Slow Boatin' Vol. II: Slow Boat Pros

Iquitos, Peru is allegedly the biggest city in the world that has no roads in or out; comers and goers are relegated to boats and planes for their ingress and egress needs. After enduring the slow boat once, we figured we had seen all the endless jungle and gargantuan polluted river we needed to see at an 8 mph clip, so we were determined to take the fast boat further into Peru. Once again, we got to experience the LARA (Latin American Run Around) first hand whilst searching for fast boat services. The boat agency that runs fast boats said to go to the port, the folks at the port said to go back over to the agency, the mototaxi driver suggested another spot (which he charged us for ultimately even though it didn’t pan out), and then the last agency finally told us there actually are no fast boats further into Peru, despite the fact that another guy at the port had given us a break down of pricing and how the system works. hmmm...

Fatimah setting up our hammocks in choice floating real estate.

It was fly for 130 apiece, or float for 25 apiece. Shit. It appeared that economics had us floating on the giant chocolate milk river once again. This time we were prepared though, we knew just what was in store for us. We went to the market and got another hammock, we got sweet and salty snacks and ample water, and we even showed up a few hours early to ensure a good spot near an electrical outlet with minimal sun exposure. Yeah, we were slow boat pros.

Our boat was the middle one.

Nice combo of storm coming in and sunset as we left

The bathrooms...

3 of the seemingly endless children on the boat... cute in picture form at least...

Come to find out, this boat was a whole lot nicer than the first one; 7 stalls to share with our fellow river goers, sinks, a cleaning crew, and surprisingly decent and hearty meals. There were even some gringos with a Lonely Planet book of Peru (in French, but the numbers and Spanish words are the same so it was semi legible—so what if you miss words like ‘guerillas’ or ‘landmines’), which meant we got to do some further trip planning. Success. Every rose certainly has its thorn, though; this boat ride was a testament to the devout Catholicism of the Peruvian peoples—for every one couple on this boat there seemed to be about 3.4 kids accompanying them. These children were at times cute, at other times devilish, and at all times whiney and annoying. My personal favorite was when one child would cry in the middle of the night, which would cause at least a few others to join in for a cacophony of blood curdling birth control.