trans-amazon-railway-stokes-forest-fears

3. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/world/americas/corruption-in-peru-aids-cutting-of-rain-forest.html

iquitos Travel notes:

Remember that it's very hot and humid here. Dress accordingly. It can be steaming hot even at dawn!

Iquitos is a big city, relatively, with many choices for restaurants and hotels, ranging from five-star to zero-star lodging. Most have air conditioners, something you may find to be a necessity, especially when you're not used to with the intense heat and high humidity. The city center is generally safe, but just keep your radar active for suspects of petty crimes. You'd see many police hanging around in tourist-frequent areas. Laundry service is reasonable. It cost me about $US 2 for a bag of laundry the size of a large backpack, and it took about 4 hours for turnaround, neatly folded!

Jungle notes:

To enjoy the walk in the very wet and muddy jungle, get yourself a good pair of rubber boots with good traction. Poncho without proper ventilation can be uncomfortable in the jungle at this elevation. So, use a raincoat with good ventilation as you walk in the Amazon jungle. Also use insect repellants because there are literally billions of them waiting for you in the jungle. And they do bite.

Happy trekking!

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