Leaving Iquitos

Final notes before leaving Iquitos later tonight. I have been so lazy that did not get up at 6am to go and see where the river Amazon is born... But, I have seen the river itself, and spent the whole morning sitting in a cafe on the riverside, observing how it changes and does not change in cloudy and sunny weather.

This morning I was glad to wake up in a normal bed and head out not to a jungle but a town. Maybe other time, in other circumstances would be happier to be in a jungle, but today no. What the night rbought was getting to talk to some Iquiteños: particularly interesting character was Leslie Lucia, as she said 19 years old, with a 3 year old boy. A Brasilian girl who had come to Iquitos 9 years ago with her mother. She was fun, and was learnign English. Am not sure what she does, but what I noticed yesterda because of her and paid attenion today as well, that the normal way addressing someone is ¨amigo¨. A different concept of a friend.

I was trying to observe the people - and again noticed rather much of the polonesian features, but also some strong Asian influence. Am not sure whether there is any, but there were some very beautiful people. The woman at the boat station on my wa back from Fatima village where we stayed the night before guys went off to the jungle looked like she had landed here from New Zealand... from a maori tribe. Another girl on a boat looked like a Thai girl with huge almod eyes and fabulous smile. Guys... well, cant say the most attractive ones though, but the features went as well towards polonesian and asian side.

I spent the evenign in the La Nocturna cafe, having food, fresh juice and later beer with a canadian traveller, and the waitress Tanya, Lerslie Lucia and some kids were just making me laugh. A true relax after some strefull mosquito feeding days. One does not need much...

This made me think about the observations how people changed as we went south from Chachapoyas on the coast. Chacha was nice, calm, and seemed like people were less agressive towards tourists, then Chiclayo with the taxi driver trying to squeeze more money out of us, then Trujillo with guys trying to get us pay for all drinks (we suceeded to divide the bills), and Lima with another taxi driver trying to get us pay more than agreed price. Well, these are some unfortunate examples, but the atmosphere did change little as we headed south. Getting here was weird. Could not really figure out what to think... Guess like everywhere else, it would be the same good and bad people, but I was fortuante to sucessfully fend off some sellers of artesany, and have the fun company last night. This os after all a border city, it is isolated, and here you can get and see everything.