Hello!
As per usual we have been a bit shit with the old blogging but have been having a great few weeks so here goes...
We got a flight from Lima to Iquitos (a town in northern Peru which can only be 
reached by air or boat it has no connecting roads, an amazing town considering this, anyway it is right on the amazon)which was surprisingly painless, when we arrived it was pissing it down which was a bit of a blow considering a guy at our hostel had told us how hot it was there, turns out he wasn´t yanking our chains it was bloody baking there, humidity levels were at 87% and it rained quite a bit but really really hot and as you would expect near the amazon it was filled with mosquito's! I think my skin naturally has insect honey as part of its constituent cells i get covered in bites instantly! and proved this on day one in Iquitos.
reached by air or boat it has no connecting roads, an amazing town considering this, anyway it is right on the amazon)which was surprisingly painless, when we arrived it was pissing it down which was a bit of a blow considering a guy at our hostel had told us how hot it was there, turns out he wasn´t yanking our chains it was bloody baking there, humidity levels were at 87% and it rained quite a bit but really really hot and as you would expect near the amazon it was filled with mosquito's! I think my skin naturally has insect honey as part of its constituent cells i get covered in bites instantly! and proved this on day one in Iquitos.Our hostel (the hobo hideout) was pretty bloody weird with dead animals everywhere on the walls and a weird damp smell, nick and I got ushered into a tiny room with two beds on wooden slats and a fan that did fuck and all but it was so crazily cheap we couldn´t give a shite, and as per usual i was feeling really shitty.
We went in search of a company which would provide us with a jungle tour that was not too touristy and not too pricey. In the end we settled on a company which sounded pretty cool and next thing we knew we were on a boat for 4 hours taking us to our first stop in the jungle. We were introduced to our guide May (pronounced My) and I was a bit apprehensive as a) he spoke pretty ropey english and b) he looked about 12. On the plus side nick and I were the only ones with him, it was not a big tour group or anything like other companies it was a personal tour. We soon found out that May was a bit of a sweety, only 23 and the eldest of 8 kids coming from a small village in the jungle.
We 
took about 3 boats I think to get us to where were we going to be staying which were cool log cabin things right in the jungle on one of the rivers off the amazon. 
We immediately met a group of american girls who were doing a shorter tour than us but quite excitingly were taking part in a ritual called Huawaska where a sharman gives you some potion (basically a strong hallucinogenic) and you vom your guts out then supposedly see your spirit animal and have a great time (more on this later) we had lunch with these guys and then were whisked off by May to head into the jungle on a tour, turns out we did this every morning in different parts of the jungle and it was brilliant. We saw monkeys, huge spiders, medicinal plants all around us, dolphins, jagua
r prints, alligator
s, parrots, and we went fishing twice and caught and ate pirannas (nasty fuckers they are too) Every day we were fed like royalty too and went on boat trips to see birds, monkeys, dolphins and alligators. We decided to do a 5 day 4 night tour and on our second and third nights we had to move camp as a larger party were heading our way, May took us to another part of the jungle where we stayed for these nights and he fed us by himself and chatted away to us, and may have sniffed my shoes a few times (long story, bit weird, he tried to crack on to me a few times whilst nick was asleep too which was pretty awkward.)
took about 3 boats I think to get us to where were we going to be staying which were cool log cabin things right in the jungle on one of the rivers off the amazon. 
We immediately met a group of american girls who were doing a shorter tour than us but quite excitingly were taking part in a ritual called Huawaska where a sharman gives you some potion (basically a strong hallucinogenic) and you vom your guts out then supposedly see your spirit animal and have a great time (more on this later) we had lunch with these guys and then were whisked off by May to head into the jungle on a tour, turns out we did this every morning in different parts of the jungle and it was brilliant. We saw monkeys, huge spiders, medicinal plants all around us, dolphins, jagua
r prints, alligator
s, parrots, and we went fishing twice and caught and ate pirannas (nasty fuckers they are too) Every day we were fed like royalty too and went on boat trips to see birds, monkeys, dolphins and alligators. We decided to do a 5 day 4 night tour and on our second and third nights we had to move camp as a larger party were heading our way, May took us to another part of the jungle where we stayed for these nights and he fed us by himself and chatted away to us, and may have sniffed my shoes a few times (long story, bit weird, he tried to crack on to me a few times whilst nick was asleep too which was pretty awkward.)
