Amazonas I

Day 11

Porto Nariño

Early in the morning, we packed our things and were driven to the port. After a small breakfast, we embarked on the nearly 2-hour journey to Porto Nariño, a village of about 4000 inhabitants in the middle of the Amazon. The only way to get there is by boat. Everything was taken on the boat: passengers, crates, groceries, and even a cat in a crate. Stops were made at many small villages, like a hop-on-hop-off bus. The children were always very happy when one of their parents came back from what seemed to be a weekly shopping trip. The Amazon River is truly impressive. Impressively large, impressively diverse in species. Sometimes it feels like you are in the middle of a large lake or even at sea. There are floating things everywhere on the water, many plants and woods, and water as far as the eye can see. It also doesn't seem to end. When we arrived, we briefly checked into a really beautiful accommodation, the Wikungo Hostel. Immediately after, we crossed over to Peru with our guide Brainer and the other two tourists Peter from Austria and Sacar from London in his boat and took our first rainforest hike with rubber boots with a local. We saw numerous animals and plants as well as a native village, where the Chigüiro, this time as a pet, encountered us again. It's truly amazing how people live here and have adapted to the environment. The houses are on stilts due to the flooding in the rainy season, which we are currently experiencing, and there are many spiritual stories about places and plants.

We had lunch on-site, usually rice with beans, vegetables, plantains, and chicken or fish, and we could relax in hammocks. After that, we started the march back and arrived back at the home port of Port Nariño, where we made a brief stop before taking a boat tour through the Amazon. During the tour, we saw the pink river dolphins and monkeys and were on a lake within the Amazon, where many cranes inhabited the surroundings. One of the highlights was also fishing for (Cai-)Piranhas. 'You have to be faster than them' was Brainer's statement, and we were able to catch a few of the small fish. Then we could see a breathtaking sunset and swim in the Amazon, which according to our guide was safe. According to him, many things that were considered risky before were actually safe. Afterwards, we drove back in the dark and were able to spot some Caimans (Alligators) along the way. Our guide also had no hesitation in approaching them very closely.

As a nightcap, we had Chuchuhuasi in the evenings, a drink from one of the Amazon trees.