Monday morning in Iquitos
Hope this isn´t a bad sign, but I woke up this morning with a little soreness in my throat. I´m not sure if I want to get sick down here, but at least there are enough people I trust to point me in the direction of a good doctor, if necessary.
Last night Mary Isabel and I walked down to the Plaza de Armas and the Malecon -- the boulevard along the Amazon River. I was amazed at the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people filling both on a nice Sunday night. We saw everything from a Michael Jackson impersonator to two Indian girls dressed in over-the-top jungle outfits and dancing with boa constrictors. It was, to say the least, VERY interesting. Unfortunately, I had neither camera or camcorder. While Mary Isabel is spending the morning teaching school, I poured down a lot of coffee and visited with friends I´d met on previous trips. It was fun to catch up on what everyone has been up to and who has left town. Talking politics -- both local and national -- is always fun, too.
Tomorrow I´ll probably head down the river for a few hours to visit some village along the Amazon. It just depends on how things go as to where I end up. The fun of being adventurous here is pretty intoxicating. This is a world unlike anywhere else I´ve ever been. The feeling of being VERY remote from the rest of the world permeates everything here.