The amazon and the rivers that we stayed on look beautiful it is really really hard to explain how amazing they look at all times of the day and the noise was unbearable it 
is so hard to sleep because the frogs, insects,monkeys and birds are constantly making noise, but it was amazing. On our first trip fishing it began to piss it down (the heaviest rain i have ever been in, also the hottest) we took shelter in the jungle and monkeys beg
an to climb down from their trees and one actually climbed onto nick and hugged him half looking for food but desperate for affection and shelter! really amazing. We also went in search of tarantulas on one night, not pleasant i can tell you, and one night we heard May making quite a bit of noise in the kitchen area, we went to see what it was and he had a spider on his Machete (which was used everyday as we made our way through the deep jungle, no walking paths for us!) this spider was not only deadly but could jump 5 meters... great eh! anyway he killed it and then seconds later gleefully said "Flor flor flor look what I have" and thrust a spade in my face, on which was the biggest cockroach i have ever seen, i sat with my legs above the ground the hole night because of that!
is so hard to sleep because the frogs, insects,monkeys and birds are constantly making noise, but it was amazing. On our first trip fishing it began to piss it down (the heaviest rain i have ever been in, also the hottest) we took shelter in the jungle and monkeys beg
an to climb down from their trees and one actually climbed onto nick and hugged him half looking for food but desperate for affection and shelter! really amazing. We also went in search of tarantulas on one night, not pleasant i can tell you, and one night we heard May making quite a bit of noise in the kitchen area, we went to see what it was and he had a spider on his Machete (which was used everyday as we made our way through the deep jungle, no walking paths for us!) this spider was not only deadly but could jump 5 meters... great eh! anyway he killed it and then seconds later gleefully said "Flor flor flor look what I have" and thrust a spade in my face, on which was the biggest cockroach i have ever seen, i sat with my legs above the ground the hole night because of that!I was bitten to shit our days there, I mean bitten to shit too, I remember one night I was getting ready for bed and turned round to face nick and he had a really pained expression on his face and was wincing at me, he looked like he never wanted to come in contact with me again, my arse was literally purple and all down my legs were becoming purple and just a solid mass of bites. I recon I had over 200 bites on me, seriously!
Back to the American girls. The night of the ceremony nick and I began to hear chanting from their room and then there was silence and the lights went out, the chanting continued and then the horror commenced, we had been told that you were sick once and then the hallucinations began, these guys were throwing up for about 5 hours straight and one girl was dry retching all night and they all looked terrible in the morning, poor nick had been awake through it all, thanks to the wonder of ear plugs i slept through everything. Two of them did see their spirit animals, a peacock and a deer as it happens but they all said the experience was horrific and they would never do it again, every time they asked for air or water the shaman just blew smoke (cigarette not mystic stuff) in their faces and told them to be quiet! I recon he was just having a laugh with a group of American girls I think the dose he gave was a little big and it doesn´t sound like the other ceremonies some of our friends have done in South America with a shaman, i´m not even sure he was one!
The tour really was amazing though we saw such amazing things and the amazon is so beautiful it begs belief covered in lilly pads and pink and grey dolphins everywhere it really was a shame to head back to Iquitos on our last day. We said goodbye to May and then made our way back to our hostel where we were upgraded and had an amazing room in a wooden raised bungalow thing, very cool. We then made our way back to Lima the following day.
We have now been in Lima for what feels like forever! Because we are a bit stupid we are having money problems again so have been stuck here for about 5 days when i am fit to burst with excitement about Rio. Anyway we decided to not stay in the same hostel as before but instead go to a different part of town to the Lima version of the hostel we stayed at in Cusco. It is a really nice hostel and we have met some lovely lovely lovely people here and as a result have been drunk as skunks almost every night, but there is really nothing to do in Lima, after the hillarity and excitement of the erotic pot museum and eating our way through the cafes and drinking our way through the bars, we are pretty bored. We have also heard loads of stories about Lima and how unsafe it is for tourists, we haven´t met anybody who has had any trouble what so ever. Yesterday however Nick and I were walking home after a bit of a wander and I was wrestling nick and had him in a headlock (we are pretty romantic sometimes ) when a police man and his partner in their patrol car pulled over, got out and shouted something at us. I thought i was in trouble for breaching the peace or something but he just told us that the area we were walking in (2 minutes from our hostel) was unsafe and that we should never be out later than 5 in the evening, nice eh! any way we have had no problems, we have a lovely hostel and we are heading to Rio tomorrow night!!!!!!! yey!
Oh and I didn´t get an interview for the Newsround job, bit gutted. LEEEEEEEEEZZZZZO!
much love
flossie
xxxxxxxxxx
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