Day 1 - Iquitos Peru
Today we met up with our tour group. There are nine of us for this portion of the trip. Sandy’s best friend from college, Amy, is joining us, Janet and Pat from Houston, Alba and Greg from Simi Vally, CA, and Doug and Judith from Farmington Hills MI.. We are the youngest in our group.
The Odysseys guide met us in the lobby and walked us to the airport and helped us check all our luggage. We have limited weigh issues for this portion of the trip (33 lbs), so we had to leave some luggage behind. They will deliver the left luggage to our next hotel when we return from the Amazon.
We caught an early domestic flight from Lima to Iquitos. Iquitos is the largest city in the world you can only reach by air or water. There are no roads that lead here. 1 Million people do live here.
Airport in Iquitos
We have a new guide for our whole time in the Amazon. German (pronounced Herman) met us at the airport and got us going on this next part of our adventure.
Our guide, German.
We took a shuttle bus to the Odyssey office that was located The Amazon River. We checked our bags and got onto a boat that will take us to our hotel on the Amazon River.
Our transportation to the hotel.
The boat ride was 45 minutes (23 miles) and we arrived at the Ceiba Tops Lodge where we will be staying for the next three nights.
Ceiba Tops Lodge and Resort
The Lodge was nicely set up with a pool, large dining hall, and relaxing areas. We got villa number 205 that was located near the pool and the main meeting buildings.
Once we got settled, German took us on a hike on the hotel lodge grounds. It was a short 30 minutes hike to a large tree. This tree survived logging because a business man offered $60 to buy and save the tree. Eventually a deal was made to purchase all the land around it as well. The tree was amazing. It looked like the Tree of Life at Disney.
Our Group next to the tree.
Since the weather was good, German offered to take us out on a boat ride to watch the sun set. It was a fantastic sight to see. We also got to see a lot of the local activity on the river as well. There were large wooden boats that served as busses on the river. The river is the only source of transportation in the area.
Sunset on the Amazon River
The River bus.
Back at the Lodge, we headed to the bar for a few cocktails to unwind. We were still pretty sweaty from the hike, but a cold beer just seemed to hit the spot.
Dinner was served in the main hall. It was a buffet with fish, chicken, rice, noodles and many other interesting dishes that I could not identify.
German informers us of an itinerary change. We will need to meet at 6:00am at the dock for tomorrow’s adventure. Travel days can be exhausting, so we decided to call it an early night and go to bed by 9:00pm.
