Amazon birthday cruise

Turning 60 feels like quite a milestone in life, more so than 50 I feel.  We decided to celebrate my October 25 birthday by cruising down the river Huallaga from Yurimaguas to Iquitos on one of the commercial river boats to see how our local river joins with other tributaries, most notably the Marañon, to eventually become the mighty Amazon some distance upstream from Iquitos.

Iquitos, with almost half a million inhabitants is the biggest city in the world with no road access. You can only get there by air or by river.  Lourdes and I had both flown to the city before but neither had approached by river.  We figured my birthday was a good enough reason to finally make this
journey a reality having talked about it for years.

We rode in a 'colectivo' taxi from our local city of Tarapoto 3 hours east to the river port of Yurimaguas, one of the few towns with access by road in Loreto, Peru's largest province and found the 'Eduardo V' riverboat with a sign indicating that it was to leave the following morning.  However it actually took 3 days to load all its cargo before we finally set off.  Here are some photos of our journey down the river and a wild Halloween party on the night we got to Iquitos.

Lourdes making some last phone calls before we headed downstream out of cellphone range for 3 days.

The top deck was cleared of passengers to make way for a chicken corral!

The tiny cabin was OK at night but an oven during the day, hence the hammocks on deck.

My new Kindle which miraculously arrived from my brothers and sister right before we set off.  I read lots of books during the trip.  What a great device, although I have to say I still prefer printed books.  But now I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and am now a thoroughly modern bookworm.

Eating the standard breakfast/lunch/dinner of chicken and rice which was slightly strange as there were at least 1,000 chickens installed on the top deck behind me.

Old hippie couple.  Halloween at the hip Karma Cafe in Iquitos on the night we arrived in town.

Performing a few old favorites at the Karma Cafe.  The ghoul behind me is our friend Joss, the owner.