snakelegs

…was four days ago.

I just spent more than two weeks on a research boat in the Peruvian Amazon, in Lago Preto, which is 5 days away on a boat from Iquitos.

Iquitos is a quirky city – smack dab in the Amazon rainforest. It’s the largest city that’s accessible only by boat or airplane but somehow is teeming with 500,000 inhabitants and a gazillion buzzing mototaxis that will ring your ears off at all hours of the day and night.

This was a rubber-boom town. IN the early 1900s, Europeans and South Americans came to seek (and find) fortune tapping the natural rubber trees in the forest and shipping balls of rubber off. Mansions, handmade ornate tiles and other architecture from the era survives, usually inhabited by the police or army at this point. Some ofthe old buildings are not well preserved, which is a shame for the future but makes them look great right now.

The promenade on the water is an amazing place. Every night, even weeknights, it seems everyone in the city came to socialize, watch performers, try their own hands at raising busking money and to people watch. Girls dancing with anacondas, fire dancers and a guy with fake breasts doing comedy were regulars during the days I was there.

There’s a neat sculpture that looks like a picture frame on the promenade and below it, a good artisan’s market without the street hassle and quality work. I picked up blow darts, a handmade necklace and mask.

Belen, sometimes called the Venice of Iquitos, is a slum, which is flooded in the rainy season. Some homes float year roudn, the others are raised on stilts. The water will recede in the summer and expose land. People are very poor here. It is in contrast to the city behind it, and the hectic, chaotic Belen market, where you can find anything from carved up caiman meat to guys hand rolling tobacco and whole dead pacas and traditional medicines.

Rent a dug-out canoe to paddle you around Belen for a half hour or so, definitely worth it. Sometimes its 2 soles (less than a dollar) or up to 10 ($3) depending on who you ask for the ride andif they are feeling like charging more or less, and if you accept.

Right outside Iquitos (a boat ride on a collective is about 2 soles, or a private charter is 10 soles or $3) Pulitapwasi (oh man I spelled that wrong) butterfly farm.

An Austrian woman and her Peruvian partner live here, 20 minutes up river. They run their own butterfly farm and also care for animals that have been abandoned or orphaned. They have a jaguar, tapir, anteater and several monkeys, including a cappuchin that was raised by street kids and who liked to ride on my head and eat a banana. He tried to get in my backpack and was a real highlight. They also have a red uakari monkey -rare.

Great ice cream place, labeled Helado, in the plaza, with varieties you’ll only get in the Amazon like aguaji, guanabana and more.

it’s great here and a good stepping point for the amazon.

I spent a month in Alaska backpacking and traveling around … backpacking in Denali, exploring outside Nome, visiting Inuit villages, Seward, the fjords, Fairbanks and Anchorage and more.

Alaska is one of the last wild places in America. It has remote and pristine wilderness that is at once spiritual and wild.

The vastness of the landscape just eats you up and reminds you how small we really are and how giant nature is.

In a melting pot where many states are mostly the same, Alaska truly has its own character.

amazing place.

…was in college, on an Amazon Studies program, based in Belem, Brazil.

Marajo is the largest freshwater island in the world, I believe.

We spent some days here, interviewing villagers and looking at island life.

We were studying ecology and culture.

I am a photographer and have some great memories of this place through my work.

One day, I did not bring my camera. I saw one of the most amazing things of my life this day. I will never forget.

We were driving in a van and out the window a man with water buffalo, one on each arm, was walking through a swampy field. The sun was sweltering, he was sweating and slow moving. A carpet of red flowers were at his feet. We slowed and I stared.

As I leaned in for a closer look at the flowers, they rose up into the air. They were really thousands of red birds, all lifting up and around the farmer.

One of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen, never remotely duplicated in any other remote place I’ve ever been.

I’d like to go back here.