Sunday, May 20: Ceiba Tops to Lima

Our last day on the Amazon and a chance to see how people live these days along the Amazon.

This morning Cesar took us to the village of San Louis, about 10 minutes by boat from Ceiba Tops. On the way we stopped at the larger town of Indiana to buy candy for the children.

When we arrived we went first to the home of a family in the village. We enjoyed their hospitality and ate grapefruit [ sort of like a grapefruit, but harder ] with salt. They explained that their house and all others were built by communal effort, once the head person has agreed on a building spot. All land is owned by the government and only businesses pay taxes. 

The building material is slats of local wood on a raised floor. There are 2 rooms, one for sleeping and 1 for everything else. 9 people live there sleeping on sheets on the floor under mosquito nets.

Larry took several pictures of the kids and they loved seeing themselves on the camera screen. We will send prints to them via Cesar.

We saw 2 boats under constructions. One was going to be a river taxi and the other was a canoe.

 

 

As we walked up to the school, several kids came along. The kindergarten and elementary school ( 6 grades ) are breeze block buildings. Inside we sat on chairs at the front and all the kids crowded into the desks. We were entertained by them singing and a wonderful band of 3 boys aged 8, 10 and 13 playing flute, drum and maracas. They switched instruments once or twice. They each played all of them! We danced with the kids [ thank goodness we were competent as we learned their dance at the Yagua indian village ], then they asked us to sing. On the spur of the moment all we could come up with was a ragged rendition of Oh Canada. Annie sang beautifully in her dialect of French.

We asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up and they told us: nurses, doctors, teachers, lawyers, one secretary, one engineer, one wanted learn English and be a tour guide and one wanted to be a builder. We asked, " who, then, will catch the fish? They all said not them. Some of them paddle across the Amazon every day to come to school. All have been to Iquitos and some hope to travel to Lima someday. They asked us what we do for a living. I think only Annie's reply of "secretary" ( and maybe one understood Larry's answer engineer ) made sense to them. They were unsure of what a librarian is or a tax accountant.

Then, outside, we distributed candy to everyone. [ actually when it ended inside, all the kids ran out the door and I thought, home, but when we came out we found them all in 2 lines, boys and girls, ready to receive their candy ]. They tucked hibiscus blossoms behind our ears and came back to the dock to say Adios. It was a wonderful morning. Then back to the lodge to pack up and get ready for the return to Iquitos and Lima this afternoon.

The boat trip to Iquitos was on the much larger and much slower Amazon Queen. It was a great opportunity to see life along the river. 

In Iquitos we careened through busy streets crawling with chollo-taxis and motorbike. Since it was Sunday, everyone was out. Sometimes a motorbike would have a whole family - father driving, 3 year old in front, mother on back with baby in front of her.

We stopped for a last-chance souvenir market but we saw nothing we wanted.

At the airport we stood in line for about an hour before getting to the check-in desk, but since our plane was late, still sat in the departure area for a long time. The airport is very basic, and open to the air, so every plane fills the place with noise. Just before security, an Explorama agent, who, unbeknownst to us, had remained to see us through, bid us fairwell.

Happily Maritzia was waiting for us at Lima airport and returned us to our hotel with no fuss.

Photos 20 May