Five days of rest in Iquitos

I arrived in Iquitos the morning of August 16th with five days ahead of me before going to to Blue Morpho Shamanic Centre for some spiritual journeys with sacred visionary medicinal plants.

Iquitos is on the Itaya river which is a tributary of the Amazon.  You only see this land at this time of year during the dry season when the rivers are low.

One of the streets near my hotel.  You can see some moto-taxis here.  They are still the predominant means of transportation but each year there are more and more cars and trucks.
Iquitos is a large city deep in the jungle which is not acessible by road so all the goods which are available here have come by boat or airplane.

This is along side of the main square called Plaza De Armas.  There is always something going on here at night often involving music.

My hotel, Le Casona, turned out to be quite user friendly and for a very good price.  They have a common area with a small kitchen where meals can be prepared.

My room is on the ground floor just beside the common area.  I took this series of pictures because it is the tallest hotel room I have ever had.
This one is my bed.....looks normal so far.

I wasn't able to get the whole wall in one shot so this shot is the area above the door and you might expect the ceiling to be nearby, but no....

There is still another 6 or 8 feet above that.  It looks to be well over 15 feet in all, which isn't a problem, just unusual.

This bird has a partner which looks alot the same.  They are free flying in the common area and cause no problems.  I'm told they are Love birds.  Their song resembles balloons being rubbed together.
They do quiet down at night just before the church bells start up.  Ah, it just goes with the territory.

My hotel room doors...also large.

They gave us a map with resturant recommendations the first times I was here and over the years a few favourites have been established.  A good coffee place with wi-fi is the Karma Cafe.

Fitzcarmaldo Bar and Restaurant is a pretty good place.

Here is a little grocery I use.

Dawn on the Amazon is everybody's favourite for its fresh, healthy food which is all prepared with clean filtered water. 

This building was looking good this day.  It probably was build during the rubber trade era.

Now for the mess.  They are replacing all the sewer pipes which is good, but at the moment a walk down the street involves jumping excavations, walking planks and climbing over mountains of sand and broken pavement.  They seem to be progressing quickly though.

I was really tired for the first few days and did a lot of sleeping.  Then I completed my only mission, this new blog.

Tomorrow we are off to the camp for 12 days.  There is no wireless out there or phones or even power so this blog will be silent until I return on September 1st with wonderful stories and pictures.