Monday – Tuesday
I will be listing what we did over the next few days in no particular order.
We stayed in the Amazon for 2 nights and 3 days. Between all the travel time, we had less than 3 full days so we packed in whatever we could.
Sleep was minimal in the treehouse sans air conditioning and the HOT jungle weather. We utilized on the fact that we wouldn’t be getting much sleep and woke up really early to get everything we could in.
That being said, going to sleep in the outdoors with the (very loud!) sounds of the jungle surrounding us was an amazing experience.
We had a friendly visitor one night in our treehouse. After the initial sighting, utter panic ensued, as only a bug can induce, much to the amusement of some of us.
Turns out that he was actually toxic, so a little panic was warranted.

It’s interesting to note that they are currently in the dry season.
It was fascinating to see the water lines on the trees, which highlighted just how much the water had receded since dry season began, which was only about a month earlier.
We saw a difference even over the few days that we were there. The plank that we walked on by the entrance to the treehouse, on the first day, had a lot of water beneath it. By the time we were leaving, it was dry.
You can clearly see in the photo below, where the water was just a few weeks prior.

Monkey Island:
There is a small island not far from the lodge which is home to multiple species of monkeys such as Wooly Monkeys and Coatis. There were a ton of them frolicking in the trees and we loved sitting in the boat watching them.




Piranha Fishing:
We had a great time fishing for piranhas! We caught many, as well as other kinds of fish. We used sticks from a tree and meat - no modern-day fishing rods here!
Our guide stuck his hand in the water freely, attempting to attract the piranhas, which was slightly concerning to us, but he emerged unscathed.
They offer to prepare the fish with your dinner, but since piranhas are not kosher, we threw them back in.
We did catch some fish that were kosher. We brought them back with us, gutted them, and cooked them up. They were quite good!


The cooked piranhas:

Our catches-turned-dinner!

We walked on the canopies of the treehouses, which was a really interesting way to get to see the rainforest from 60 feet above. I have pity on those poor hotel employees that need to shlep all that luggage though.


Nighttime Jungle Walk:
We booted up and headed out on a night walk through the jungle. This was a buggy affair and some of us enjoyed a bit less than others

We were wearing headlamps or holding flashlights which attracted an unearthly number of bugs. An Israeli treehouse neighbor of ours, took to walking around with a mesh laundry bag on his head!
We saw lots of insects, frogs etc. Our guide stuck his hand into a termite mound, smushed up some termites in his hand, and proceeded to smear it all over himself. He claimed it acts as mosquito repellent.
The guide cleared a path with a machete as we walked and yelled out warnings not to touch certain trees for fear of fire ants and such.
Pictures are minimal since both hands were spent swatting away bugs at all times.


This sloth, Pablo, was adopted by a local family. He was super cute and cuddly.


The water lilies we saw were beautiful:




We visited a local village, which was a really interested peek into their life. They do not pay taxes, live on their own, and are almost entirely self-sufficient. We spoke to some of them and bought some trinkets that they were selling.







DSC01412 by
Flower R, on Flickr
This building acts as a sort of ‘jail’. They place drunk or disorderly people here, kind of in a time out.


We went out to spot and swim with some pink dolphins. We did see a few of them, which was amazing, but they were difficult to photograph.
Glimpses of the dolphins. Over here you can see the pink color:


Sunset on the Amazon was spectacular.





Incidentally, we woke up at 4:30 AM our last morning to view sunrise on the river as well, but alas, it was quite foggy, and we saw nothing.
Our would-be sunrise:

We had a really fun workshop in which we made blowguns and darts from scratch.


Scenes from the Amazon:





Water lettuce:

Amazon -> Natua -> Iquitos -> Lima -> NY
Tuesday afternoon we began the long journey home, beginning with the boat ride from The Treehouse to Natua town. At that point, we got into a van and began the drive to Iquitos.
Our guide had mentioned something about us needing to ‘make transfer’. We weren’t entirely sure what he was saying, so we sort of ignored him, but we were in a bit of rush, as we needed to catch our flight.
It was our group in the van, along with 2 Israeli couples that we had befriended at The Treehouse. We were having a grand time schmoozing, when suddenly, about half hour from Iquitos, we come to a halt.
In front of us, on the only road in the city, lay a giant crater with lots of men milling about. The meaning of ‘make transfer’ became clear to us, as there was no way to pass.
We got out of the car and the men begin gesturing to us to walk. We started dumbfounded. Where, pray tell, should we be walking? Why through the crater of course!
We began walking, in the mud, through the holes, through the leering crowds. It seemed as if the entire city had turned out for this entertaining affair, and people were selling food and trinkets on the side of the road.
A few local kids grabbed our luggage, two 50lbs suitcases each, and proceeded to pile them on their heads, and begin marching with us.
Slowly we made our way across where there was another van waiting for us. Eventually we got all loaded back up again and were on our way.
It was highly amusing (though slightly stressful due to our impending flight).



We made it to the airport with just enough time to spare and boarded our flight to Lima.
Originally, our flight to Lima was supposed to be a couple of hours later. Latam, being the lovely airlines that they are, had cancelled our flight several weeks prior. We rebooked on an earlier flight, but this left us with a couple of hours to kill in Lima.
Being that it was nighttime and there’s not much to do, we decided to go out to eat, even though it was a 40-minute drive from the airport.
We had eaten our last Pomegranate meals in Iquitos airport, but it hadn’t heated up very well and was not very good.
We went to Bobe’s Kitchen in Lima, which was an amazing experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone passing through. The décor is absolutely beautiful, and everything is sparkling clean.
The owner himself was there and took us on a tour of their many kitchens. They alternate meat and dairy nights, so they have separate kitchens, as well as a chocolate kitchen.
We were there on a dairy night and being that we had already eaten some of our fleishig Pomegranate meals, we got all parve meals. The food blew us away.
Everything we got was incredibly delicious, fresh, and appealing. (I am unsure if the dairy food is Cholov Yisroel or not).


After enjoying our meal, we made our way back to the airport, where we boarded our flight to NY.
We enjoyed every aspect of our trip, from the Sacred Valley to the Amazon, and would highly recommend Peru as a destination.
Let me know if you have any questions!